[This is an unofficial interpretation of the Scientology[tm] write-up on the Alternative Charlemagne Award. To see what this article refers to, visit the award site at http://www.alt-charlemagne-award.de.]

Latest news: March 27, 2001
Bob Minton won a court case against Scientology.
Scientology presented false information about Bob Minton.
Compare this page with a previous article on Nigeria and you can see the difference.

FREIHEIT

circulation 200,000              published by the Scientology Church
                                 to households with daily mail

[side box]

Those who stood in the way of the skimming of Nigerian petrodollars were murdered: in just one single "incident" 80 peaceful demonstrators were slaughtered by mobile "police troops" as they protested against the effects of oil production on people and environment. At that point in time, Robert Minton's business relationship with the former military dictatorship were in full bloom. "Human rights activist" Minton's protests were not to be heard when the internationally known writer and citizens rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa (above, at a rally) was executed in spite of worldwide protest.

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"Human Rights Award" for Third World Exploiter

Hamburg's Interior Senator Wrocklage sinking deeper into the mire of the Minton Affair

[large picture of the Old Stock Exchange in Leipzig Germany. Underneath are pictures of Wrocklage, Caberta and Minton.]

In Nigeria, crude oil plays a central role. "Black gold" attracts ruthless businessmen from overseas just as the avarice arouses the despot. The oil in the west African state seemed so important that the succession of military dictators literally walked over corpses until 1998.

The world was not publicly horrified until five years ago, when the terrorist regime of the time under General Sani Abacha had renowned author and Alternative Nobel Prize Award winner Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his comrades executed. The citizens' transgressions: they led the resistance by the Ogoni tribe against the oil pollution of their environment.

The murder of the poet Ken Saro-Wiwa was the sad high point of a gradual removal of citizens and human rights in Nigeria. At that time, the extermination openly sought by the military regime caused worldwide protest from an uncomfortably prominent opponent. Germany was also horrified. Today, however, hardly anyone recalls these atrocities.

One dictator after the next kept the Nigerian population which had been deprived of their rights in poverty, while a few chosen people were allowed to get rich with the help of the organized tyranny. One who was a good friend of the violent Nigerian rules at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s is the American Robert Minton.

Among other things, Minton was accused of having aided the military dictatorship of the time in the carrying out of a fraudulent "debt buy-back system" - by that is mean state debts,

[image of "The Sunday Times" headline "Fashanu reveals giant bank fraud." accompanying text: The London "Sunday Times was one of the first newspapers to report on the background of the missing billions. Today's Republic of Nigeria is among the poorest countries, and is among the last in matters of quality of life, as proven in a just-published study by the UN Development Program (UNDP).

Scandal about ...

continued from page 1 top:
and indeed by means of an extensive network of corporations, hidden bank accounts and secret agreements in order to circumvent pertinent regulations (FREIHEIT reported in its last edition).

Now more and more is coming to light: according to a charge against "Robert Minton and accomplices" for fraud, money-laundering and falsifying documents which was filed by the Republic of Nigeria on June 23, 2000 at the attorney general's office in Geneva, Minton had diverted "several billion dollars to the loss of the Republic of Nigeria in the exercise of secret, fraudulent plans between 1987 and 1993. ... Robert Minton was alleged to have deposited the diverted monies in various business bank accounts as well as in private numbered accounts."

After the Nigerian government demanded Minton's bank accounts be frozen and demanded information concerning the accusation of money-laundering, Robert Minton "met with the directors of the bank on May 30, 2000," it continued in charge. "According to our information he demanded the immediate transfer of his monies as well as the destruction of documents."

Minton has already admitted in the media that he "earned" about 45 million dollars along with two accomplices. Probably it had to do with a much larger sum - at the expense of the millions of starving people in Nigeria.

[image of a girl holding a picket sign which reads "We demand: dissolution of Caberta's 'Kindergarten for exorcists' (according to the Spiegel magazine)". Underneath the picture, "Three times a week: vigil in front of Hamburg's Interior Agency."]

But Minton is still confronted with an essentially grave suspicion, namely that after the covert "debt buy-back" which was carried out until 1993, his worldwide network of bank accounts was to have played a major role in which up to 12 billion dollars disappeared from the Nigerian state treasury - mainly to the good of the families of the former Nigerian military dictators.

Scandal in Leipzig

With full awareness of the accusations against the multi-millionaire and the ongoing investigations, Hamburg Senate employee Ursula Caberta and Evangelical reverend Thomas Gandow handed over a so-called "Alternative Charlemagne Award" to this sort of model of a "people's friend" Minton - with reference to the actual Charlemagne Award, which had been recently given to U.S. President Clinton in Aachen.

The parasitic flavor quickly made the rounds. The event, which took place in the beginning of June under the patronage of a "European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA" (for that see article "Cheaper by the Dozen") in Leipzig, turned into a flop in the media.

Even more tasteless than the fake copy of the human rights aware are the sole grounds for distinguishing Minton. He is "against" Scientology - and he has money to buy support for his doubtful activities. Where he got this money from, though, is not a secret anymore.

Wrocklage in the Twilight

Caberta was already paying court to her close confidant "Bob" Minton from America in April in the rooms of the Hamburg Interior Agency. She also did this openly with the consent of her direct employer - although Minton's involvement in the skimming of the billions of Nigerian oil money had already been reported upon. This fact had also been unmistakably pointed out to the Hamburg Interior Senator.

The reason for their behavior may very well lie in the in the prospect of "big money." Otherwise Caberta's cordial conduct towards a doubtlessly dubious character can hardly be explained. As recently as July 2000 she spent several days with Minton and his friends in Florida.

One way or another: her stubborn persistence in honoring a man who has been accused of serious commercial crime is making her unbearable as a "billboard" of Hamburg politics.

Her constant escapades, which occur, as it were, in the name of and with the apparent blessings of an Interior Agency, raises the question of which role Hamburg's Interior Senator Hartmuth Wrocklage really plays in the sordid human rights affair.

That is because the Caberta case has long ago turned into a Wrocklage case. The Interior Senator was aware of the details and undertook nothing to prevent the participation of his agency in the disgraceful spectacle. Anybody who thinks our country has to discredit itself in front of others this way should take his leave as soon as possible.

A Man without Conscience

Minton's billion-dollar deals were allegedly "solely to the advantage of the Nigerian people," as Reverend Gandow told the media. But those who have not yet seen a trace of Minton's "good deeds" are the millions of Nigerians themselves, the major portion of which vegetate on an annual per capita income of about 400 marks (!). In spite of the abundance of oil, the country slipped down to the 20 poorest nations. The only ones that became rich were a handful of Nigerian generals-by-birth who subjugated the country over the years and decades - and their diligent business assistants naturally also became rich. One of the most cunning of the is called Robert Minton. Millions of deceived Nigerians paid, many of them who supported human rights in Nigeria, even with their lives.

Minton did not show any sort of pangs of conscience, but mimed the rather diligent capitalists. He answered the question asked by the Nigerian citizen of whether he himself had ever been to Nigeria with "no." He also answered the question of whether he had invested any of his own profits in Nigeria with "no." For him it was only "business," albeit a lucrative one.

While Caberta and Gandow paid court to their new friend in Leipzig as a "human rights activist," Minton is said to have combined business with pleasure: according to the charge by the Nigerian government, he met with representatives of at least one German bank in Leipzig, directly after he was said to have met to transfer his accounts from Switzerland to Germany in order to bring his little baby to safety.

The seriousness of the current Nigerian state leadership was shown only a few days after the "honoring" of Minton: in the Warburg Bank in Luxemburg the prosecutor froze 1.2 billion marks of the "missing money" which disappeared during his time.

Finally, it is all the same how deeply Minton is really involved in what he is accused of. Honoring someone as a "human rights activist" who represents the robbery of the sum of billions as welfare for the defrauded Nigerian population is more than only a farce.

The citizens rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa, murdered by the former Nigerian military dictator, once wrote, "The truth is strong and always successful. Sometimes it loses, but that does not last long."

The deeper the investigating authorities dig, the more on Minton and his supporters they will learn, and that Ken Saro-Wiwa knew exactly what he was talking about.

---

A Mortgage no one will stand for

It must have hit Bavarian Interior Minister Beckstein most painfully of all. The CSU politician was portrayed on the internet, as it were, as a moral patron of a man who was accused of being in the middle of a mire of a gigantic commercial fraud. The inventors of the so-called "Alternative Charlemagne Award," Hamburg Interior Senate employee Ursula Caberta and Evangelical minister Thomas Gandow apparently deliberately wanted to give the impression that the White-Blue police minister was a part of that little group of people that supported the honoring of Minton. Beckstein appeared not to see it that way. He answered the question of his connection to Minton with silence, presumably not to raise any more of a fuss.

Parliamentary President Wolfgang Thierse (SPD) will also have to be more careful for what purposes he gives out his name. As Beckstein, Thierse found his name on a signature list for the support of a cover association which, in turn, distinguished Robert Minton. The Parliamentary President instantly stated that he was "not on the board of the Alternative Charlemagne Award." And as to how he got on this signature list at all, one could ask "those people there."

People in the world-renowned old stock exchange in Leipzig were shocked. One of the people who worked there was on the list of Minton admirers with her renowned work place. The management of the old stock exchange stated unmistakably that Mrs. Solveig Press took part in the event "solely as a private person." "The old stock exchange in Leipzig is not connected with either the Committee nor with the bestowal of the award."

To all appearances that was part of the rumors from behind the scenes of the Hamburg Interior Agency where one had invoked the spirits of which one now wanted to once again be rid of.

But the employee Caberta was apparently not willing to roll up the red carpet for her friend Minton again. Instead of that she made her employer Wrocklage into a quasi-accomplice of a man who had been accused of half the crimes in the book.

"Caberta's post mostly does its own public relations work," was the reply to an inquiry of Wrocklage's press office. And because "Caberta's post" had been openly scolded to have no official connection with the Minton token of esteem, asserted Caberta's staff member Mark, nobody from her office "had participated in the event in Leipzig." This purely tactical token rule did not correspond to reality, as so many other out of this corner of the world.

