1403260 OSAEU 4 CO OSA EU Dear Sir, This is the report you had asked for which was to provide an overview of the external scene, ongoing threats, existing prediction and points of interest. I have written this in a way in which I hope to have covered everything that is of interest and use to you. Should there be any points that you now feel you need more information on, then please let me know, and I expand upon those points.
Let's take as an entry point the statistic of Major Threats. This does not have in it any legal threats whatsoever. All current penalty points come from unhandled Unprofitable Images. This is one of the most sour spots with those media which ran entheta when then being contacted to get a correction published, refusing to do so. At best, they have been willing to accept the DA materials and later on publishing theta, disrelated to the original entheta.
At the same time, however the amount of theta media being created by far outweighs any entheta media coming up.
Recently, there was a bit of a wave of entheta in relation to Germany. This is in the main in two areas: St. Petersburg and Ekaterienburg where the entheta got picked up from the German radio station "Deutsche Welle". In relation to St. Petersburg, we learned that a rep from the city Mayor's press office had been together with some journalists to Hamnburg. St. Petersburg is twin city with Hamburg so this relationship itself is nothing surprising. When they were in Hamburg however, Scientology came up or was brought up, and they were reportedly taken to Caberta where they were given a full entheta briefing. Upon their return to St. Petersburg, these journalists published two entheta articles. The rep from the Mayor's office was seen several times by the DSA St. Petersburg and gradually handled. In the last meeting, this rep stated that there won't be any more entheta media in St. Petersburg. Prior to this last meeting, we had the information that another two entheta articles would come out. They did not. Perhaps the meetings with this rep brought about the killing of these other two entheta articles. This rep also agreed to come and visit the Dianetics center in St. Petersburg in person and see for himself what is being done there. He was reportedly not 1.1 and in good comm with the DSA St. Pete.
The other source of entheta has been and is Dvorkin. While last year he was the originator or author of several entheta articles, this seems to have ceased but his material is what is being used.
We have learned that he has both Atack entheta books (Endless freedom trap and Piece of Blue sky) and per the last information, he wants to or has already combined them into one book. He is aware of the legal action which had been taken in the U.K. against one of the two books, but argues that that legal action was only on one paragraph in the book, i.e. the book is not forbidden in the U.K. - only one paragraph in it. Presumably, he will thus just leave out that paragraph in question from any Russian version. The action to get this published is reportedly being financed by the Orthodox Church. About 2-3 months ago, one of the Russian Parents Committee's published a booklet which is a straight translation from an American booklet having been published in the U.S. by C.A.N. The Russian version of this booklet lists various Russian groups which are anti-religious. This was the first open documented connection between Russian ARM and C.A.N. and was immediately utilized by getting an article written and published which positioned Dvorkin with the criminal activities of C.A.N. and pointed out that Dvorkin appears to be the one trying to make a path for these criminal activities to take place in Russia. Once that article was published, we copied and distributed it widely. We then learned that another article had been published already earlier by the Independent Psychiatric Association of the Russian Federation. This is a two page article which positions Dvorkin as an inquisitor. That article does not make any reference to us. It too was copied and widely distributed.
The next action currently in progress is the production of a documentary on the hatred and criminal actions being carried out by deprogammers with Dvorkin being the central figure for such activities in Russia. A half a day meeting took place with a TV reporter from a weekly news show on national TV channel One during which this reporter was taken through the C.A.N./anti deprogramming materials which we have. He liked all of the background data presented to him, had loads of questions which were answered in detail.
Concurrently to this, the trend has picked up whereby the Orthodox Church has come more and more under attack. There has been and still is one very fervent attacker of the Orthodox Church's headquarters. This is Gleb Yakunin who is himself an Orthdox Priest. He does not attack the Orthodox Church and belief as such, but he attacks wherever he can, the Orthodox Church's headquarters which are called "Moscow Patriarchate". This Patriarchate had been established by or with the KGB. There are now more media articles appearing than compared to a year ago attacking the politics of the Moscow Patriarchate.
In Moscow, we tried on several lines to get in comm with the Orthodox Church. One was through a contact with a Father Oleg which eventually resulted in a round table discussion in his Church in which also ARM terminal Dvorkin participated. The results were later on published by Father Oleg in an Orthodox Church newspaper and neutrally reported what had been discussed at this round table. Additionally, one Book One auditor from Moscow mission who has a PTS situation with her non-Scientologist husband, started to work in Father Oleg's Church giving Dianetic auditing to people referred to her by Father Oleg.
