Wednesday, 4 September 2013

On this day...

Translation of a French article posted on September 4, 2013 on the website of the daily newspaper Libération:
Sectes: la condamnation de la scientologie examinée en cassation

 
Appeal of Scientology's conviction before the Court of Cassation

The supreme Court of Cassation is today reviewing the appeal filed by the Church of Scientology, whose the two main entities in France were convicted of organized fraud in 2012 by the Paris Court of Appeal.

On February 2, 2012, the Court of Appeal upheld fines of 400,000 euros for the Celebrity Centre and of 200,000 euros for SEL, the Scientology bookstore. The Court of Appeal also confirmed or increased the sentences given to five Scientologists in 2009 by the Paris Correctional Court.

Alain Rosenberg, the "de facto leader" of Scientology in Paris, and Sabine Jacquart, a former president of the Celebrity Centre, were handed a two-year suspended sentence and fined 30,000 euros for organized fraud.

The prosecution had accused the defendants of exploiting the vulnerability of former recruits to extract large sums of money from them.

The Celebrity Centre called the decision "totally biased and unfair," saying it was "the result of a kind of phantom trial with multiple irregularities and violations of the Scientologists' human rights."

In the statement he wrote before today's hearing, the prosecuting attorney argued for the dismissal of the appeal, except for a very small part of the procedure.

"Name me one church that does not ask its parishioners for money," said Louis Boré, the attorney representing Scientology before the Court of Cassation, responding to France Presse. The lawyer cited Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of religion.

As one of his colleagues had already stated, Louis Boré also said that, if the appeal is rejected, Scientology would take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

Scientology, which is classified as a cult in several French parliamentary reports, was founded in 1954 by American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and is considered a religion in the United States and in some European countries. It claims to have more than 10 million followers worldwide and 45,000 in France.
 


Scientology practitioner // Phoenix man jailed on medicine charge
Date: Sunday, 4 September 1955
Publisher: Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Author: Jack Karie
Main source: link (114 KiB)

A practitioner of the Church of Scientology was jailed here yesterday on a charge of practicing medicine without a license.

Edd Clark, 56, of 1811 N. First Ave., was named in a five-count complaint filed before Justice of the Peace Stanley Kimball.

Clark was released after making $1,000 bond.

County Attorney William P. Mahoney Jr. said Clark's arrest culminated a six-month investigation made by his office, city police, and sheriff's deputies.

Clark, who claims to be nearly blind, readily admitted having conference with a Phoenix police woman and with a secretary from the prosecutor's office, police said.

Mahoney said Clark told him that, "after helping" the two women, he accepted payments from them, but he asserted that the money represented contributions to the Church of Scientology.

DETECTIVE Romona Wacker and Eythel Deuel were the two women used in the investigation of Clark's activities.

Both women declared they told Clark they wanted him to help them clear up their headaches and other aches and pains (all non-existent ailments).

Miss Deuel said she asked Clark how much it would cost to clear up her headaches.

"He told me that the amount was entirely up to me to decide on," she said. "Later I gave him a check for $25."

MRS. WACKER said she paid Clark a total of $30.

The arrested man said he received a bachelor of science degree after studying five months at the Hubbard Association of Scientologists, International, at Puget Sound near Seattle, according to the police.

He said he came here to study at the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation which then had its national headquarters in Phoenix, police reported.

L. Ron Hubbard, foundation head, recently moved the headquarters to Washington, D. C., officers said Clark told them.

Clark said he changed his profession from a music teacher to minister because "I really believe in dianetics, which is merely a modern science of mental health," police quoted him.

CLARK officers said denied that he had offered to treat the women. But said he told them he would show them the way to help themselves.

"I used techniques of scientology in an attempt to help them," Clark told the police. "I used the theory of present time awareness on them—first making sure they realized where they were and why."


[Note: This is some of the worst journalism I've ever seen.]
Sunday Mirror (Sydney), Sun 04 Sep 1966, p4

Cult ban puts Bolte on death list

 

Twelve rag dolls found buried under a Melbourne house are thought to symbolise the death sentence against 12 people who helped outlaw the cult of scientology in Victoria.

 

High on the list of the 12 is the Premier of Victoria, Sir Henry Bolte.

The dolls were discovered in a box hidden under floorboards which had been ripped up and then nailed down again to make a tomb.

They were unearthed by workmen renovating the building, formerly the headquarters of scientology in Victoria.