But the question arises of what the background is behind the fact that nobody in the Hamburg government dares to bring Caberta to reason.

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Cheaper by the Dozen

Thomas Gandow's false packaging

[image of smiling portrait of Thomas Gandow, sub-titled: "Hunting for heretics: the Lutheran Chief Inquisitor Thomas Gandow."]

The Berlin reverend Thomas Gandow directs a whole army of cover organizations which are all something other than they appear. Now it turns out that even the "Alternative Charlemagne Award" for the dictator's assistant Robert Minton (see article above) was crafted in the workshop of the Evangelical Chief Inquisitor.

When a "European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA" bestows an "Alternative Charlemagne Award" to an American citizen, by mere words this process gives the impression of internationalism and professionalism.

Involuntarily one thinks of a human rights organization spanning the world, of many confirmed German-American friendships, of religious freedom, including for minority religions and of similar lofty endeavors.

This first impression is really muddled by only one small discrepancy: namely that the address of the internationally tinged association is found exclusively in Berlin-Zehlendorf.

One looks closer: hey, you can't believe your eyes, the post office box of the association office, "Heimat 27" is identical to the address of the Evangelical parish office for "Issues of Sects and Weltanschauung" in Berlin!

Oh, how good, that nobody knows ...

The sober truth: The "Citizens Committee for Religious Freedom in the USA" is nothing other than another cover organization directed by the state church to combat minority religions.

The brazenly false packaging - which serves entirely different purposes than is let on - was planned on the drawing board of Berlin reverend Thomas Gandow.

Gandow cleverly hid himself in the list of people responsible for the Committee as "Editor of the Berlin Dialog." In reality, he is the Anti-sect Commissioner of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and a chief architect of the discrimination campaign against religious and weltanschauung communities being carried out in parts of Europe. For decades he has defamed all religious movements outside of the structures of the state church and has tried to butcher them off in writing.

In any case, with his "Citizens Committee" Gandow and his employer have no more interest in religious freedom than does the Chinese state leadership have in the spread of Falun Gong.

From a reverend's life

Under these pretenses it is not surprising that the backyard association baptized for the media is not the first occurrence of false packaging by the scheming Grand Inquisitor.

Namely, there is a method to the false labelling swindle.

For example, since the early 1980s in Berlin there has been a "Parents Initiative" which says it supports "spiritual freedom," and in alleged fulfillment of this mission fights smaller religious communities. Founding member and 1st board member: Thomas Gandow. Office of the association: "Heimat 27." Fie upon him who thinks anything evil of that. The "parents initiative," upon closer scrutiny, has revealed itself to be a church cover organization

continued on page 3

against the presumed competition of belief.

In 1985 "special funds" were exacted from the Berlin Senate for a Project "Escape Point" in order to minister to "former members of religious extremist groups" and to "protect them from suicide." The talk was of 250 such groups in Berlin alone. The initiator and project manager of the spectacle of delusion: Thomas Gandow, "Heimat 27."

"Escape Point" vanished very quickly, because literally nobody wanted to escape there. Specifically, the sensational horror tales of the Lutheran minister had not the least thing to do with reality.

In contrast a therapy center for Evangelical clergymen just around the corner was booming. The Berlin Medical Depression Center, according to one of its published list of statistics, already had 1,500 state church functionaries under treatment by 1990, of those 900 (!) were ministers, who overwhelmingly (!) came from the Evangelical Church. 120 members of this group of people were in treatment right after a suicide attempt, 550 after being diagnosed as suicide risks. 60% of the people who held church positions who were treated came from the area of West Berlin (!). This statistic situation lets one get an inkling of how a group of people across Germany makes an exception of themselves. The director of the Berlin Medical Depression Center, Dr. Thomas, wrote literally at the time, "The degree of poverty in this area is incalculable."

According to the "Stop the Thief" method, however, Reverend Gandow continued to manage to manipulate this and similar tales, facts and situations from his own mileau to that of smaller religious communities, for which NOTHING of the sort is the case.

Monologue instead of Dialogue

Another example: in 1998, a Berlin Dialogue Center opened its portals which saw its duty as "religious confrontation." It was supposed to create "ways and means of creating an honest, responsible dialogue between Christians and the new (and old) religions ..." - that is according to a promotional letter from the center. But in fact it has developed into an agitation forum against all known minority religions, a sort of "monologue center" for sect hunters. Founder and Chairman: Thomas Gandow. Office: "Heimat 27."

As early as 1995 an agitation magazine by the name of "Berlin Dialogue" was published in Berlin. Office: "Heimat 27," of course. The rag that Gandow personally backed explored matters of cynicism and meanness in dealing with other religions of the same kind. It even had the audacity to put on its cover a picture of the Dalai Lama - who had just been greeted by Federal Interior Minister Schily - hand in hand with Shoko Asahara, the one allegedly responsible for the poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway. Inside, Thomas Gandow commented on the "unholy" connections between the Dalai Lama and Shoko Asahara. Co-publisher Aagaard hypocritically commented, "We find it regrettable that we have to take into consideration that Buddhist leaders of the quality of the Dalai Lama aid in veiling counterfeits of Dharma through their perhaps well-intentioned recommendations."

[image of building, underneath is the text: "Clear relations: Inquisition Central 'Heimat 27' (above) is the home of numerous cover organizations for the persecution of people of other faiths, but only one 'man of the house' is visible - Reverend Thomas Gandow."]

In reality, chief editors Gandow and Aargaard may have been slapping their thighs with pleasure. The Dalai Lama had never been incriminated and disparaged so well.

The "honest, responsible dialogue" proclaimed for appearances, however, stumbles on almost every page of the magazine in its true intentions. In all seriousness "the Buddhism" is offered, "false Buddhism" is identified and "a real service" is thus shown to "the Buddhism." This Inquisitional totalitarian offering is, of course, not made entirely in vain: "When we could ask the Buddhists for a comparable critical service, then we would welcome them seeing Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Revival Christians and occult sects, etc. ... who pretend to be Christians as valueless counterfeits of Christianity without validity. ..."

The Inquisitional rag also regularly defames the constantly growing number of religious sociologists who do not wish to support the perfidious alienation of people of other faiths and who deal with the new religions and so-called sect factually and without hysteria. These are put up for church mockery in their own column ("Cult Lobby") as "cult supporters" (Gandowian speak).

"Heimat 27" is also home to other curiosities, like, for example, the "Friends of the Berlin Dialogue Center," which may contribute to church owned banks, or a "Dialogue Academy" in which one does not learn how to dialogue with other religions, but how one disparages them and fights them.

Worthy of mention in the foregoing connection is also "Operation Russia," a model example of apologetic underground work, which in any case was started from the Berlin front address "Heimat 27." Namely, for years, Gandow has been cooperating sinisterly and secretly with the Russian Orthodox Dr. Alexander Dvorkin from Moscow, who is also found in the "scientific council" of the Berlin Dialogue Center and also, ridiculously in the "Citizens Committee for Religious Freedom in the USA" - as if the Russian Orthodox fundamentalist were the least bit interested in religious freedom in the United States. Both of them, Gandow and Dvorkin (who was also present at the "award" for Robert Minton in Leipzig) are proponents of the Russian "religion law" of 1997, probably one of the most repressive laws in recent decades against smaller religious communities, which quite rightly has invoked vehement criticism of the world press, the United Nations, a collection of noteworthy human rights organizations and the international community.

Gandow's written commentary on the worldwide protest of the time, "A proposal previously approved by Parliament was rejected by Yeltsin after it had been subjected to a foreign disinformation campaign and various foreign posts, including the American President Cline and the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II, disapproved of the law in letters."

The "disinformation campaign" as Reverend Gandow put it, from the American President and the Pope was, as it is know, of no avail: the law was passed in September 1997 without keeping with internationally recognized human rights standards.

In the best of company

With this type of climate, one need not be surprised if a self-made "citizens committee" gives a self-made human rights award to the compadre of a military dictator, namely to Robert Minton, and only because he is "against Scientology" - and also without doubt because he has much money at his disposal and is known to keep his followers in luxury.

In complete conformity with this self-perception of human rights is the circumstance that the granter of the award, Caberta, may be described, with the blessings of the court, as a human rights violator. One if even "beside oneself."

It can be imagined without difficulty that "Minton instead of Clinton," the conceited campaign cry of the "alternative" award, came from the Zehlendorf preacher's pen of intrigue, who can express his obviously disturbed relations to his trans-Atlantic allies only with difficulty.

In the 1990s, Gandow was outed in a documentary as a former activist in the "League against Imperialism", a Communist Party front organization. Gandow does not dispute his former membership at all, but stated his opinion that the league had not been "Communist Party front organization." It's a free country; anybody can say what they want to. In any case he has had ample opportunity to assemble experiences in agitation against America and its Presidents. Even Clinton's religion, the Baptists, have been described by Gandow as a "case study of a sect," naturally in a derogatory sense of the term.

No wonder that the American President is not "worthy of an award."

The Great Human Rights Swindle

It can only be taken cynically when a notorious exorcist of faith like Gandow says he is a proponent of "religious freedom in the USA." It IS cynical.

Many loose ends come together in the house of Thomas Gandow and still more dubious associations of the mold of the "Citizens Committee for Religious Freedom in the USA." But they all serve one purpose: defamation, incrimination and - if that is still possible - annihilation of of smaller religious congregations "on which," as Martin Luther once summed it up, "no person sees a stone or a cinder of them for all eternity. And so should one do the honor for our Lord and for Christianity, so that God will see that we are Christians."

Luther's words on the right way of dealing with the wrong belief may well be law for Reverend Gandow. In any case it has nothing to do with the Sermon on the Mount. And with human rights and supporting religious freedom in particular it has even less.

And the more people that learn of this perhaps not so joyful message, the better.

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Not So, Reverend!

Another front company on the vicinity of "Heimat 27" is now suffering in the headlines: the so-called "Lisa McPherson Trust" - an investment vehicle of Robert Minton who has just been distinguished by Gandow.