To fill the vacuum on Scientology, an expertise on the Scientology religion was done by Professor Sivertzev, a political sociologist who currently is the most well briefed Russian professional on Scientology, having been both to Paris an Copenhagen. This expertise was printed and widely distributed and is still being used and distributed.
Another expert was closed, Professor Sobolev, who is currently finishing to write his expertise on Scientology. He had at first envisioned to do it very fast, but as he got into the subject realized that he did not know as much as he should to do a good job, and was given more and more briefing materials.
Both Sivertzev's and Sobolev's expertises are financed by the IAS.
Changes to be made to the existing Freedom of Religion law were talked about, pushed by certain factions incl the Orthodox Church but without any final result. The constitution of the Russian Federation provides for religious freedom and has been upheld, i.e. no law changes were ever implemented. This was in my opinion due to both the pressure put on within Russia as well as the pressure exerted from outside international terminals onto terminals in Russia.
The heaviest attacks which took place on new religious movement in Russia were on the White Brotherhood several years ago, the Japanese group called Aum Syndikure and the Unification Church.
In St. Petersburg, an ARM Parents Committee initiated three law suits against the Unification Church which however did not lead to anything. Very recently however, the situation changed. The tax police in St. Pete raided the living place for members of the Unification Church and confiscated documents. Shortly afterwards a criminal case was started against the Unification Church which they only learned about through the media, i.e. the TASS newswire was informed about it even before they were informed. A court hearing is scheduled to take place on 26 April, and the prosecutor is reportedly trying to get a court order through I not have the Unification Church present at that hearing. The Unification Church's attempted registration in Belorussia and the Ukraine was denied with the reasoning that the "teachings are not good - it humiliates human dignity". A new attempt to get registered in Vladivostok in the Far East was also again denied with the reasoning that there was an ongoing criminal case against them in St. Petersburg (which shows how fast these lines were worked).
- In terms of direct legal actions against the OTL or any of the missions, nothing has ever been done. In August 1995, there was a police visit in the OTL during which the registrations of a staff were checked, and they engaged in some kind of a string pull but we were never able to pin down exactly what it was that they had been after. One point was an EPF'er at the time whos mother had sent entheta complaints about her son being in a sect that brainwashes him, to the Intelligence Service. That situation at the time was fully handled, i.e. the staff registrations were brought under full control where they had not been, the EPFer was gotten through a PTS handling and got his mother handled to the point where she wrote a new letter to the Intell service apologizing etc. Then about a month ago, there was a new visit by the police in the OTL, and again all the registrations were checked and found to be in order - for the staff that was. A good dozen students were located who had no proper registrations and they had to handle this on their own; it did not prove to be a liability for the OTL.
Other than these two incidents directly involving police visits the Moscow ARM Parents Committee had once gotten the complaint from a mother on their lines which they referred to us for handling. The daughter was on staff in the OTL, was eventually given a good PTS handling and then routed out on an LOA to get her PTS Type C situation fully handled. This is ongoing. The Parents Committee had never gotten any other complaint on their lines regarding Scientology, so had never any ammunition or case to become active on Scientology.
In terms of corporate concerns and registrations of our missions the following needs to be said: All the missions are registered the same way, i.e. as public social non-profit organizations. 0ne or two of the missions had been incorrectly incorporated in the very beginning some years ago, and this was corrected over the last few months (one mission had been registered as a for-profit organization, it was de-registered and a new proper non-profit organization was registered instead). The only mission in the OTL which is registered as a religious organization is the mission Moscow, i.e. Church of Scientology of Moscow. That registration as a religious organization was done some years ago already, and gotten through the governmental lines at the time relatively fast and without any hassles. This was remarked upon later on by some experts as astonishing; in other words they were surprised that we had succeeded in getting a Church of Scientology registered in Russia. Another application, i.e. for St. Petersburg was filed last year already but has not been approved - nor disapproved. It is probably being put into pending without anyone in the government wanting to take the responsibility to make a final decision either way.
