Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review
Volume 4, Issue 28
10/10/99
by Rod Keller
rkeller@voicenet.com
copyright 1999

Contents

1. Battlefield Earth
2. Belgium
3. Catherine Bell
4. Clearwater
5. David Miscavige
6. Lawrence Wollersheim
7. France
8. Keith Henson
9. Protest Summary
10. Russia

Alt.religion.scientology Week in Review summarizes the most significant postings from the Usenet group Alt.religion.scientology for the preceding week for the benefit of those who can't follow the group as closely as they'd like. Out of thousands of postings, I attempt to include news of significant events, new affidavits, court rulings, new contributors, whatever. I hope you find it useful. Like many readers of a.r.s, I have a kill file. So please take into consideration that I may not have seen some of the most significant postings.

The articles in A.r.s Week in Review are brief summaries of articles posted to the newsgroup. They include message IDs for the original articles, and many have a URL to get more information. You may be able to find the original article, depending on how long your site stores articles in the newsgroup before expiring them.

Free A.r.s Week in Review subscriptions are available, just email me at

http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/ars-summary.html

http://www.xenu.net/archive/WIR/

http://www.religio.de/publik/arsfaq.html

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Battlefield Earth

"I had reservations about this movie, Battlefield Earth based on a book written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and of course with Travolta's involvement, one has to think Is this an attempt to mainstream Scientology beliefs into our movie theaters? But after reading the B.E. script (revised and revised, I might add!) and researching this L. Ron Hubbard person, I found that this movie is based on a great science-fiction story! L. Ron Hubbard it seems was a ordinary writer way back in 1930's, writing 1000's of stories for pulp magazines, mostly science fiction. The religion of Scientology didn't seem to get started until later in his life, and it seems just a way to make money! Scientology does have a website for this movie http://www.battlefieldearth.com. I rank this new B.E. movie somewhere between Planet of the Apes and Star Wars.

"At exactly 11:55am I notice people coming out of their office's and sure enough there he was! Shaking hands, hugging people, John Travolta, with short grayish hair and goatee had arrived! He seemed to be very friendly and accommodating to everyone. He actually looked down the hall at me and nodded. Travolta then disappeared into one of the many offices. The rest of the day went well, I grunted and yelled in my man-animal costume just liked the director wanted."

Message-ID: <7tepjl$6r2$1@nnrp1.deja.com>

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Belgium

"The police have confiscated thousands of files on members of the Scientology organization in Belgium. As related by a speaker from the state attorney's office in Brussels on Friday, Scientology bookkeeping documents had been also been secured on the day previous to the search and seizure. According to the statement, no charges were immediately placed. Several suspects were interrogated and later released. According to the Brussels state attorney's office, the confiscated documents contained confidential statements about members of the organization. At least five bank accounts had been opened in Luxembourg which had a connection to the Scientology organization. 90 million marks were said to have been deposited in one in 1993. This account had been divided into 15 sub-accounts, with names like 'Tor' for Toronto, 'Toky' for Tokyo, 'Los' for Los Angeles and 'Cura' for Curacao in the Dutch Antilles. This was said to be legal, however, it aroused the suspicion that Scientology had intended on concealing its worldwide financial structure, continued the newspaper. Belgium is 'obligated' to also look into the finances of the sect via Luxembourg."

Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.991004165334.118B-100000@darkstar.zippy>

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Catherine Bell

"I'm really passionate about Criminon. Have you heard of Narconon? Well, I'm really interested in the criminal justice system and criminal reform. I don't think we reform, or even to attempt to reform, criminals. We just make them worse. We take a criminal, whether he's a first-time offender or a hardened criminal or whatever and we throw him into a system where... the biggest reason why most criminals become criminals is a lack of self-respect. We take away their self-respect even more, we give them NO respect in return, and we throw them into a system where they're just hanging out with other criminals.

"Q: You've talked about being a Scientologist. How do you feel about the media having this love/hate relationship with Scientology and some of the other high-profile practitioners like Kirstie Alley, Tom Cruise and John Travolta?

"CB: I'm a little tired of it. It's, like, enough already! You know, it's a religion and we've been around for 50 years. You wouldn't say the things about Scientology (that are said) substituting the word 'Jewish' or 'Catholic.' You would never hear those things. It would be soooo un-PC! I had an acting teacher who was a Scientologist (Milton Katselas) and after about eight years, I kinda started looking around and thinking, 'OK, wait a minute... All the people that are in class who are Scientologists are really cool! They have great relationships and their careers are going really well, and they're doing well financially, and I started adding it all up and going, 'Hmmmmm, what is that?!' So I took a Scientology course called 'Personal Values and Integrity' and it really made me change some things in my life.