The "Trust" exists exclusively to gain profits from lawsuits against an American Scientology Church, to which end the death in 1995 of a member of Scientology by the name of Lisa McPherson is manipulated. Naturally Scientology is supposed to be generally defamed by this "media effective" event. The planned happy ending: a large settlement. What else.

Lisa McPherson died as a result of an accident, as was also confirmed by the court doctor. No misconduct on the part of the Scientology Church was found by the state attorney's office. In response, Reverend Gandow has spread the most adventurous notions throughout Europe and has mercilessly exploited the death of the woman for his perfidious purposes - including the founding of the above-mentioned front association, the "European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA." The height of this Inquisitional hypocrisy: together with his obedient followers he even "demonstrated" for the deceased woman whom he would have only persecuted and mocked in her lifetime.

On June 12, 2000, the state attorney's office in Florida put the obscene corpse dangling by the Berlin parish office to an official end: the proceedings were suspended because, according to expert findings, McPherson had apparently died as a consequence of a lung embolism after an accident.

It can hardly be assumed that Gandow will be satisfied with that. This case also shows exemplarily that nothing is guaranteed to be sacred to the clergyman in his witch hunt.

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FREIHEIT is a periodical which stands up for human rights and personal freedom. If you have a contribution, write the editors.

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Masthead [both in German and English]

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(c) 2000 Church of Scientology International - All rights reserved. Scientology is a protected mark owned by the Religious Technology Center and is used with its permission.

From: International Scientology News 11/99 page 20

11th anniversary of the Freewinds' maiden voyage
IAS: Clear our way to a better world

While the WIS? crusade, financed by the IAS, is moving through Europe, victories over suppression are leveling the path for the truth to land on open ears

As it has become a tradition at the annual IAS Patrons Ball on the cruise celebrating the occasion of the maiden voyage, the IAS members were informed about the most recent victory over suppression and the enormous progress that we are making in bringing the truth to society.

As Mr. Mike Rinder talked about our wins in past months he said, "While others look on and dodge the suppressives who are striving for domination and control, we look them in the eye, knowing full well that SPs cannot tolerate the voice that confronts them with their own crimes and then says "no."

He then spoke of our untiring efforts to protect our technology on the internet from SPs who think that they can steal our material and then " hide behind the anarchy of the internet." He reported of the five cases which were brought before the American federal court to set precedents and create protection and had the following results, "Every case was settled successfully. Every wrongdoer has been contained, and there are a series of federal court orders which protect the purity of Scientology."

Mr. Rinder also emphasized how, through these cases, not only had the responsibility of the lawbreakers been established, but also the responsibility of the people who provided access to the internet. "If, in the future, someone violates our copyrights, we do not need to take on attorneys and go through long court proceedings, because the Justice Department of the American government will do all the work and punish the wrongdoers."

There were numerous other examples of the many wins against SPs, including a win from Switzerland which showed how things had actually changed, "In May, two Scientologists appeared in court in Switzerland. The proceedings had started with a family quarrel in 1993. The relatives had already resolved the problem a long time before, however, an SP state attorney absolutely wanted to bring Scientology to court. The state attorney received his first surprise, though, from his only witness, and she was the sister of one of the Scientologists and the alleged victim in this case. She said that she did not want to have a bad conscience and she had decided to tell the truth."

"She said that the Scientologists, and especially her brother, had much helped her. Because of Scientology she was in a good way and had put her life in order and could solve her own problems much better. The state attorney practically fainted. The only other witnesses were Scientologists. They gave the judge a copy of 'What is Scientology?' and testified as to the importance of religious freedom. Three days later, all charges were dropped. The court stated that it felt honored to exonerate the Scientologists, and that the state would pay the court costs."

Then he described further incredible wins in Italy and Germany and described how history was unfolding in Europe. He also gave specific examples of how others who were active in the area of human rights and religious tolerance recognized our contribution, whereby freedom would be secured for all.

Besides that the astonishing reaction to the publication of the book "Scientology: theory and practice of a current religion" - from Sweden to South Africa and all the way to Moscow - was mentioned. What said the most was probably the fact that a delegation from the Venezuelan Justice Department came to Los Angeles for guidance from our Church. That happened after the announcement of the March 15 event of how this book had helped to achieve religious acknowledgment in Venezuela.

Mr. Rinder also covered many of the incredible wins from Greece, the country in Europe, next to Yugoslavia, which has the worst history of religious discrimination. The situation has indisputably been changed by having this new book in the possession of opinion leaders, as was clearly visible in his briefing.

And so that our Torch of Freedom would continue to burn bright in all of Europe, he reported on the success of the 1998 European Marathon for Religious Freedom ....

Scientology: Germany Must End Espionage

April 11, 1998

Los Angeles (Reuters) - The Scientology organization has accused Germany of spying on its members. The recent arrest of a Baden-Wurttemberg Constitutional Protection agent, who was collecting information about the organization in Switzerland, is only the tip of the iceberg, wrote Scientology President Heber Jentzsch to the German Ambassador in Washington on Friday. Germany, he wrote, must stop its espionage activities. The Office of Constitutional Protection has observed Scientology in Germany since the summer of last year.

The Federal District Attorney's Office in Bern had released information to the effect that a German Constitutional Protection agent had met with a Swiss in Basel, in order to obtain information about Scientology. Among other things, he had false identification. The man was released on bail. The Baden-Wurttemberg Office of Constitutional Protection has apologized to the Swiss officials.

The American administration has repeatedly criticized Germany for allegedly persecuting Scientology. The German administration has accused the organization of commercially exploiting its members and using threats to keep them from leaving.

olk

Scientology on Parade

Scientology built a Catastrophe Corps with 400 helpers. But they were too late at the Crossair crash.

Zurich, Switzerland
November 29, 2001
Der Tages-Anzeiger

by Hugo Stamm

Scientology is always jumping up on stage. The series of disasters in the USA and in Switzerland has animated the sect to build an operational unit by the name of "Volunteer Ministers." The "Volunteer Ministers" were widely activated after the collapse of the World Trade Center and in the recent airliner crash in New York. Then the Swiss Scientologists showed up, as if someone had called them, for the Crossair accident in Switzerland on Saturday to prove their usefulness during catastrophes.

But they arrived too late. The wounded were already in the hospital and the airport's Care-Team were already long at work. Even if the Scientologists had appeared at just the right moment at the crash site, they still would have had to watch idly. "We do not accept the Scientologists as helpers," categorically stated Hans Baltensberger, press spokesman for the canton police. The Hubbard disciples were not only unwanted in Bassersdorf, they will be put on their way if the show up again. Rescue management at the Crossair crash had warned the Care-Team about uninvited helpers, said Baltensberger. They already had bad experiences with people who called themselves assistance personnel during an attempted murder on a train. Whether those were Scientologists or not, the police spokesman could not say.

Firefighters were not happy either about the volunteer helpers. "They hurt more than they help," said Willi Ehrbar in the capacity of commander of the Zurich professional firefighters. The rescue teams are set up to work with each other. Unfamiliar personnel without assigned tasks only get in the way. He said there was even a case where the volunteers fought over who got the patient.

Propaganda through advertisements

This is bad news for the "Volunteer Ministers." They would have liked to have built up a corps of 400 "Volunteer Ministers" within the next month and "contact authorities and institutions to coordinate future operations and to inform the appropriate agencies about the planned corps." In January, Scientology will take out advertisements to acquaint the public with their new services.

Scientologist feel they are especially capable of helping victims of disaster. To that end, sect founder Hubbard propagated a simple method of help called a "touch assist." It is a sort of laying-on of hands, and Hubbard described it as a true worker of miracles. His method allegedly alleviates pain, accelerates healing, dissolves fear, and helps overcome feelings of loss.

"In these troubled times," Scientologists want to approach not only disaster victims, but also government agencies, business managers and the general public. Hubbard adherents have founded the "Friends of Ron" (first name of the sect founder), which says its goal is to make the public aware of Hubbard's "effective solutions." They say the sect leader strove for a world without war, criminality or insanity. But this would only be attainable if all people take Scientology courses. Therefore the suspicion surfaces that the Scientologists are using disaster assistance as a means to get Scientology into the media and the victims and their relatives into sect centers. An official of the (American) National Mental Health Association stated it bluntly after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, "the Scientologists are using this tragedy to recruit new members."

Scientology

Bringing Salvation to the field of rubble

Sect adherents appear as assistants in New York

New York, USA
September 19, 2001
Tagesspiegel Berlin

by Gabriele Renz

The press wire read like a success story: "Volunteer Ministers (...) give assists to people in need at Ground Zero to get them going again. Then they show them how they can help others with assists. That way the number of qualified assistants continues to grow," announced Scientology. Following that is a description, straight out of a Hollywood movie, of a religious awakening in which an exhausted fireman, after having received an "assist" from a member of Scientology, is then able to continue searching for his missing brother. "Touch Assists," a type of laying on of hands, is recommended in "The Way to Happiness" brochure, a non-aggressive, soft-PR piece by the Scientologists. The organization praised itself for gaining permission to enter, along with police, firemen and Red Cross workers, the cordoned-off area around "the scene of the disaster at the World Trade Center."

According to their own reports, 450 of them are currently operating there. The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution did not show much surprise that the organization was operating in this "tense situation." Stuttgart's office spokesman Klaus-Dieter Schiemann said that people should be asking themselves the question "whether that is what the workers need to help them pull body parts from the piles of debris." Schiemann said this was quite typical for a Scientology starting point: "a situation of fear and uncertainty." He said this could cause great difficulties for unstable or confused people in that Scientology would only be using their own model of information dissemination. Experts in the field are outraged. This was a case of "an opportunity being shamelessly exploited," said Berlin Scientology critic Tilman Hausherr. Shortly after the murderous attacks, the organization was already soliciting for donations from members and non-members via e-mail. The same thing, according to Hausherr, happened back in the Oklahoma City bombing. It is "unbelievable" that the USA loudly warns people about fraud, then ignores Scientology, Hausherr believes.

