Harold Wilson's Government got it right.

Heartened to see this article in the Daily Mail and posted by Sponge on OCMB:
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=36794

Interesting to note the then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins thought there was sufficient need to host a summit on how best to rid Britain of Scientology.

The Church of Scientology was considered such a threat to the UK that in 1975 the Government put its members under secret surveillance, according to newly released files.
Previously classified documents reveal that Ministers wanted to undermine and discredit the group because it was said to be ‘mafia-like’ and its activities ‘harmful and evil’.
They believed senior Scientologists were inflicting ‘barbaric’ punishments on followers and drove them away from their families.
The papers show the Government held clandestine meetings to discuss how to reduce the activities of Scientologists in the UK, which included moves to tax the church’s income and turn down visa applications from foreign members.
Today, the Church of Scientology attracts a celebrity following, particularly among Hollywood’s elite. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and John Travolta are among its supporters.
However, it has been claimed it is a cult that defrauds its followers by charging them exorbitant fees.
The documents, contained in secret files on Scientology and placed in the National Archives, reveal that in July 1975, the then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins hosted a summit on how best to rid Britain of the group.

Ministers of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government agreed to begin undermining the group, and a 1976 document entitled Action To Curb Scientologists reads: ‘Police forces should build up as detailed a composite picture as possible of the organisation’s activities.’

Founding father: L Ron Hubbard, creator of the Church of Scientology

Scientology, founded by American sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, was the subject of much scepticism at the time. A 1968 exclusion order, based on the idea that followers of the so-called religion were ‘socially harmful’, banned foreign members from entering the UK.
In 1975, internal correspondence from the Home Office said: ‘The Church of Scientology does not merely persuade people to part with their money. It is a harmful movement with an evil reputation.’
It classified the group as ‘an organization designed to make money, and perhaps also to gain power’ which targeted ‘the anxious, the lonely, the inadequate, the credulous and deluded’.
The papers added: ‘It is obtaining large sums of money for its courses on the strength of wild claims that they will cure all sorts of physical and mental ills.’
Further Government material said to be based on Scientology documents claimed there was evidence of abuse.
It says: ‘Members have been imprisoned for 48 hours in a hatch which was too small to allow them to lie down or stand up and a water hose was frequently turned on them.
'Others have been ordered to work for 48 hours in the bowels of a ship in darkness, chipping away rust with a 15-minute break every six hours.’

One police report sent to Scottish Office Ministers noted: ‘The organization is mafia-like in its hold on adherents and rarely, if ever, does one relinquish voluntarily his membership.’

 Evil reputation indeed.

Since publishing the article the Daily Mail received the following from the "Church" of Scientology.

Your article last Sunday revealed the extraordinary secret campaign waged by the British Government in the 1970s against the Church of Scientology. Those newly released files also reveal how officials, at the same time, were forced to admit there was not a shred of evidence of any wrong-doing by the Church. None other than the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wrote in a memo that the immigration ban on Church members should be stopped without such evidence. This ban was lifted by the Government in 1980.

Spokesman Graeme Wilson said the archive papers were a ‘snapshot’ of ‘government harassment’, adding: ‘The Government of the United Kingdom owes the Church of Scientology an apology for this atrocious treatment.’

I beg to differ Graeme, it is the Scientology organization that needs to publicly and individually apologize for all the harm, anguish and terror tactics inflicted upon it's members, ex members and children whom have been consistently called liars for reporting facts about the behavior of a mafia like mob that pretends to be a law abiding, upstanding Church.

You can see Spokesperson Graeme Wilson here lurking in the Tottenham Court Dianetics  Center doorway in this Anonymous Protest video at 3.41 and again at 5.40.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li_rIfMguyg&feature=fvsr 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23381539-how-the-church-of-scientology-found-its-way-into-british-politics.do

Here's Graeme Wilson talking again when Tony and Sue were trying to get their daughter out of Scientology. I'm happy to say as far as I know they have now.Sadly as far as Scientology is concerned this now makes them SPs (Suppressive Persons). In my book it makes them Special People.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5notyQCs6l8

More from Graeme:

http://www.xenu-directory.net/mirrors/www.whyaretheydead.net/childabuse/british_cases.html

The move is part of a world-wide expansion strategy by the American organisation, which was founded by L Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, in 1952. According to Graeme Wilson, Scientology’s head of communications, its aim is to establish “large new centres in major cities around the world, and Manchester is one of the priority cities for having such a centre”.

Quote taken from this article in the Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2753515.ece

Scientology has already won a series of tax victories. In 2000 it persuaded HM Revenue & Customs that it should be exempt from Vat on received payments because its services were nonprofitable and educational. A tribunal awarded the Scientologists £8m in overpaid Vat.
Scientology’s expansion in Britain has been accompanied by increased lobbying of politicians, police officers and businesses. Earlier this year, City of London police ordered records to be compiled of hospitality to officers, after an initial review found some had accepted tickets to a charity dinner hosted by the Hollywood actor Tom Cruise, a Scientologist, and to the London premiere of Cruise’s film, Mission: Impossible III.
Chief Superintendent Kevin Hurley further embarrassed the force by describing Scientology as a “force for good” at the launch of its London centre. Its followers believe the radioactive souls of aliens, or thetans, have attached themselves to humans and are at the root of our problems. Celebrity adherents include Cruise and John Travolta.
The organisation denies that it is a cult and claims its subsidiary groups have done successful work with schools and in prisons to combat drug abuse and crime.

The Bridge to Freedom......getting out of Scientology.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/684/the-bridge-to-freedom

They didn't come to find out why Scientology has achieved unprecedented expansion since being launched 50 years ago, despite extremely well organised disinformation campaigns instigated by heavyweight vested interests and almost unprecedented in their bald-faced hypocrisy. They mention "celebrity endorsement" and admit they are amongst those who are ignorant of Scientology, but do nothing to find out what it actually is, or why so many celebrities do become Scientologists. Or why there are now over 4,000 Scientology churches and groups around the world, in 154 countries, and over 70 million of Mr Hubbard's books on the humanities sold. A keynote in Mr Hubbard's philosophy is that nothing in Scientology and Dianetics is true unless it is true for you. What attracts millions to his work is not that it sounds plausible, but that it works. It gets results.

 No doubt the sneaky bullying tactics of Scientology has worked now for 50 years and it's about time it stopped.