"I did some auditing (exercises) to handle some auditioning problems I was having three years ago or so, and I got to the bottom if exactly what the fear was that made me freak out on auditions. When I did, it went away completely. Two days later, I had my final call-back. I KNOW that if I hadn't figured that out and done that Scientology auditing, I would have gotten a little nervous and I just know I wouldn't have gotten it."

Message-ID: <37FDB65D.54123D2D@postoffice.pacbell.net>

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Clearwater

"Sep. 26. Church of Scientology Swing Fest '99, musical entertainment, Coachman Park, 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM, call Mahriah Pearse at 423-6112 for information.

"Dec. 19. 11th Annual Say No To Drugs Holiday Classic, 5K and 10K runs beginning at the Bayfront and ending on Clearwater Beach, Dianetics Running Team Event."

News from nearby Safety Harbor that the World Literacy Crusade is conducting a benefit auction.

"The World Literacy Crusade is having an auction of celebrity crap in downtown Safety Harbor, FL at the famous Safety Harbor Spa. The town is on the east side of Pinellas County, bordered by Oldsmar to the north, Tampa Bay to the east, and Clearwater to the south and west. The spa is built over a natural spring, and features all the usual upscale health and beauty services, along with a not-so-healthy dose of New-Age-y stuff like herbal wraps and reflexology. This Saturday from 7-9 pm, the WLC is auctioning off crap donated by such luminous celebrities as John Travolta and Tom Cruise. They've also got stuff from Tony Dungy, head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as well as a whole bunch of other dupes who probably just heard 'literacy!' and said 'why not?'."

Message-ID: <199910100124.DAA02673@mail.replay.com> http://clearwater-fl.com/calendar.html Message-ID: <199910061105.NAA30330@mail.replay.com>

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David Miscavige

"A great deal has been made of my role and authority in the Scientology religion because of my position as RTC's Chairman of the Board. Let me emphasize that I am not 'Chairman of Scientology.' It is RTC, as a whole, that is responsible for the orthodoxy of the Scientology faith. It then follows that as Chairman of RTC, its most senior executive, I am entrusted with the ecclesiastical position that has the highest scriptural authority within the religion. My authority derives exclusively from that position and extends no further than RTC's mission. In summary, my job is to ensure RTC carries out its function of assuring the orthodox and proper use of the Scientology religious 'technology.' My duties are completely unrelated to, and I do not participate in, the ecclesiastic governance of the many churches of Scientology around the world. That function is performed by Church of Scientology International.

"As Chairman of RTC, I am not the 'successor' to L. Ron Hubbard. Plaintiff attempts to mislead the Court regarding Mr. Hubbard's and my role in the religion. Mr. Hubbard was the Founder of the religion and the sole Source of its Scripture. In that capacity, he will never have a 'successor.' A primary and fundamental doctrine of our faith is that the teachings be kept pure and that the only source of those teachings is Mr. Hubbard. When plaintiff and his witnesses say I am 'just like L. Ron Hubbard,' that is the highest compliment one could receive in the Scientology religion, if their intention were to communicate that I am keeping the religion true to his teachings. Of course, their statements are accompanied by an inaccurate and negative description of Mr. Hubbard's character and role in the religion. But even if that were not the case, I would still reject their compliment as I simply am not and never will be what Mr. Hubbard was to the religion. By way of analogy, consider an apostate Roman Catholic claiming, in the context of litigation, that the Pope is 'just like Jesus Christ, and assumed his role after Christ's death.' Needless to say, this would be offensive to any Roman Catholic, as a matter of religious belief. The Pope may be the keeper of the Roman Catholic faith, but it would be heresy to say he was, in any manner, Christ himself.

"I do not disregard the corporate lines of authority, responsibility or control of any church of Scientology. Contrary to the allegations of Wollersheim's declarants, lines of corporate authority in RTC, and its relationship to other churches of Scientology, are firm and I see to it they remain that way. Because of these allegations, the IRS review of RTC and all other churches of Scientology, had as a primary focus of investigation the corporate and financial integrity of those churches. After the most exhaustive review of any non-profit organization in history, the IRS found such allegations to be without basis, not only with respect to Mr. Hubbard's relationship with the churches of Scientology when he was alive, but with respect to the relationship and integrity of all Scientology churches since that time.