Apparently Scientology strategically held up emergency personnel in New York - "members of the fire department, police, doctors and nurses" - and "trained them." That was reported by the organization's Baden-Wuerttemberg branch, which also said that the "Dianetics Hotline" was broadcast on the screen by Fox. What they did not say was that they had gotten the number there by announcing it via e-mail as "National Mental Health Assistance." "The crisis hotline is now available," was announced, but there was no mention of "Scientology." But for those who called, that was who they got. The St. Petersburg Times reported that they were offered a free publication based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard. Fox TV, which has since apologized for not having done enough research, had let Scientology's 1-800-FOR-TRUTH number scroll for hours on the bottom of the screen - including during the broadcast of President Bush and his wife Laura at a memorial service. Scientology spokesman Kurt Weiland, tried to avoid the situation. He said it was the broadcaster's fault, but confirmed that there were 450 "volunteers" in the closed-off area.

Michael Faenza, the head of the real National Mental Health Association in the USA, warned that Scientology was the last organization that emotionally vulnerable people should call. He said the organizations method of operation was "outrageous" and he urged "the Church of Scientology to stay out of the mental health side of what happens in the country now."

Scientology critic Hausherr believes it is simply "disgusting" that "they're actually continuing to do it." As of today, the Scientology "volunteers" are standing among the Manhattan debris in their bright yellow t-shirts. And boast to each other in e-mail about having impeded other "real" psychologists in their work.

---

Further info: http://www.lisatrust.net/Media/for-truth.htm
and
http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/20010911-tragedy/

The "touch assist" is a rhythmic, mesmerizing massage. After a few minutes of the one-fingered massage, the body resists with a burst of energy, similar to the way it resists alcohol by speeding up its own metabolism rate. The subject is told in advance what to expect, and it is on the threshhold of resistance that the massage is stopped.

After taking office

George W. Bush - A Question of Faith

The new US President wants billions of dollars to support social work by religious organizations

Washington, USA
January 31, 2001
Tagesspiegel Berlin

by Malte Lehming

Any American can become president, but none will attain presidency that do not believe in God. George W. Bush believes in God. He showed that to the entire world as he entered office. Preaching occurred two times on the platform in front of the Capitol, both times Bush held his eyes shut. Several observers found this gesture exaggerated. That won't be for the last time. Bush is serious about his faith. In his presidency religion and religious values will attain a complete new significance.

Bush is something like a born-again Christian. For a long time he was indifferent to religion, he'd rather party and drink alcohol. Finally 15 years ago he ended that because he found God. "No government program helped me in doing that," he said, "no, I heard the call of the Lord." So his announcement on Monday that he wanted to support the social work of church organizations came as no surprise. In the company of five African-American preachers, a Muslim Imam, a Catholic nun and an Orthodox Jew, Bush signed two decrees to this effect in the White House.

Among other things, in three weeks an independent office for religious affairs is to be established in the White House; this office will coordinate the distribution of monies. "From now on when we look at social grievances in American," said Bush, "the first thing my administration will ask is which religious and local programs there are which we can support in the fight against these grievances." This step is allegedly welcome by a majority of the population as well as by many religious representatives. However the initiative is strongly criticized by liberal citizens rights advocates. They view the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state as being at risk and ask if only those junkies who say their prayers twice a day will be freed from their addiction. They are also concerned about discrimination among religions and possible misuse of state money.

The Scientologists say they have an absolutely successful anti-drug program. Are they to receive tax money too? And what about the Nation of Islam? If these types of organizations are excluded, then the administration might rightfully be accused of discrimination. Some religious organizations smell trouble. If money exchanges hands, that is interference, they say, which would threaten their independence.

Deluded Scientologists mob Ursula Caberta in Florida

Chase scene on video

Hate the cult tracker

Clearwater, USA
August 23, 2000
Hamburger Morgenpost

A Hamburg Scientology chief had warned Ursula Caberta against flying to Florida because, she said, it would be unpleasant for her. But the director of the "Work group on Scientology" flew there anyway - and will not quickly forget her trip to the home of the monster cult.

About 30 Scientology disciples were waiting at the Tampa, Florida airport for the visitor from Hamburg. Ursula Caberta was wildly mobbed, heckled and spat at. The wild chase scene in the Sunshine State is shown on a video sent to MOPO [this newspaper] by U.S. Scientology opponents. [The video is also on the net: http://www.lisatrust.net/Ursula-072200.htm]

Caberta, who had traveled to the USA at the invitation of the Lisa McPherson Trust, which helps Scientology victims, had to listen to malicious insults. Scientologists screamed over and over at the top of their voices, "Nazi go home!" and "Nazi criminal, go back to Germany!" German Scientologists were also in the "Welcoming Committee." One German woman shorted, "You are a killer, you are. You're killing people in Germany!"

When the staff member of the Hamburg Interior Agency picked up her baggage after the first three minutes of the vicious tirade, leaving the cult mob behind, they broke out in howls and laughter. One woman called, "Hey that was great, we really got her. That'll show her!"

The courageous combatant also reported that she was hounded and insulted by Scientologists in restaurants and in her hotel. Over and over - as can also be seen from the videos - Scientologists appeared with posters. The cult adherents had written "Nazi go Home" and "Take fascism back to Germany!"

Caberta ended up leaving Florida one daily earlier than planned. "It was getting too hot for me there. I was happy to get back to Germany," she said. What had been especially surprising about the type of treatment she had received, said Caberta, was that the German Scientologists always claim they are being hounded here. Caberta, "But no Scientologist in Germany has ever been treated like I was in the USA."

Mike Rinder, one of the top Scientologists in Clearwater, Florida, even repeated the accusations on local TV, that Caberta was a Nazi and had fascistic ideology.

The sect commissioner would really have like to have laughed about this "insanity," "but the matter is much too serious for that!"

jel

---

In related news ...

From: Bob Minton
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.scientology
Subject: Al Buttnor "on the cans" - Buttnor-on-cans.jpg (0/1)
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 10:57:42 -0400
Message-ID: <5hdgoss0lto0arq8u4efhdkjvm9vcvph16@4ax.com>

When Ursula Caberta arrived in Tampa 10 days or so ago, OSA's Al Buttnor was running the airport operation. This is a picture of him running said operation from the "Office of Special Affairs."

Bob Minton

Scientologists revile politician

A vacation to Florida turns into a horror trip for a Scientology critic

"Nazi go home", shout Scientologists

Clearwater, USA
August 11, 2000
Tagesanzeiger Zurich

by Hugo Stamm

Ursula Caberta, Director of the Hamburg Agencies' Work Group on Scientology, did not believe her eyes and ears when she arrived at the airport in Tampa, Florida. About 50 Scientologists were shouting "Nazi go home" at her, as proved by video tape recordings. The Hubbard adherents were also holding up signs in the air which said the same thing. "How the Scientologists learned of my arrival in Florida is a mystery to me." Florida is the location of an international Scientology headquarters.

The psycho-terrorism continued at her hotel. "They followed every move I made," said Caberta of the Hamburg SPD administration, who is involved with Scientology as a result of her office. Nevertheless she still met with American Scientology critics. The Scientologists' attorneys took their revenge with an operation of a curious kind. They shoved a court summons under her hotel door. The attorneys had managed to motivate a judge to order an immediate deposition. "It was a five-hour hearing like the Stasi used to have," stated Caberta. A German Scientology attorney had traveled from Munich for the occasion.

Lawsuit for Damages

The operation was rounded out with a lawsuit for damages from a Scientology-affiliated businessman who demanded 75,000 dollars. The businessman claimed Caberta ruined a major contract for him with her information work. "It has become painfully clear to me why the Scientologists are able to operate unhindered in the USA," said Caberta, "They can take care of any critic they want by using these court and legal proceedings."

The German Consul General urged Caberta to depart ahead of schedule because he was concerned about further actions from the Scientologists. Caberta didn't have to think it over long: "Unbelievable what they can do in the USA with tourists," she said. "And of all countries, this is the one which regularly accuses Germany of violating human rights because we dare to talk about Scientologists." She lost her faith in the American legal system.

Juerg Stettler, spokesman from Scientology, defended Scientology's action by saying that Caberta held a press conference and wanted to organize a demonstration in front of the Scientology buildings. He said that Caberta had provoked the reaction, the more so since various Scientologists had taken refuge from her in the USA. Those people, he said, were allergic to Caberta and would consider her now becoming active there as impudence.

[Picket photo from Spiegel magazine]

---

In related news ...

From: Bob Minton
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.scientology
Subject: Al Buttnor "on the cans" - Buttnor-on-cans.jpg (0/1)
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 10:57:42 -0400
Message-ID: <5hdgoss0lto0arq8u4efhdkjvm9vcvph16@4ax.com>

When Ursula Caberta arrived in Tampa 10 days or so ago, OSA's Al Buttnor was running the airport operation. This is a picture of him running said operation from the "Office of Special Affairs."

Bob Minton

Criticism of Germany

US Administration supports Scientology position

From: "Berlin Online"
March 1, 1999

by Peter de Thier

Washington, February 28. Not thirty-six hours after the execution of German national Karl LaGrand in Florence, Arizona, the US State Department criticized alleged human rights violations in the Federal Republic of Germany. It mentioned more than twenty cases of what it alleged to be transgressions against freedom of belief. Of course, the criticism hinges in the dealings with the controversial Scientology sect. The report is openly colored by the massive and generously financed Scientology lobby, which takes a particularly sharp tone towards Bonn every year. From the perspective of sect management, the German administration does not only hinder their business on the lucrative European market. The negative mood also washes over into other EU countries, particularly France. The State Department mentions, as an example, the problems Scientology adherents have of getting a job. However, the administration's study goes further than that, it also states that other religious minorities, such as Moslems, are intentionally disadvantaged.

Where the Losers meet

From: "Saarbruecker Zeitung"
February 6, 1999

Jörg Bastuck, Saarland resident looks behind the scenes of the miracle US job results

by Christian Lauer

Americans are brimming with self-assurance. They are part of a superpower, a leading industrial nation, a booming business which has gotten miracle job results. Nevertheless, all is not well with the national giant. There are losers in this economic wonder. A Saarland native visited the "repair operation" of the American "job machine," where criminal youth are re-socialized, homeless people learn to settle down, and neglected youth work to gain back their trust.

