Church launches Europe-wide Human Rights Campaign

[Frodo_Baggins]

Church launches Europe-wide human rights program

The Church of Scientology International has opened a European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights in Brussels, Belgium. The aim of the new office is to help Europeans attain the rights and freedoms expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

http://www.humanrightsandtolerance.org/csbrussels.html

[MrBenchley]

1. The Church of Scientology?

Nuff said.

[DavidMS]

2. I don't trust anything the Co$ does

http://www.xenu.net/

I can't see how permiting the Co$ to continue stealing from people is at all liberal.

[Frodo_Baggins]

3. What's your problem with THEM?

What happened, Bench, you knew a CoS member once who looked at * and did not spit?

[MrBenchley]

4. You mean you think I am the only one

who thinks there's anything wrong with scientology? That's so pweshus, frodo.

[Frodo_Baggins]

5. "The amount of people who think something is right

doesn't make it right" - my paraphrase of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon

[MrBenchley]

6. And scientology is horseshit from L. Ron Hubbard

who spent his last years ducking fraud charges.

[Frodo_Baggins]

7. And your point is?

So the guy was charged (not convicted) with fraud? So?

[iverglas]

8. good question

I've been wondering what the point of the proliferation of scientology threads was myself.

How scientologists use the courts to their own ends, and speak with forked tongue on matters of law and justice:
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/pub/1995/vol2/html/1995scr2_1130.html

(Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada dismissing scientology appeal of judgment awarding damages for defamation ... there being just no limits to the "freedom" of speech claimed by L.Ron's followers ... and the malice with which they pursue anyone who crosses them)

For the whole bizarre tale of scientology in Toronto and elsewhere, try here:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/scientology.html

From the last page of the Toronto story:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/canada/canada9.html

Bryan Levman testified for five days. After his promotion to the position of Deputy Guardian Canada by Mary Sue Hubbard, Levman travelled to England in 1973 for a briefing from Jane Kember, head of the Guardian Office Worldwide. He testified that he was shown a secret policy directive from L. Ron Hubbard outlining how members of the Guardian's Office Worldwide should "deal with Scientology's enemies". These techniques included "ripoffs", described as a "break and enter", and the use of "agents"-having Scientologists get a job within a targeted organization. According to the policy, information was to be used to get enemies of Scientology removed from their jobs. He was told to get the information "any way you can". <7> "Jane Kember ... knew the attorney general, the OPP and Metro Police were investigating us and she wanted the files-that was my mandate, to get those files." <8> He said he was given a list of 12 agencies that he was expected to infiltrate. <9> As the operation proceeded, the target list grew to "probably a few dozen" agencies and individuals, he said. <10> Levman testified that after every successful operation, the Guardian's Office in England would be informed by telex through an elaborate code system. Levman said no money was ever taken in the "ripoffs", only photocopies.

Former Scientologist intelligence bureau chief Dianne Fairfield told the court that she had recruited three people-"two plants and one agent" -- to work in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police headquarters and Revenue Canada taxation offices. The agent developed a cover, befriending people in certain agencies and groups. The plants tried to get secretarial or janitorial jobs in target organizations. <11>

Marion Envoy, formerly Canada's top official with Scientology, said Hubbard believed there was a world-wide conspiracy against his church run by a band of former Nazis who had overtaken Interpol-the European-based International police organization. She said that Hubbard ordered a world-wide spy operation, code-named "Snow White". Envoy said that as part of her spy training she was put in a closet with a set of lock picks and told to unlock the door. Defense council Ruby showed Envoy a document he suggested was the basis for the Snow White program and pointed out it specified using only legal means. She said it appeared to be a version of the program intended for the legal department.

Former Scientology agent Kathy Smith testified about safe houses referred to as "the garden", where secret information was amassed and filed. She said she wrote a letter to Hubbard outlining all the illegal activity she was involved in and received a note of congratulations back, signed Ron. <9>

A number of witnesses testified about being planted in police offices and stealing or memorizing information from confidential files. Many of the witnesses said they had been on Hubbard's yacht, or in his place in England or Florida during their years with the church.

The defence called Jane Kember as a witness. Mrs. Kember, then 55, said that as Scientology's "Guardian", she authorized break-ins and "plants" in governments and police forces "despite" orders from L. Ron Hubbard to avoid illegal means of gathering information. She said the Guardian's Office had no direct links with the Church of Scientology. She told the jury her actions led to her spending two years in a U.S. federal prison.

And about those rights thingies ...

http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/history/history12.html
(sorry, it was published in the New York Post, so it it's suspect, I'm sure someone will tell me)

Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley, Kirstie Alley, Juliette Lewis and other Scientologists may have signed away many of the rights that most Americans take for granted.

As they move up into the higher levels of the Church of Scientology, members sign documents giving up their right to psychiatric care and to see their families.