What probably plays into this as well is the current political climate in Russia. In December 1995, elections were held in which the Commie's came out quite strongly again. The Presidential elections will be in June 1996. Yeltsin has announced his candidacy. Whether he will make it or whether the Commies will win these elections, remains to be seen. There are forecasts that go either way. Until those elections have been held and there is a new president, most of the people in responsible positions do not want to make decisions now so as not to end up later on having made the wrong decision. In other words, they are afraid that the presidential elections turn out to their disadvantage, so they rather not make any decision now but wait until the elections are over, and then they can make their decision accordingly i.e. to go with the general flow
The way I looked at it, in case the whole country goes communist again, and in the very worst case throwing out all the foreigners is as follows: We have over 50 Dianetics centers and roughly another 50 in training. Over the last few weeks, the drive and push started for real to get the first Russian Clear made by pushing people to go to AOSHEU. All of this contributes and has achieved that Dianetics has been engrained in Russia to a degree that it cannot ever be taken out again. It is too far spread already to be able to kill it off again. Thus the next step which I kept in mind is to push the existing Russian S.O. members to wear their hats in such a way so that they could stand on their own two feet even if all foreign SO members get kicked out of Russia. These Russians won't be perfect, but several of them know enough tech of how to keep going even if all lines to the West should get cut. I even spoke to some of the Russian S.O. members about this possibility. I don't want to sound gloomy with this, but as I said, that's only for the worst case.
In any case, the next action to be taken by us as far as the CofS St. Pete goes is to make an appointment and meet with the In Charge for registrations of religious organizations in the Federal Ministry of Justice. What I am preparing for him is a pack of documents with Church registrations from countries around the world. This may or may not suffice in view of the political scene mentioned above. We will have to see and then determine what if anything else we can do to push it through to a done.
The next mission which now originated wanting to incorporate as a religious organization is the mission in Almaty, the capital of Kazakstan. This is a separate country from Russia, and is perhaps the wealthiest of the CIS countries. The Orthodox Church is relatively small in Kazakstan, i.e. they do not have the same influence by far in Kazakstan as they wield in Russia. Speaking to the ED of the Almaty mission, he stated that registering a religious organization in Kazakstan should be no problem as the country does have religious freedom and practices it. Thus, Almaty mission's registration as a religious organization will be pursued next. What we need to prepare for them (and in general) is a set of documents needed for any mission to register as a religious organization.
There have been some instances of TM violations either in form of straight misuse as by a construction company which called itself "Dianetics Construction Company" and which we learned about, or with a "Research Institute for Dianetical Problems" which was rumoured to exist. As these matters come up, we run them by our lawyer, obtain his advice and input and then implement this.
One word on lawyers. Last year we had hired and used a small lawyer firm. I found them to be too theoretical however and we stopped using them though we are still in good comm with them especially as one of them is very active on religious freedom issues. He is himself a Baptist.
Since about 3 months, we have another lawyer. Through one of the OTL LRH assist projects in hospitals, one patient therein got assists. He turned out to be a prosecutor in Moscow. Through the assists given to him, his badly wounded leg rapidly healed and he came way uptone, and soon thereafter offered his help. He is not a practicing lawyer but we set him up as our advisor/lawyer for all documents that the OTL needs to operate with or have signed, such as contracts. All such documents get checked through him.
On Treasury lines, we have an accountancy firm which has been doing the required quarterly balancesheets for about the last 3/4 of a year. The work with was quite heavy in the beginning, then smoothened out as went along, and now poses no major problem. Hand in glove with getting them was also the internal built up of the OTL Treasury.
As far as media relations go, these are overall being developed through all the centers which are active locally in their area of influence. There are now a total of over 50 active Dianetics centers all over the CIS, the far majority of them being in Russia. All of these develop their own comm lines into their local media; some are more active than others with their PR and safepointing activities.
Throughout this big network of missions in the CIS, some excellent PR safepoints have been established. In 1994, Bud Reichel and Lyn Irons from Hubbard College of Administration, routed about 50 Russian businessmen and VIPs to CC Int where they stayed for several weeks, received some basic metered auditing (life repair), the Purification Rundown, some Life Improvement courses and tours of the LRH Exhibition, etc. On our lines are former regional governors, the director of the most popular TV show of all Russia, the director of one of the Russian banks, deputy directors and chairmen from other banks, government employees, and others.
These power comm. lines have not been fully utilized and kept briefed up, and the creation of a power comm line data base has now become a must. This is from the viewpoint that continues to grow rapidly and so as to be able to keep these special public briefed an adresso and a special newsletter for them are to be developed.
What it also takes to ensure the continued good utilization of these power comm lines is well hatted PROs and DSAs in all of these missions. The - unwritten - agreement that we make with all of them is that when their mission staff reaches the size of 20 they then must recruit and post a DSA so that there will be a stable terminal for Dept 20. Thus far we have a DSA in the following missions: 1. Moscow, 2. St. Petersburg, 3. Nizhny Tagil. - The next missions where we will need a DSA are: 4. Harkov in the Ukraine, 5. Almaty in Kazakstan, 6. Ufa in the south of Russia, 7. Perm in the Ural mountains.