Joerg Bastuck studied at the Catholic Social Vocational School in Saarbruecken. A semester of hands-on training brought him to the USA. The 29 year old was shocked: "I have not seen so many homeless people anywhere else." Was the "power nation" of America a lie? The budding social worker from Nalbach-Piesbach was able to look behind the scenes at three locations - in the state of Washington and in Montana.

First stop: the "Penrith Farm" near Newport in the state of Washington. Aggressive youth who are difficult to train are supposed to be made socially adaptable here. "They are between 13 and 18, most of them have led a life of crime." Bastuck tells the story of the 16 year old Jason. His mother will not have anything to do with him; his father moved out to places unknown. He stayed in various homes, was thrown out of school, and finally ended up in juvenile detention for having inflicted severe bodily harm.

The training system on the farm is difficult, but effective. Seven out of ten have a job lined up by the time they leave. The youth are divided into levels. A "level 0" hardly has any rights. "Level 3" consists of the well-behaved. The trustees award daily points. Anybody who instigates a fight or does not get to bed on time loses points. Those who clean, cook or do chores gain points. "Boys and girls who first arrive receive trust up front by being placed in level 2," states Bastuck. They may go to movies and go swimming. Those who backslide lose their bonus. At "level 1" the youth must spend the entire afternoon in a simple block hut. They may not say one word to each other; speech is only permitted with the trustees. Reading is all that is allowed.

3,500 kilometers away there is another "repair operation." It occurs under entirely different conditions. Well-to-do parents send their progeny there to Montana. "All the youth there have one thing in common," said Bastuck, "their parents are rich and have neither the time nor the inclination to worry about their children." The offspring, as expected, are upset. "The boys and girls do not have any kind of trust in adults; they are shy or aggressive."

The rich Americans solve the burdensome education problem with dollars. 7,000 marks is the price for three months in Montana's sprawling landscape, where children gain back their trust with old Indian rituals which emphasize team and community spirit. 13 year old Will, son of a computer businessman from San Francisco, came here straight out of a Scientology camp for which his parents had paid 35,000 marks," said Bastuck. Compared to that, the 7,000 marks for Montana was just a tip - but an effective one. "The youth finally opened up and said what was on his mind." After three months, the parents have to spend a few days there "in order to get to know their children."

Of the three, Bastuck saw his last stop, which led him back to the state of Washington, as a model for Germany. Children of all types are made fit for life at a de-activated military base. "One finds the homeless here, as well as those expelled from school," said Bastuck. 200 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 complete their high school or college degree here and receive shop training. "Many are not able to read or write correctly - despite diplomas." While many fall through the cracks in the superficial US school system, intensive care reigns in the Curlew Job Corps Center. Youth learn masonry, carpentry and hard work. They are also shown how to balance their books. More than just theory is taught: in Curlew they do everything themselves - from administration to the construction of new buildings.

The drudgery pays off: those who successfully graduate Curlew get a place to live and a job recommendation. The program is free. Per person, the state pays about 42,000 marks annually. "Including administration, Curlew costs ten million marks per year," said Bastuck, "not more than a city such as Dillingen gives out for social services." At least in times of high unemployment of youth, he sees these "repair operations" of the US economic miracle as exemplary. "We also have our share of de-activated military bases."

Tough, but effective
In the USA there are many establishments such as these. Youth who have gone through the court process (photo) are put through camps which use some tough training methods. Saarland resident Joerg Bastuck (top picture), apprentice social worker, has visited different establishments in the United States. Pictures: K1/Bastuck

http://www.sz-newsline.de/zgs/zgs14.htm

Scientology

Horror trip to Florida

Clearwater, USA
August 7, 2000
DER SPIEGEL 32/2000

Ursula Caberta, Director of the Work Group on Scientology in the Hamburg Interior Agency, had to leave the USA in a hurry. Caberta had wanted to spend a one-week vacation in Florida during which time she met with Scientology opponents Stacy Brooks and Bob Minton and took part in a press conference on the practices of the psycho-concern. Then she unexpectedly left the country one day earlier than planned. The journey to the Sunshine State had turned out to be a horror trip: Caberta had no sooner landed at the airport in Tampa than she was received by Scientologists screaming "Nazi go home"; she was subsequently followed at every turn. Then German software businessman Hubert Heller, who lives in the USA, sued Caberta for 75,000 dollars in damages. Allegedly a major contract from German company POS Partner Gmbh had slipped through his fingers after the company had presented him with a so-called "sect filter" - a "security statement" (Caberta) in which the signer asserts that he does not operate according to the "technology" of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

The German consul general in Florida urged that she leave: Caberta had had a summons to a deposition by Scientology attorneys shoved under her hotel room door. It said she would have to sit through a five-hour hearing in the business's center in Clearwater.

It had to do with the case of Lisa McPherson, who died under unexplained circumstances in the USA, to which Caberta said she could not make a statement. She left the country in secret "before anything worse happened." Caberta lost her belief in the American legal system. She had never experienced anything like that before. "One hears about that only in dictatorships."

[Picket photo from Spiegel magazine]

---

In related news ...

From: Bob Minton
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.scientology
Subject: Al Buttnor "on the cans" - Buttnor-on-cans.jpg (0/1)
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 10:57:42 -0400
Message-ID: <5hdgoss0lto0arq8u4efhdkjvm9vcvph16@4ax.com>

When Ursula Caberta arrived in Tampa 10 days or so ago, OSA's Al Buttnor was running the airport operation. This is a picture of him running said operation from the "Office of Special Affairs."

Bob Minton

Hammer attack on television team from REPORT Mainz in Scientology stronghold

Clearwater, Florida
February 7, 2000
OTS, http://www3.newsaktuell.de

Clearwater, USA

Research on Gottfried Helnwein ends with violence

A team from ARD magazine "REPORT Mainz" was attacked while doing research in Clearwater, Florida in front of artist Gottfried Helnwein's house by a man armed with a hammer. The camera man, Mark Bunker, was struck twice during the attack; his camera was damaged. He himself was unwounded. The REPORT team from "Suedwest" broadcasting was there to research the artist's Scientology background before the re-hearing of the Helnwein proceedings in Frankfurt Superior State Court. Journalist Peter Reichelt had previously managed to discover the location of Helnwein's secret residence in the vicinity of the Scientology Central in Clearwater.

Gottfried Helnwein, whose spectacular, hyperrealistic paintings found their way to the covers of "Stern," "Spiegel" and "Time," was described as a Scientologist by two associations critical of Scientology. Among other things, they accused him of being a "clergyman" in a group "which uses coercive hypnotic procedures with the help of a lie detector to destroy people's psyches to control them." In response Helnwein sued for a desist order, but was defeated in the second set of hearings before Frankfurt Superior State Court (case nr. 16 U 163/95). At the end of 1998, the Federal Constitutional Court overturned that judgment and referred the matter back to Frankfurt (case nr: 1BvR 1531/96. That is where the case is to be heard anew on February 17.

The core issue of whether Helnwein is actually a Scientologist, remains unanswered before the court. ARD magazine REPORT had managed to find previously unpresented evidence indicating Helnwein's membership in the Scientology organization.

When "REPORT Mainz" wanted to interview Helnwein, the door was closed on the camera team in front of Helnwein's house in Clearwater. Only a few seconds later, an attacker armed with a hammer and a pointed object came out of Helnwein's house and attacked the team on the open street. The district attorney's office in Clearwater is currently reviewing whether charges will be pressed against the attacker (case nr.: 00-2996). According to findings of REPORT Mainz, it involved a man who had been listed as a course graduate in a Scientology magazine in 1992. The incident has already been reported upon in detail in the U.S. media.

SWR Chief Editor and REPORT moderator Bernhard Nellessen said of the violent incident in Clearwater, "When reporters and their staff are attacked because they wanted to conduct an interview, it appears they have hit a nerve on the other side.

The piece on Helnwein and Scientology will be broadcast at 9 p.m. on Monday, February 7, on "REPORT Mainz."

Hammer man attacks ARD team while filming

Clearwater, USA
February 5, 2000
WAZ
http://www.waz.de/free/waz.nachrichten.welt.artikel.inhalt-000.html?news_id=458046

Mainz (dpa) A team from ARD magazine "Report Mainz" says that it was attacked by a man with a hammer in Clearwater (U.S. state of Florida) in front of artist Gottfried Helnwein's house. As reported by "Suedwest" (SWR) Broadcasting in Mainz, camera man Mark Bunker was hit twice and his camera was damaged. He, himself was not wounded. The "Report" team was trying to do some research into the artist's Scientology background before the new set of hearings in the Helnwein proceedings.

Journalist Peter Reichelt had managed to find out the secret location where Helnwein had been staying in the vicinity of Scientology Central in Clearwater.

Renowned painter Helnwein had been described in 1994 by two associations critical of Scientology as a Scientologist. Among other things, they accused him of being a "clergyman" of a group "which uses coercive hypnotic procedures with the help of a lie detector to destroy people's psyches to control them."

In response Helnwein sued for a desist order, but was soundly defeated in the second hearings in front of the Frankfurt Superior State Court. The Federal Constitutional Court overturned that judgment at the end of 1998 and referred the matter back to Frankfurt, where a new hearing is set for February 17.

The TV show about Helnwein and Scientology will be broadcast by ARD on Monday (February 7, 9 p.m.)

Scientology: Attack on ARD film team

Man hits camera with Hammer

Clearwater, USA
February 4, 2000
http://www.donau.zet.net/cgi-bin/mz/festm.pl?tl=newspol&fn=/MZArchiv/2000/Feb4/001-hammer-250-343315.htm
Mittelbayrische Zeitung

Mainz (dpa). According to a team from ARD magazine's "Report Mainz," they were attacked in front of artist Gottfried Helnwein by a man armed with a hammer while they were making inquiries in Clearwater, U.S. state of Florida. As "Suedwestrundfunk" (SWR) broadcasting reported yesterday in Mainz, camera man Mark Bunker was hit twice during the incident and his camera was damaged. He himself was said to be unharmed. According to the broadcast statement, the report team was researching the Scientology background of the artist before the next Helnwein proceeding at the Frankfurt Superior State Court. Helnwein was said to have been staying in the vicinity of the Scientology Center in Clearwater. The renowned painter had been described as a Scientologist by two associations critical of Scientology in 1994. Among other things, they accused him of being a "clergyman" of a group "which uses coercive hypnotic procedures with the help of a lie detector to destroy people's psyches to control them."