"Most offensive to me are the allegations that I or any church has taken any steps to harass the plaintiff or his witnesses. It is I and others in the Scientology religion who have been, and currently are being harassed in the most despicable manner possible. I am aware that as a member of a new and minority religion, what I am experiencing is nothing new in history. Indeed, any prominent member of society is subject to attack and scrutiny. As such, I do not respond to every allegation or threat leveled at me. If I did, it is highly likely I would spend my entire life responding to charges such as those in this case.

"One of the most frequent and most inflammatory allegations civil litigants have made is to allege that 'Fair Game' is being practiced today on the basis of what the GO did in the 1970's, dredging up their illicit activities and falsely ascribing them to those responsible for the GO's eradication. Since 1981, 1 have heard allegations of 'Fair Game' at least a thousand times, but I had never heard the term in my life until I encountered it in civil litigation. To this day, I have never heard the term used inside the church. No real Scientologist would ever condone or even consider such conduct. Wollersheim, along with his declarants, has resorted to making such generalized 'Fair Game' allegations by falsely ascribing GO-like conduct to the people who are responsible for ridding Scientology of the GO. He has done so not for the purpose of substance, as there is none to such allegations, but rather for the purpose of stigmatizing my religion and me.

"As a final outrage, Wollersheim's attorneys - Charles O'Reilly and Leta Schlosser - allege that I threatened them in the courthouse elevator. The exact circumstances are these: While waiting by the elevator, I was standing with another Scientologist. Mr. O'Reilly and Ms. Schlosser were accompanied by a very large body guard. When the elevator doors opened, I stood waiting for Ms. Schlosser to enter first, out of common courtesy. O'Reilly's body guard said loudly, 'Let the midget go first,' in reference to my size (56"). 1 ignored his comment and rode down the elevator in silence. This incident was memorable to me given the circumstances of having just heard Mr. O'Reilly speak about my religion in the most offensive manner possible and about what a victim his client was due to church 'abuse' and having those claims followed almost at once by the astounding act of rudeness I have just described.

"This case is not merely about Larry Wollersheim attempting to collect a judgment he achieved against CSC. The instant action is brought as part of his anti-Scientology crusade. Wollersheim, acting through FACTNet Inc., his corporation which supports anti-Scientology litigants, has engaged in a pattern of virulent attacks directed at me by exploiting a hate-filled, anti-Scientology Internet news group. I give but just a small sampling of some of this harassment: The anti-Scientology Internet news group - 'Alt Religion Scientology' (ARS), was created with a posting to which my name was forged as the author. In 1993, I was accused, in a case in which I was not even a party, of having murdered my mother-in-law. The coroner established that the death was not a homicide. The personal impact of such an outrageous lie was immense for both my wife and me. In 1997, as part of his defense of the FACTNet litigation, Wollersheim accused me of having murdered Mr. Hubbard to obtain control of his Estate and the churches of Scientology. He attempted to contact Mr. Hubbard's family, telling them that they had been deceived by me into giving up their legacies since Mr. Hubbard donated his copyrights and wealth to the religion. This was not only harassment of me, but of Mr. Hubbard's widow and children who remain devout Scientologists. Yet Wollersheim, a well known Scientology hater purports to care about their husband and father's legacy.

"Wollersheim's financial backer, Robert Minton, has posted my face on the Internet for use as target practice, has threatened to burn me in effigy in front of church buildings, and, spurred on by Minton, other anti-Scientologists then spoke of 'forgetting the effigy and just doing it for real.' Prince has protested in front of our spiritual Mecca, threatening 'Tell David I'm coming with a dick so big I'm gonna knock his goddamn spine out.' Wollersheim has repeatedly threatened to have me sent to prison and his attorney announced the formation of a club to have church leaders 'buggered [sodomized] before breakfast' every day."

Message-ID: <9077N4yKo8hq7lUdvyURvu2Pcjjg@4ax.com>

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Lawrence Wollersheim

"I am continuing to manage Factnet as it continues to grow. Factnet just recently broke the 10,000,000 hit mark and has has once again focused on Scientology education. Factnet is currently getting as many as 25,000 unique visitors per month who are learning quite a lot more about why they do not want to give Scientology all their money to buy a mental therapy of covert hypnosis and trance induction conned off as pastoral counseling.

"I am forcing Scientology into a court decision in LA superior court where they will have CSI and RTC declared the legal alter-egos of the Church of Scientology of California and that the appearance of corporate integrity between these corporations is a sham. This undoes their past corporate reorganization and turns all their IRS tax exempt status applications claiming their related corporate entities are separate into a mush of fraud that will eventually undo their tax exemptions."