None of the existing DSA's is as yet approved through OSA INT. This is mainly because of their language barrier as none of them except the one in Nizhny Tagil speaks fluent English so no sec.checks are possible. The DSA in Nizhny Tagil does speak fluent English but the mission just about started (they had the DSA even before the mission officially opened, her having financed her training in the OTL with her own private funds) and does not have the funds to the DSA on a training trip to Denmark yet. Meantime she, the DSA, is doing the basic PR functions as well as ensuring the legal ruds go in the mission.
In the OSA CIS office, we currently have 5 staff: myself as CO OSA, Birthe as PRO, Layos as Legal Officer. All three are approved for the OSA network. By default, there are two ladies in Social Reform: Galina Unger and Irina Shukeen. I say by default, because when I held the CO OTL post, both of them were working on special projects i.e. to get LRH assist tech applied in governmental hospitals and obtain acceptances in that way. Lacking another specific post on the org board, I posted them in Social Reform. Two staff had been in OSA in the last year but both routed out: One was Lidia Klueva in PR; the other one Lili who had been the Legal Officer for the OTL. Currently two new staff for OSA are on the line up: One is Elena Michalenko who is a recruit of Birthe from St. Petersburg. Elena is scheduled to complete the EPF in the next two weeks. The other one is Alexes Dyanchenkov. He has been a helper for PR for the last two years and is now just awaiting some legal papers from the other end of Russia and will then start the EPF. He is expected to do the EPF rather fast, as he is a good and fast student and speaks fluent English. Thus by the end of May, we will have two more staff in OSA PR office under Birthe.
Voila. Please let me know if this provides the overview which you had expected, or if you now have any points on which you want more data. There is obviously a lot more that could be said because there are so many things happening every day which is why I tried to keep this concise though still interesting.
Ml D / CO OSA CIS
1403260 OSAEU
CO OSA CIS
RE: CIS MASTER PROGRAMDEAR DIETHELM, BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS TELEX, THE NEW CO OTL CIS SHOULD HAVE ARRIVED IN RUSSIA. THIS IS VERY EXCITING AND WILL ENABLE YOU TO GO BACK ON YOUR CO OSA HAT FULL TIME. YOU WILL NEED TO TURN OVER THE POST OF CO OTL IN FULL TO HIM AND PER WHAT MARLIS TOLD ME, YOU ESTIMATED THIS TO TAKE ABOUT A WEEK OF COURSE, YOU WILL ALSO BE HANDLING OSA CYCLES AT THE SAME TIME SUCH AS THE BUILDING CYCLE, STUDEMA, ETC. YOUR CURRENT PRIORITIES ARE SPECIFICALLY THE OTL PREMISES, THE SITUATION WITH STUDEMA, THE OVERALL ARM SCENE AND CONNECTED SITUATIONS I.E. POTENTIAL ANTI-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. PREDICTION IS VITALLY NEEDED AS PER OSA NW ORDER 35, ESPECIALLY ON ARM AND THE OVERALL POLITICAL SCENE. YOU ALSO NEED TO GET BACK ONTO THE EXECUTION OF LAST YEAR'S OSA CIS MASTER PROGRAM AND YOUR MORE RECENT RECOGNITION PROGRAM. THE CIS MASTER PROGRAM MAY NEED TO BE UPDATED SINCE THE SCENE HAS CHANGED AND IN THIS CASE, PLEASE GET THIS DONE RAPIDLY AND SEND ME A COPY OF THE REVISED PROGRAM. I EXPECT TO SEE REPORTS AGAINST THESE PROGRAMS, REPORTS ON DONES AND CRS, STARTING ASAP. AS ONE OF YOUR FIRST ACTIONS, SEND AN OVERALL REPORT, GIVING AN OVERVIEW OF THE EXTERNAL SCENE, ONGOING THREATS, EXISTING PREDICTION AND POINTS OF INTEREST, INCLUDING BUT NOT RESTRICTED TO THE AREAS LISTED ABOVE. THIS IS PER HCO PL WHAT AN EXEC WANTS ON HIS LINES AND OSA NW ORDERS 9 AND 42. PLEASE, LET ME HAVE THIS ASAP.
MLV, CO OSA EU