In response Helnwein sued for a cease-and-desist order, but was overturned in the second set of hearings before Frankfurt Superior State Court. At the end of 1998, the Federal Constitutional Court repealed that judgment and referred the matter back to Frankfurt. That was supposed to have been tried anew on February 17.

When "Report Mainz" wanted to interview Helnwein, the door was opened for the camera team. Only a few moments later an attacker armed with a hammer came out of Helnwein's house and attacked the team on the open street. It is now being reviewed to see if charges will be pressed against the man.

by Gomolka, Georg

Violent attack on SWR TV team of the ARD in front of Scientologist Gottfried Helnwein's house in the USA

Clearwater, Florida
February 3, 2000
Peter Reichelt

Clearwater, Florida - the Scientology Mecca
Tuesday, February 1, 2000

A dramatic incident occurred while filming an ARD show in REPORT about Scientologist Gottfried Helnwein on February 1, 2000 in front of his villa in Clearwater. Reporters Hans Michael Kassel, Peter Reichelt and their American camera man, Mark Bunker, were violently ambushed by a man who suddenly stormed out of Helnwein's villa, without warning, with a hammer in one hand and a knife-like object in the other. Even though Mark Bunker tried to block the blows, he was still hit repeatedly with the hammer. The hammer attack was filmed by Bunker and Reichelt as much as was possible. As a result of the hammer attack, Mark Bunker suffered from shock and his camera was damaged, but by a miracle, he was unhurt.

Kassel and Reichelt are back in Germany today.

The investigation (case no. 002996) by the Clearwater criminal police is currently going in high gear. So far it has been determined, according to a police statement, that the [unsuccessful] assassin may be one Scientologist Richard Bernard, who, according to Scientology magazine SOURCE Nr. 80, graduated a Scientology drug therapy course. He is said to be a close staff member of Gottfried Helnwein and to have fled back into his house after the attack. There he was found by the Clearwater police a short time later. The Clearwater district attorney is currently deciding whether to press charges against Richard Bernard. Scientology secret police chief Michael Rinder, who appeared in Clearwater shortly after the attack, expressed his regrets about the attack on the German television team in a midday interview with US television NBC channel 8 reporter Mark Douglas. He disputed that the hammer man, Bernard, was a member of the Scientology organization. According to the NBC reporter, Rinder had a lengthy discussion with Helnwein in his house about the incident. Rinder also disputed Helnwein being a member of Scientology's business management, but explicitly confirmed that Gottfried Helnwein was a long-term, active member of the Scientology organization, and was just staying in Clearwater for the purpose of "religious activities."

Up-to-date information on this case can be found on the internet at: http://www.xenutv.com/hammer.htm

Peter Reichelt, Mannheim
[contact info given]

The Scientology organization intends to bring charges against France before the UN Human Rights Commission

Los Angeles, USA
September 21, 1999
ZDF.MSNBC

The trial which opened in Marseille in Monday against seven sect members was a violation of the European Human Rights Convention and other international human rights treaties, stated Scientology President Heber C. Jentzsch in Los Angeles. The trial resulted from a charge by a former Scientology member from Marseille. An initial process was suspended in 1995. The current process was preceded by a scandal concerning records which were destroyed through oversight.

Paris/Los Angeles
September 21, 1999
KNA

Paris/Los Angeles The Scientology Organization intends to bring charges against France before the UN Human Rights Commission. The trial opened on Monday in the southern French city of Marseille was a violation of the European Human Rights Convention and other international human rights accords, stated Scientology President Heber C. Jentzsch in Los Angeles.

The seven are accused of fraud. They are alleged to have demanded outrageous prices for "purification cures" and other services. The defense pled to suspend the process because essential evidence was missing. The written material, according to Justice Ministry statements, had been mistakenly destroyed after an initial process against the Scientologists had been suspended in 1995 because of administrative errors. The court rejected their application. Another process against Scientology members for fraud is to begin in Paris on September 29. Records for the proceedings are also missing there. How they disappeared is unexplained.

KNA - 12270)

Shallow Victory for Scientology

Internet, USA
June 9, 1999
Heise newsticker

Visit http://www.heise.de and search their archive for the original article in German. Here is a review in English of the Heise article on Safe, the a.r.s. poster:

According to Heise Online, "AT&T company WorldNet handed over the customer data of a user called 'Safe' to the controversial Scientology sect; he had used his WorldNet address to post two sect internal documents to the usenet group alt.religion.scientology. In one message with the subject 'Disproving False Data ... Dead Agenting,' he quoted sect founder Ron Hubbard in the dealing with 'Black Propaganda'; in the second message he listed '274 Crimes in the Church of Scientology.'" Because of his postings, Bridge Publications alleged a copyright violation against Safe.

This is not the first time Scientology has attempting to interfere with Usenet.. In January 1995 Scientology attorney Helena Kobrin posted an order to remove the entire news group from the internet. She did not like the fact that the news group contained the word "Scientology." Later that year, cult lawyers tried to keep anonymous remailers from posting to the news group. Finally, according to Heise Online, " At the end of February internet book dealer Amazon gave way to pressure by Scientology and removed a book critical of the sect 'A Piece of Blue Sky' from its selection. However, after massive international protest, the book was reinstated in the Amazon catalog at the end of May. [1]. (wst [2]/c't)"

URL of the German Article:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/wst-09.06.99-001/

This is a rough translation of a 9 page letter in German from OSA's Kurt Weiland, another of Miscavige's criminal cronies. This letter is a scientology classic in that it is a dead agent letter based on Hubbard's Policy Letter called "How to handle black propaganda" which enumerates steps on how to compile a DA pack. Needless to say, this letter is full of lies and is symptomatic of Miscavige's panic level. - Bob Minton

[Following Kurt Weiland's dead agent letter is a short account by Stacy Brooks of the trip to Germany that triggered Scientology's attack.]

Los Angeles, CA
April 18, 2000
Kurt Weiland, Scientology Office of Special Affairs

Advance copy by fax

To the
Agency of the Interior
attn: Senator of the Interior
Johanniswall 4
20095 Hamburg

April 18, 2000

Subj: Robert Minton

Dear Mr. Senator,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On April 6 your agency called a press conference with the American citizen, Robert Minton, at which Minton was present with his lifetime companion for the time being, Stacy Brooks.

As you know, as a consequence of its predilection for dubious "sources" - including and above all in matters of Scientology - the Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution lost not only its good reputation, but ended up losing the justification for its own existence.

With that background I implore you not to take the following information lightly. Because it will clearly and distinctly show that Robert Minton and Stacy Brooks are anything but trustworthy.

Shortly before your agency put Robert Minton on display before the Hamburg press, the well-known London Sunday Times revealed an international money-laundering scandal dealing with the [illegible] sum of 12 billion marks [approx $8 billion] out of Nigeria and in which Minton is apparently a key figure.

6331 Hollywood Blvd, Suite 1200, Los Angeles, CA 90028-6329 Phone: (323) 960-3500 Fax: (323) 960-3508/09

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Under the regime of the former military dictatorship in Nigeria, he personally mismanaged several tens of millions of dollars into his own pocket past a starving population that is among the poorest in the world. Minton's role in this unprecedented case of organized criminality is currently under investigation by the newly elected democratic government of Nigeria.

The Time also reported that in the course of uncovering the scandal, foreign bank accounts had already been frozen. (enclosure 1)

Stacy Brooks, who accompanied Minton to Germany, discredited herself before the eyes of the American public in her characteristic crying. While she feigned tears and held hands with the man who was her husband at the time and made accusations about the Scientology Church on American television that it was "interfering" in their marriage, at the same time she was already the secret and well paid lover of Robert Minton.

[illegible], Brooks and Minton lied to the American media repeatedly about their connections until the U.S. TV program "Dateline [illegible]" finally brought the truth to light nationwide in December 1999.

The deciding factor here is not the extramarital relations as such, on which basis Minton's family was finally destroyed. It is more the unscrupulous lies which both told the media in their attempt to slander the Scientology Church - until they had no other choice but to admit to the truth.

This behavior is symptomatic [for them] and is part of a long list of exposed and documented lies. Minton's fairy tale stories for the Hamburg press were effortlessly [illegible] there. It is simple to construct lies. A new one can be invented every day. If journalists [illegible] and employees of the civil service do not challenge or even fundamentally check the accuracy of such statements, then they will rapidly turn into willing mouthpieces for slanderers.

Robert Minton, moreover, comes up with another reason for his activities against Scientology, depending upon the country in which he happens to be. Such [illegible] contradictions are not as directly relevant as are their roots.

When he was only 17 years old, Minton found himself in the padded cell of a psychiatric institution. Since then he has left his noteworthy and [illegible] track of violence throughout his life and the lives of other people. To this day he finds himself in psychiatric [illegible].

This tendency towards violence has been impressively documented, a tendency which did not pause even for his two ex-wives. Endeavors in the scope of a sort of "anger-

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Therapy" brought no change in his behavior. Relevant to the preceding case is certainly the fact that he has twice been arrested for physical attacks upon Scientologists. His last violent attack led to a charge being placed by the presiding state attorney's office. On this account, Minton must answer before a court in the United States at the end of May.

He has constantly been threatening Scientologists with violence, not only over the internet, but all over other public [illegible], and in one case he even fired a shotgun over the heads of members of the Scientology Church.

Minton leaves nothing untried in [illegible] this [illegible]. In Hamburg, where he could feel certain that lines of his slanderous statements would be questioned, he made the bizarre claim that the Scientology Church was hoarding weapons and was issuing rocket launchers to its members. But the only person who has made an appearance with weapons is Minton himself.

Naturally he also does not mention that he has never been a member of the Church and has never encountered the church policies which he pretends to know about.