... One is a release form a Scientologist seeking advanced training must sign "forever up right to sue the church and its staff for any injury or damage suffered in any way connected with Scientology."

Rick Ross, a well-known cult watcher, writes on his Web site, rickross.com: "It seems that Scientologist superstars may be signing away rights most citizens within free countries take for granted."

... The same agreement prohibits "any psychiatrist, medical person, designated member of the state or family member" from placing the Scientologist into a hospital or facility for psychiatric treatment.

Instead, the Scientologists are subjected to the "Introspection Rundown," an "intensive, rigorous Religious Service that includes being isolated from all sources of potential spiritual upset, including but not limited to family members, friends or others."

The subject is supervised by "church members 24 hours a day at the direction of Case Supervisor determine the time period will remain isolated."

The "church" is under scrutiny for this practice and is being sued by the family of Lisa McPherson, who died in 1995 in Clearwater, Fla., allegedly after being held for 17 days as she underwent an "Introspection Rundown."

McPherson's body was dehydrated and covered in insect bites, according to her family, which has a wrongful death suit against the Church of Scientology.

Who needs to be alive, when she's got freedom of religion??

.

[Fescue4u]

17. Hell has Frozen over!!

Bench. I think I found some common ground with you. I agree 100%

[iverglas]

9. more on those rights thingies

I'll leave it to someone else to find primary sources to confirm or deny this secondary one.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/Scien45.html

The general approach of the government, reiterated two weeks ago by Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, is to view Scientology as a business, thus subject to government regulation. "This is our task as the government in Germany," says Rühle. "Not to go after them with a hammer, but to protect any citizens being victimized by Scientology."

Scientologists invoke Article Four of the German constitution, the "Meinungsfreiheit" article -- roughly equivalent to the U.S. First Amendment protecting free speech. But Germany's Article One, the right of the individual to human dignity, carries greater weight, says Rühle. When this right is violated, the government is not only justified but obliged to step in and act.

Other Germans, such as Schleswig-Holstein's sect-watchdog, Hans-Peter Bartels, advocate treating Scientology as a new form of political extremism. Germany has a whole set of laws keeping neo-Nazis and left-wing anarchists in line, and as Bartels has written in Die Zeit, these ought to be applied to Scientology because of the straightforward political goal the organization has explicitly outlined in its "Clear Germany" plan. Were that goal to be attained, 80 percent of the German population would be "clear," that is, fairly far along in their development as Scientologists. The remaining 20 percent would be denied all their rights as citizens. In other words, Scientologists have taken direct aim at the German constitution, according to Bartels, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Do I hear an echo? Me me me ... . My "rights". Yours be damned.

.

[MrBenchley]

10. Hubbard's book, Dianetics, is a wonderful bit of rubbish...

Editions published up to the mid-1960s used to claim that people who got "clear" would be able to levitate, see through walls, gain powerful telepathic powers....now there's nothing but some namby-pamby self-help and the promise of a job in middle management.
Hubbard's scam before scientology was "Shaverism"--the theory that tiny people who live inside the earth influence human behavior. His partner in that went on to publish "Fate" magazine for credulous simpletons.

http://www.softcom.net/users/vtown/manwho.html

[Frodo_Baggins]

12. Link doesn't open

Did you actually read any of those old editions, Benchley?

[MrBenchley]

13. Link opens for those of us on earth, frodo....

"A "clear", one who had successfully rid himself of aberrations, would possess, according to Hubbard, radically increased intelligence, powers of telepathy, the ability to move outside his body, the ability to control such somatic processes as growing new teeth, and a photographic memory. "

http://www.skepticfiles.org/skeptic/scient4d.htm

[Frodo_Baggins]

21. This one does.

Thank you.

[Frodo_Baggins]

11. First off...

...anybody got a link to the original "clear Germany" plan?


Second, who is this Bartols?

Third, even Neo-Nazis have rights IMHO.

[MrBenchley]

14. "even Neo-Nazis have rights"

Yeah, but we don't have to hear their idiot propaganda on a board for liberals and progressives...

[iverglas]

15. like I wuz saying

"I'll leave it to someone else to find primary sources to confirm or deny this secondary one."

I'm pretty busy this week. I know enough about scientology and scientologists to find the secondary source credible prima facie, but I'm not suggesting that anyone else take my or its word for it.

Maybe someone could ask L.Ron ...

.

[iverglas]

16. who is this BartEls?

Well, it said in that article. "Other Germans, such as Schleswig-Holstein's sect-watchdog, Hans-Peter Bartels, advocate treating Scientology as a new form of political extremism."

I assumed Schleswig-Holstein to be a political subdivision of Germany. Yes indeed:
http://www.landjugend.de/schleswig-holstein/english/map.htm

A quick google provided some more. Surprise -- Bartels is a politician on the LEFT!