Message-ID: <7tbshe$1uvp@edrn.newsguy.com>

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France

"In the middle of the romantic waterway of the French capitol, the Saint Martin Canal in the east of Paris, a picturesque, lighted houseboat sways back and forth. The boat with the name of 'Margaux' is the temporary residence of special commissioners from the US-based Scientology organization. The American envoy has had the assignment of recruiting new members in the higher centers in France. Since then the French officials, and primarily Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou and Alain Vivien, the sect commissioner who reports to her, have again taken up arms, so far without success, against the organization which sees itself as a religious community under its founder, Ron Hubbard. Since the beginning of September, documents having to do with the Scientology trial at the Marseille State Court have been disappearing by the pound, two weeks before a trial of seven members of the organization, the political leadership is standing on its head and the media are officially flailing them.

"Guigou described as 'very serious' the scandal in Marseille in which an allegedly clueless court employee chased 3.5 tons of court documents into the file shredder, among them the Scientology documents, because she believed that the trial was already over. The presiding president of the French National Assembly, Raymond Forni, 'Not for one second' did he believe in an oversight, much rather the documents were to have been intentionally taken out of circulation in order to impede the proceedings against Scientologists who have been charged with fraud. In France, the organization controlled at least 100 businesses, including private schools. The number of members was said to be about 10,000.

"Sect specialist Vivien has described Scientology as 'extremely dangerous,' but he added that the influential group could not be generally banned due to the liberal French laws. On top of that, the Scientology association would have to be implicated in a serious crime first, according to a 1936 law."

Zenit News Agency reported on October 5th on French opposition to Scientology on the Internet.

"Some 100 French internet surfers have formed a forum of international discussion on the web from which they confront the supporters of the Church of Scientology and attempt 'to combat the sermons of the followers of the sect.' One of the most active members of this forum is Roger Gonnet, a former member of the Church of Scientology and author of the book 'The Secticide,' which distributes free, by electronic mail, secret documents of the sect. According to Gonnet, in order to prevent the dissemination of these documents, the scientologists have created more than 1,500 web sites created to confuse surfers who are trying to find the pages of the sect's detractors."

Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.991004165519.118C-100000@darkstar.zippy> Message-ID: <37fbfae5.1241336@news.primenet.com>

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Keith Henson

"Was the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals so violative of Petitioner's First Amendment right to freedom of speech that this Court should exercise its power of supervision to (a) review and correct the clearly erroneous fashion in which the statutory defense of fair use to copyright infringement was interpreted and applied and (b) vacate (or order vacated) on First Amendment grounds both the wrongful injunction against Petitioner and the punitive imposition on Petitioner of a large statutory damages award and a large legal fees award?

"In the alternative, if the Ninth Circuit correctly interpreted and applied existing precedents, does the First Amendment require that each of the four factors of the statutory fair use defense to copyright infringement instead be applied liberally in favor of an alleged infringer when the alleged infringer has engaged in political speech and social commentary with no effort at financial gain and when the alleged infringer can be threatened with a punitive award of statutory damages?

"Although Petitioner had repeatedly - in his open letter to the District Court, during the hearings on the TRO and preliminary injunctions sought by RTC and in his pro per papers opposing RTC's motion for summary judgment - stated that he believed that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protected his right to criticize the TRO issued in the Ward action and criticize Scientology, the District Court's summary judgment decision appeared to ignore Petitioner's First Amendment arguments. The First Amendment went unmentioned in the court's lengthy Memorandum order granting summary judgment to RTC.

"The jury found that Petitioner had willfully committed copyright infringement, and awarded RTC $75,000 in so-called 'statutory damages' under the Copyright Act. None of these damages is compensatory. All are, in effect, punishment. Scientology has reportedly touted this $75,000 award as the largest statutory damages award ever recorded for a single copyright infringement. As a result of his inability to pay these judgments against him, Petitioner has filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 13 of the federal bankruptcy laws.

"This case will have a severe chilling effect on both political speech directed at the government and critical speech directed at institutions. The chilling effect will not come from the formal opinions of the courts below, which will continue to be hidden beneath the blanket of non-publication. The chill will emanate instead from the tremendous publicity that the case has received and will receive, both in the traditional press and on the Internet, where the case was born.