The church institution which he was referring to lies directly adjacent to a public golf course and is visited every Sunday for "open house" by numerous people from the area and, additionally, is used [illegible] and regularly by the local residents. This use ranges from a sports event for the seniors club to Christmas festivities for the local police station. Numerous representatives of executive agencies at the local as well as the national level have visited this church institution and gotten a look at it. Not one of them went without praising the Scientology Church for its contribution to and its inspiring role in the formation of community life

All the Scientology Churches which Minton's imputations refer to are established members of the community whose social involvement has been recognized by agencies including the California police. High police officials have had repeated words of praise for the work of Scientologists in the areas of education and in drug rehabilitation, and also for the fact that the Church has collected thousands of dollars for charitable purposes.

One example: on the occasion of his retirement after 28 years of service, Captain Glenn Ackerman of the Los Angeles Police Department wrote to the Scientology Church and thanked them for "the enduring role which you have played in realizing security concepts in Hollywood. Perhaps the most significant was the continuing leading position of the Church in the support of our various projects with the goal of improving community life ... Your participation in our Neighborhood Watch Programs and your untiring efforts to make us aware of relevant problem areas for our activity have contributed substantially to making Hollywood safer." (enclosure 2)

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Minton's claims are not only absurd when one takes the facts into account of the long-term [illegible] of the Scientology Church for the interests of executive agencies, they fall into the grotesque when one takes into account the professed teachings of the Church as to the aspects of criminality and prosecution and considers the consequent worldwide support of the Scientology Church for Criminon, one of the most successful rehabilitation programs for convicted felons, which is based upon the works of Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard.

If you believe you have to use "sources" like Robert Minton and Stacy Brooks, then you should also know what the price for all that would be. The Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution has already shamelessly disgraced itself and is in the process of self-dissolution. The Baden-Wuerttemberg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) has even made international headlines with its use of "reliable sources" in Switzerland and, even if not deliberately, has shown the entire world that, for LfV Stuttgart, the boundary between Constitutional protection and Constitutional transgression is just as flexible as the one between Germany and Switzerland.

The one responsible for bringing these "witnesses" to the Hamburg Interior Agency is Mrs. Ursula Caberta of the so-called "Work Group on Scientology." Due to a lack of "witnesses" from Germany, she thinks she can justify the existence of her office by importing the Mintons and Brooks of this world at taxpayer expense.

This is not the first time that foreigners pretending to be informants have sought refuge in Mrs. Caberta, including one whose evident untrustworthiness and criminal antecedents were deliberately withheld from the German public.

By way of example, in October 1997, she used taxpayers' money to fly in a "source" who had fled to Canada to escape an arrest warrant in the United States. The arrest warrant has been and still is valid; the person to whom the warrant applies had simply "slipped out the back door." He was and is under a restraining order for violating a court order regarding his anti-Scientology activities and is under summons for contempt of court. As a result he is confronted with a court order to pay more than one million marks to the Scientology Church. As soon as he sets foot on California soil, he will be arrested.

Without a second thought, Caberta introduced this man to the German media as a "reliable source" regarding Scientology - just like she is allegedly trying again with Minton and Brooks.

Mrs. Caberta, of course, does not mention such facts, presumably not within the agency, either. It is only proper if I, in this regard, am less reserved and communicate to you yet several more more details about Minton and Brooks as follows:

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Violence and Threats of Violence by Bob Minton

As already mentioned, extensive proof exists of Minton's mental instability and tendency towards violence.

In September 1998, for example, he attacked a Scientologist in Boston. The police arrested him for using a dangerous weapon to commit bodily harm. (enclosure 3)

In October 1999, he attacked a Scientologist in front of our Church in Clearwater, Florida. The authorities charged him with bodily injury and issued an instruction to forcefully suggest to Minton that he cease his persecution and attacks in the future against Scientologists. (enclosure 4)

Minton had already fired a shotgun over the heads of members of the Scientology Church. (He justified this act to the media by saying that he had shot because he "had not been himself." He said he had "wrongly" been accused of having an affair with Stacy Brooks. As was later revealed in a national television broadcast, Minton and Brooks were lying the whole time and were very probably having a secret affair. (enclosure 5)

Minton has repeatedly threatened Scientologists with force. In one internet post in August 1998, he threatened to murder any Scientologist who should happen by his property. In cynical contemptuousness for human life, he encouraged members of the Church to make such a visit, because he, as he wrote "was getting a lot of target practice ... with various weapons." (enclosure 6)

On another occasion he threatened Scientologists with an axe and threw stones at a car which he presumed were Scientologists.

He physically assaulted a female Scientologist who had demonstrated against his attacks.

On his own web site on the internet upon which he proudly presents himself is a picture of him swinging a Samurai sword dipped in blood-red paint. The photograph is under the words, "Bob Minton's Plan for all Scientologists." (enclosure 7)

It is a matter of record that fits of anger and psychiatric treatment is a dangerous combination as the rising trend of senseless violent crimes in the USA during and after psychiatric treatment extensively proves. This connection has also been observed by the courts. They have instructed Minton that he may no longer approach Scientologists or Scientology Churches.

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Financing Copyright Violations

Robert Minton's explanations about his motivation for financing people who are "against" the Scientology Church do not correspond to reality. It is more of a matter that he deliberately finances people who have been charged and convicted of commercial crimes who have lost before the courts.

This [illegible] conduct of subsidizing illegal and, in any respect, suspicious activity clearly shows his concept of the law and what really matters to him.

For example, he financed a certain Arnaldo Lerma, who was legally prohibited in April 1997 by an American district court from violating the copyrights of the Scientology Church. Minton gave Lerma $60,000 AFTER he had lost in court. Acceptance would suggest that Lerma, with this money, would be in the position to [illegible] his illegal violations and to [illegible] the court judgement.

Minton also gave copyright violator Grady Ward over $40,000. His violations against copyright were so serious that a federal court set a punitive settlement of $3 million. Ward is under a legally valid restraining order and is making monthly payments to the Church for the rest of his life. (enclosure 9). He is now working for Minton, for which he receives a sum of $2,500 per month.

Minton also transferred $750,000 to an association by the name of FACTNet, which was taken to court for copyright violations of Scientology materials. Only when FACTNet could no longer escape conviction and confronted by heavy sanctions by the court did the accused agree to cease further violations of the Church's copyrights and to pay a million dollars in damages should there be a repeat occurrence.

Minton also financed the paid witness, Jesse Prince, whose untrustworthiness I have already described for you and the other Offices for Constitutional Protection on November 12, 1999.

A particularly significant example of Minton's dealing with the truth is, moreover, the "McPherson Case" which he sold to the media at the Hamburg press conference. Minton suppressed what is surely the most important detail of this court proceeding: namely, that the presiding court doctor recently changed her findings on the case, based on a subsequent review of the scientific, medical evidence by renowned experts and came to the conclusion that the death of Mrs. McPherson could be traced back to an embolism which had been loosened by an accident and which had lodged in one of her lungs, as a result. (enclosure 10)

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Minton was well aware of this complete alteration of the basis of the process when he spoke about it in Hamburg.

He would not have mentioned it because he has, in the meantime, invested $850,000 in a civil suit against the Church in the McPherson matter, and the now contradictory [illegible] the basis - financed with this money in any case - of a campaign of libel [illegible] the Church.

Stacy Brooks

At the press conference of April 6, Stacy Brooks also introduced her equally fantastic claims regarding her Church membership and how she said she had been treated during that time.

Indeed, she has already admitted that the statements circulated by her are untrue, but she refuses to stop spreading them as long as the church does not pay "for her silence." (enclosure 11)

Brooks also receives money for "witness testimony" against Scientology in court - until she finally was convicted in a cross-examination of being a perjurer. Since that time she can no longer be found on the witness stand, for that she uses press conferences. But then only when she can be sure that her imputations will not be questioned. A condition which she made [illegible] in Hamburg.

A completely characteristic event: in Stacy Brooks' testimony before an American court the former California Superior Court Judge David Eagleton noticed her total lack of competency in the area of organized church structure and commented that "she did not know the difference between a 'director' and an 'executive officer'." In fact, that is right, but that does not stop her from bringing up untrue accusations before an uncritical press in Hamburg.

The inability of Stacy Brooks to grasp basic corporate duties in her own position followed her during the entire period she was on the official staff of the Church.

She had to give up her office as minister of the Church because she violated fundamental ethical obligations associated with it, as she did later in her work with "Freedom," the human rights magazine of the Scientology Church. There she secretly attempted to [illegible] the publication for purposes of profit and to "mask out [?]" the/her connection to the Church.

Brooks claims to possess "knowledge" about David Miscavige, the Chairman of the Board of the so-called Religious Technology Center. The fact is that for a few months in the early 80s

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she was employed in the same organization as he. However, she was dismissed for incompetence.

Brooks continues to assert that she had participated in the efforts of the Church to obtain tax exemption for the Scientology Churches in the United States. Actually, she left the Church in 1989, two years before the extensive review of the American IRS tax agency had even begun, and four years before it had been consummated. This review, and not the fantastic [illegible] of a Stacy Brooks, at the end of 1993 finally led to the granting of tax exemption for all American Scientology Churches and associated organizations.

So much for Stacy Brooks.

The close ranks between [illegible, "husband"?] Minton and representatives of German ministries makes a mockery of all democratic values. Minton has earned his money in unscrupulous business which can hardly be outdone in its racist and humanly contemptuous dimensions. What kind of person does it take to make a fortune from the poverty and suffering of a country like Nigeria? Anyone who sells such people as "credible" no longer knows what he is doing. In that way or similarly have the presiding representatives of government agencies and ministries lost any appearance of international human rights and fundamental [illegible] state neutrality in religious issues.

I would like to bid you, in all urgency, to not simply ignore the facts detailed in my letter. You will understand that a continued alliance of your or other German authorities with Robert Minton and Stacy Brooks will be regarded by the Scientology Church to the degree that it would be if if it were an [illegible] campaign motivated only by evil against the German Scientology Church.

You can be assured that the Church will take the steps necessary in the scope of legal and publishing limits in order to maintain the rights of its congregation members in the Federal Republic [of Germany].