Now, most of the 1600+ references that google found were in German, unsurprisingly. He is, after all, a German politician.

http://www.hans-peter-bartels.de/
http://www.hans-peter-bartels.de/politik/index.html

Ah, here's his c.v.: http://www.hans-peter-bartels.de/person/

He's an MdB, Mitglied des Bundestages, Member of the Bundestag -- a member of the German parliament, since 1998; he sits on the committee on the family, seniors, women and youth. And a member of the SPD since 1979, with membership and activities in various international solidarity and labour organizations. (My German is a little rusty.)

The SPD -- the Social Democratic Party. The governing party. Here's some recent news:
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1432_A_1148638_1_A,00.html

Not necessarily my idea of the left just now, but (a) they're not Republicans, and (b) I suspect that Bartels is on the lefty end of it.

Yuppers (I'm just randomly picking news sources) -- from last month:
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/dl/Qgermany-politics.RWnR_DST.html

In a sign of deep unhappiness over the social and economic reforms, six of <Schröder's> Social Democrats voted Friday against a key healthcare reform despite the chancellor warning that dissent would endanger his centre-left coalition.

Over the weekend, left-wing SPD delegates urged the party to slow the pace of reforms, saying they were hurting too many people.

Monday, an SPD member of parliament, Hans-Peter Bartels, urged Schroeder to stand down as party leader, although not as chancellor.

(Schröder has since done that.)

and, from last October: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1085012003

GERHARD Schröder, the German chancellor, is facing a rebellion from the left of his party that seriously threatens the future of his government.

A handful of radical Social Democrat Party members could scuttle the key welfare and economic reforms upon which Mr Schröder has staked his political future and cause the ruling coalition to disintegrate.

A crisis meeting was held in Berlin on Monday, at which the chancellor accused the left-wingers of blackmail and being agents of "the conservative opposition".

At least one of them - Hans-Peter Bartels, an SPD MP from Kiel - has publicly demanded Mr Schröder’s resignation, as speculation grows of a collapse that will pave the way for a grand coalition government between his party and the conservatives, with the latter holding the real power in Germany.

Bartels sounds kinda like my kind of guy (although perhaps a tad young ...).


You betcha neo-Nazis have rights. All those fundamental rights thingies that they want to take away from everybody else, they do have.

And they indeed have just as much right to exploit and abuse people as anyone else has. Funny how not a lot of other people seem to want to do that, and actually think that there might not be a right to do it.

And funny how ... sigh, once again ... we have a right-wing source advocating on behalf of the exploiters and abusers, and a left-wing source advocating on behalf of their victims. As Dubya on a really good day might say, is there just nothing neo under the sun?

.

[Frodo_Baggins]

18. Not enough

That doesn't mean he's credible. Not all left-wingers are credible.

And as per the original source: exaclty why are you calling it a "right wing source?"

[iverglas]

19. who said it was?

I didn't say he was "credible".

You asked who he was.

I told you.


Do you actually know anything about scientology?

Here are some quick links: http://www.factnet.org/ScientologyInternationalNews19521999.html?FACTNet

For instance:

Feb 21, 1997
Defending the Faith : Scientology apparently sent
out armies of its followers to buy the group's books at
major chains such as B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks.
Gary Hamel, a former Dalton's manager, stated that
some books arrived in his store with the chain's price
stickers already on them, suggesting that copies of
the book were being recycled to improve sales
figures.... L. Ron Hubbard's wife and ten other
Scientologists were found guilty of infiltrating,
burglarizing and wiretapping more than 100
private and government agencies in an attempt to
block investigations of Scientology ... Scientology's
tactic of infiltrating organizations that they see as
enemies eventually spread to Canada. In 1992, the
Church was fined $250,000 for spying on police and
the government during the 70s. The Toronto branch
of the church was found guilty of two counts of
breach of trust for operating a spy ring that
infiltrated the Ontario attorney-general's ministry, the
Ontario Provincial Police and the R.C.M.P .... the
church has a new unit whose mandate is to bring
"hostile philosophies or societies into a state of
complete compliance with the goals of
Scientology."

.

[iverglas]

20. why "a right-wing source"? (edited)

Gosh, what a newbie.

It seems that you need to read this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=43174

(I'm not entirely persuaded that Lew Rockwell is the son of Norman Rockwell, former leader of the US Nazi Party, but that's neither here nor there for our purposes.)


edit: heh heh. That's George Rockwell, not Norman Rockwell. ;)

edit again: okay ... can someone tell me why I'm talking about Lew Rockwell? My sleep- and dietcoke-deprived brain told me that it was relevant, but now I forget why.

The http://www.humanrightsandtolerance.org/ isn't doing anything for me.

.