"The message that has been communicated to the public by press and Internet coverage of Petitioner's case is this: The Copyright Act is the Arctic wind of First Amendment Rights. In the face of that wind, it does not matter that an individual who reproduces an institution's 'secret' and 'unpublished' documents in order to make a political point has published only a small fraction of an entire work. It does not matter that the individual will not benefit financially from the publication. It does not matter that the institution holding the copyright will not be commercially harmed. It does not matter that copying a small fraction of the work verbatim, rather than paraphrasing it, serves to give the accompanying political comment weight and saves it from being sloughed off as exaggeration or inaccurate paraphrase. Nothing matters except the property rights of copyright owners."

Message-ID: <7t8eb6$7ad@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>

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Protest Summary

"Today, (Oct 7), Goombaj, Xemuson, Fier, Fier's Mother, (The sister of Fier took Photo's and the brother of Fier hung around for moral support), picketed The Org in Canberra, Australia, from 11:50am-2pm. About 230 flyers, (Space alien scam, insane cult, Xemu, and one of Xemuson's creation) were handed out. Poor old Jamie joined us with an inferior sign, covered in gibberish. One side said something about an 'axalotl', and I cannot recall what the other side said. About the place were 'Kiddie Clams', who spent most of the time hiving out balloons. I'd guess there was a dozen or so about the place. The The reception of the public was extremely good, with most either taking flyers, or congratulating us."

"AndroidCat" and "Wulfen" protested in Toronto this week.

"After a busy morning, I met Wulfen at 12:47 in front of the usual coffee place, and we set off for a Short Sharp Picket. I had my 'shrank the Lisa/Xemu' flyer, Wulfen had his and this time we had enough! The picket sign was '$cientology wants your money *and* your life', but I couldn't find the stapler, so it was just a hand-held single panel. Not a whole lot of flyers, not a huge amount of traffic."

"The only person in the org building (that we could see) was the receptionist, who did the usual frantic phone-calling. That, and a kid who wandered past into the org carrying what I think was an OEC volume, who gave me the usual thetan-evil eye. After ten minutes, two bike-mounted police officers showed up. Turned out they were coming to check up on us or some such thing, because of the call AndroidCat gave. The officers gave us the usual spiel then ascertained that we were the usual crowd, went to the doughnut shop opposite the org and ignored us.

"Then we saw it! The green minivan! With licence plates saying 'THETAN'. Toronto not only has a Dianetics Car, it has a Thetan Minivan."

Message-ID: <Goombaj-0710991505270001@fennermac3.anu.edu.au> Message-ID: <37fcf54b.0@news2.lightlink.com> Message-ID: <37fe83ec.22840364@news2.lightlink.com>

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Russia

"A Russian branch of the U.S.-based Church of Scientology is threatened with closure after a court found it guilty of teaching without a licence, a judge said on Thursday. The Hubbard Humanitarian Association branch of the international group fell foul of complex laws requiring all organisations conducting teaching courses to obtain a permit. 'The court has declared the registration illegal and ordered the founders to liquidate their organisation,' Judge Oleg Denisevich of Ostankinsky District Court told Reuters. Alexei Danchenkov at the Hubbard Humanitarian Centre admitted the group had made some minor errors when applying for a permit in 1993, but said these had been corrected in 1997. The doors to Moscow's Hubbard Humanitarian Association do not risk being shut until after the group has had a chance to appeal to a higher court in the next few weeks."

>From The Associated Press on October 8th:

"In the latest move against a foreign religious group, a court today revoked the license of the Moscow center of the Church of Scientology because of problems with its registration papers. Prosecutors said they began investigating the Humanitarian Hubbard Center after receiving dozens of complaints from parents about attempts to influence their children. The license was revoked because names that appeared on the registration documents were found to have no connection to the center, officials said."

>From The Moscow Times on October 8th:

"The Moscow center of the Church of Scientology, a controversial international organization, has lost its license after a city district court ruled that the group's registration documents were not in order. The Humanitarian Hubbard Center, which has been operating in Moscow for six years, said Wednesday's ruling was politically motivated and part of a Russian Orthodox Church effort to limit the influence of other faiths. Prosecutors say they first began looking into the center's activities about two years ago after receiving dozens of complaints from parents about the Scientologists' methods of teaching their children. Earlier this year, the city prosecutor's office and the tax police raided the center's office in northeast Moscow, confiscating boxes of paperwork. 'We examined their documentation and found they had broken the law when registering,' Yevgeny Manerkin of the prosecutor's office said Thursday.

"In the registration documents submitted to the Justice Ministry, three of the 10 people listed as founders of the center were found to have no connection to it at all, Manerkin said."

Message-ID: <37fcd31b.0@news2.lightlink.com> Message-ID: <7tku3o$kcj$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Message-ID: <7tl1i6$n8q$1@nnrp1.deja.com>