Rites

A former scientologist, Mr. Phillip Wearne, says the significance of the "burial" was that 12 prominent Victorians (among them Sir Henry Bolte) had been sentenced to death.

Mr. Wearne, who became one of the leaders of the campaign to ban the cult, thinks he is on the death list.

He said this week a black magic rite or a parody of the Christian burial service probably preceded the burial.

The dolls are of the sort which can be bought for a dollar in any chain store.

They had not been mutilated or changed in any way, but Mr. Wearne is convinced they were the subject of voodoo rites which disciples of the cult often held in the building.

Throughout the inquiry which brought the banning of the cult, the team of investigators found several hints of a link with satanology.

The discovery of the dolls is the first real evidence to support the theory.

Weddings

Mr. Wearne said parodies of religious services held in the building - now occupied by a naval outfitter - closely paralleled black magic rituals.

"So-called weddings between male and female scientologists were imitations of the Christian wedding ceremony," he said.

After Sir Henry Bolte on the death list were the editor of Melbourne Truth newspaper which campaigned against the cult, Mr. John Galbally, leader of the Opposition in the Upper House, Mr. J. Walton, MLA, Mr. Dickie, Minister of Health, and Judge Just, who acted as counsel assisting the board of inquiry.


Scientology Curb Planned In S.A.

Scientology: really it's just like another nickel prospect

Mail // Scientology
Date: Monday, 4 September 1978
Publisher: People magazine
Main source: link (173 KiB)

As a former member of this specious cult myself, I can well appreciate the laughable attempts of Henning Heldt to affect the role of persecuted martyr as he posed wistfully in his clerical collar and ersatz crucifix. (It's not a symbol of Christianity, folks, but an eight-pointed cross that Scientologists use in hopes of appearing legitimate.)

Robert S. Napier
Bremerton, Wash.

I have been a Scientologist for five years now. I'm not a crook, I'm not crazy, and I'm not rich. What I am is much happier than I ever was before. Scientology got me off drugs that were killing me and gave me back a direction in life and a reach for the stars when I was lost in the gutters and mud of insanity. I want others —lots of others—to share what I now have. And the government wants to destroy my church. They're going to lose this one!

Name Withheld
Batavia, N.Y.

On August 15 members of the Church of Scientology—including its top U.S. official, Henning Heldt, and the wife of the founder, Mary Sue Hubbard (above, leaving U.S. District Court in Washington)—were indicted as part of an alleged conspiracy to burglarize and plant spies in government agencies, steal official documents and bug government meetings.—ED.

Scientology takes on IRS
Date: Wednesday, 4 September 1991
Publisher: Wall Street Journal
Main source: link (34 KiB)

The Church of Scientology, which is already bashing Time magazine in full-page salvos, has taken its long-running squabble with the Internal Revenue Service public, running full-page ads in USA Today to enlist anti-IRS allies.

An ad that ran yesterday shows a screaming young girl and carries the headline, "Don't you kill my Daddy!" Ad copy discusses a situation in which "a band of armed IRS agents" allegedly tried to choke an Idaho man, as well as other alleged IRS abuses.

Yesterday's ad also had a toll-free number and coupon for the National Coalition of IRS Whistleblowers, which claims to be an independent group but gets financial support from the Scientologists. The ad encourages readers to send for a booklet on "How to Protect Your Rights as a Tax-payer," published by the Church of Scientology. Similar ads are scheduled to run today and Friday, and others may run in the future.

The Scientologists reportedly have been the target of a massive IRS investigation for several years over the group's tax-exempt status. In 1989, the Supreme Court upheld an IRS decision that contributions to the 

Church of Scientology in exchange for so-called auditing and training services aren't tax deductible. An IRS spokeswoman didn't return several phone calls seeking comment on the agency's dispute with the group.
 Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, said the group currently has 80 lawsuits pending against the IRS. But he played down the Scientologists' own feud as a reason for the ads. "Their power has been unchecked for such a long time," he said. "It's an agency that really is out of control."




Scientologists trying to retain a sense of humor:

Study Tech corrupts the most basic principles of most educational systems, representing them in a different manner. This is an effective form of social control over the classroom. Disagreement with the material one is studying is evidence of a misunderstood word, which must be located and cleared before one can progress.

Study Tech includes a convenient blame mechanism. In Scientology, if a concept is not understood, it is always the fault of the student, never that of the teacher or source material.

Anonymous fights Scientology in schools
We don't need no...


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