In closing, I would like to shortly address the anti-constitutional "Work Group on Scientology" in your agency and its director, Ursula Caberta - a "human rights violator," as the Scientology Church Hamburg may say based on the judgment of the Hamburg Superior Court.

In the past we have more than once pointed out the situation that Mrs. Caberta and your office waste more than a million marks a year of the taxpayers' money.

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I am asking you: for what? In order to violate basic rights of the Constitution and in order to bring harm to German citizens and their families?

The day will come when the activities of Mrs. Caberta will be seen for what they are: an extension of the Inquisition which hunts down people and destroys their existence and has brought shame not only to Hamburg, but to all of Germany.

When one additionally takes into consideration that she issues con men like Robert Minton the [illegible] seal of the Hamburg Interior Agency, and not just one time, that shows all the much more that Ursula Caberta is not needed.

Therefore we ask that Mrs. Caberta be immediately relieved of her duties.

Cordially,

/signature/
Kurt Weiland
Member of the Board of Directors
Church of Scientology International

Distribution:
State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution
State Interior Ministers and Senators
Federal Minister of the Interior
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

[Here is Stacy Brooks' account of their trip, which she wrote on April 22, 2000:

Bob Minton and I just spent ten days in Europe. We went to Cologne, Hamburg and Paris. This was the first time representatives of the Lisa McPherson Trust have had a chance to meet our counterparts in other countries. We discussed how we are dealing with the Church of Scientology and how we can coordinate our actions. We discovered that we are all very much in agreement with how the situation must be approached. Bob and I were both disturbed at reports from both Germany and France about actions that have been taken by the United States against those countries for their position on Scientology. We could only conclude from these reports that the Clinton administration has been manipulated into forwarding Scientology's global agenda. Clearly Scientology's strategic plan is to position themselves as the victims of "religious discrimination" wherever they are having trouble and then get the United States to condemn the country involved. Although our visits to Germany and France were brief, it gave us a chance to broaden our perspective beyond the United States and see how our country is being used.

First we had a brief stay in Cologne during which Bob participated in a live television program. The host of the show was Hans Meiser, a well-known television personality in Northern Germany. The others on the show were Dr. Norbert Blum, former minister of labor and a long-term critic of Scientology, and Tanya Neujahr, a former Sea Org member at St. Hill who, at the age of 17, was put in charge of security for several isolation watches (known as "baby watches" in England). Tanya's boss for these isolation watches was a thirteen-year-old girl. Later Tanya tried to escape from St. Hill and was dragged, kicking and screaming, into a room where she was locked up and kept in isolation herself for several days, until she agreed to write up her overts and withholds (O/Ws) and remain at St. Hill.

Also on the show were Sabine Weber, head of OSA in Munich, and two other German Scientologists. Bob had to speak through a translator so he was able to answer Hans Meiser's question about harassment, but he wasn't able to participate in the heated argument that took up most of the show. Dr. Blum was very good at responding to the Scientologists' attempts to portray themselves as victims of religious discrimination. He made it clear that religion has nothing to do with the concerns the German government has about Scientology.

After the television program was over, we took a train with Tanya to Hamburg, where we were met at the station by Ursula Caberta, head of the Scientology task force for the state of Hamburg. It was the first time either of us had met her and it was truly a pleasure. She is a delightful, charming person, extremely perceptive and well-educated about Scientology, and she was a gracious hostess for the duration of our visit to Hamburg. She arranged a press conference so that the German media could have a chance to hear a U.S. perspective on Scientology. Ursula, Bob and I all spoke to a room filled with German media. Several newspaper articles resulted, as well as television spots on the major stations.

The next day we attended a court hearing with Mrs. Caberta, the purpose of which was to determine if Scientology had the right to sue Mrs. Caberta for responding to a number of businesses that had asked her to provide them with a method of protecting themselves from being used by Scientology as a recruitment pool. There are WISE groups in Germany that operate the same way Sterling Management, Hollander Consultants and other so-called business consulting groups do in the United States. They pretend to be offering business consulting to companies - such as dentists, veterinarians or chiropractors - when in fact they are nothing more than front groups for the Church of Scientology to get people to buy Scientology auditing and courses. Mrs. Caberta's task force provided a form for business consulting firms to fill out which discloses to the prospective company whether or not the consulting firm plans to introduce the business technology of L. Ron Hubbard to the prospective company.

Scientology wanted the case dismissed and argued at length about religious discrimination, repeatedly comparing the Scientologists to the Jews under Hitler. However the judge ruled that their suit against Mrs. Caberta should be dismissed because there was no evidence of religious discrimination. A number of newspaper articles were published about this ruling.

After several extremely informative days in Hamburg, we flew to Paris for a meeting arranged by Roger Gonnet with Denis Barthelemy, secretary general of the Mission Interministerielle de Lutte Contre les Sectes, or (forgive my rough translation, Roger!) the interministerial task force against cults. Our meeting with Monsieur Barthelemy went very well and was also extremely informative. Roger also arranged many media interviews for us in Paris. It was a pleasure to have a chance to spend time with Roger, and he was a wonderful host to us while we were in Paris.

Perhaps the most important thing I want to communicate to everyone on a.r.s. is how exciting it is to find out that our counterparts in Germany and France share our perspective about the dangers of Scientology and about what needs to be done about it. We discussed with Ursula Caberta and Denis Barthelemy the importance of separating the belief system from the practices of Scientology. We found that they are in complete agreement that Scientologists are perfectly free to believe in the efficacy of the tech and any other aspect of Scientology they wish to embrace. But they feel strongly, as we do, that no one, including a Scientologist, has the right to violate anyone's civil or human rights or to abuse or deceive anyone for the sake of achieving their own agenda. I think it is also accurate to say that we are all in accord that Scientology is a political movement, and that its current strategy of parading itself as a victim of religious discrimination is nothing more than a transparent ploy. The fact that the United States government is currently forwarding this particular strategy -- whether wittingly or unwittingly -- does not make it true.

The United States government has harshly criticized both the German and the French governments, and it became obvious during our discussions that the criticisms have been extremely unfair. One can only assume that the erroneous information upon which these criticisms have been based has come from either Scientologists or Scientology-paid lobbyists, attorneys or private investigators. Whoever the particular source, it seems clear that the U.S. government is being manipulated and used by Scientology. Bob and I both left Europe with a determination to educate our own government officials about the nature of the cult that is manipulating them. Scientology has no more respect for the U.S. government than they do for any other "wog" government in the world. The only difference is that U.S. government is allowing Scientology to manipulate them while the German and French governments, among others, are not. What our U.S. officials, from President Clinton to the State Department to the legislature, do not realize is that they are nothing but fools as far as David Miscavige and his puppets are concerned. They are only useful to the degree that they are willing to further the Scientology agenda of world domination.

Although Scientology is crying "religious discrimination" in both Germany and France -- just as they are doing in both the criminal and civil cases concerning Lisa McPherson's death in the U.S. -- neither Germany nor France are in any way targeting Scientology for its belief system, any more than the state of Florida is doing so in the criminal case or Lisa's family is doing in the civil case. This cry of "religious discrimination" is simply Scientology's strategy for manipulating the governments and the courts of all three countries.

But "religious discrimination" has nothing to do with what is happening. It is Scientology's abuse and deception, its criminal conduct, harassment and intimidation of its own members and of its critics that is of concern to the German government and the French government, just as these are the concerns of the state of Florida, Lisa McPherson's family, and the Lisa McPherson Trust. What is most disturbing of all is that the U.S. government is not only not doing anything to stop these practices; it is actually protecting Scientology and allowing it to continue its abuse and deception with the government's blessing.

We arrived back in the United States with a determination to change our government's perspective about Scientology, not only for the sake of our own country but also for the sake of the rest of the world. It is imperative that an education campaign be launched to inform all three branches of our government about the true nature of Scientology. We must also educate the United Nations. We must find other organizations whose concerns for civil and human rights will cause them to be interested in learning the truth about Scientology's actual agenda.

We at the Lisa McPherson Trust have been profoundly disturbed at the degree to which Scientology -- through intimidation, threats, harassment and other forms of pressure -- have been able to gain such a large amount of control over the government, police force, the local businesses, and the citizens of Clearwater. This is indeed a frightening level of political corruption in what we are proud to call a free country.

The LMT is determined to halt the acquisition of further corrupt political power by this dangerously abusive and deceptive organization.

Stacy Brooks

Scientology

by Beate Osterhoff

From: "GP Magazin. Zeitschrift der IG Chemie-Papier-Keramik, Ausgabe Sachsen-Anhalt/Thüringen. S. 18."
("GP Magazin." Magazine for the Chemistry-Paper-Ceramics Community of Interests, Sachsen/Thuringen edition. p. 18.)

November, 1994

The business sect of Scientology has taken sides against the [German] Federal Republic with full-page advertisements in American newspapers. The point of the campaign: that the federal government is said to be promoting discrimination of religious minorities. One of the alleged victims is supposed to be, of course, Scientology. Meanwhile [German] citizens regard the activities of the Hubbard followers with increasing suspicion. A report by Beate Osterhoff.

Regardless of whether it's searching for a place to live or unemployment, Scientology does not leave anybody out when it comes to making money. After the sect adherents quickly got themselves noticed by the district attorney with their 'Professional Homefinders' (Prowofi), Scientology has caught scent of a new business. Hardly had Bonn permitted private employment agents, than the organization became active. "The private employment agency has become a pillar of support for Scientology," said the Baden-Wurttemberg SPD State Representative Carla Bregenzer. According to her statement, Scientology was active in brokering positions of over 100,000 marks per year (about $70,000). The new regulation now permits a private agency to negotiate for positions under 100,000 marks. That should make work easier for Scientology.

This time, however, the Hubbard followers were not successful in taking over a new market with no problem. Federal Labor Secretary Norbert Blum (CDU), complains the sect, is said to have instructed the presidents of the Nurnberg federal community of labor to deny Scientology members licenses for private employment agencies. That is an "affront to religion," inveigh the adherents. However, since Scientology almost always operates using dummy companies and straw men, it is not likely that sect members will be granted licenses as such.

In the meantime, information and a series of publications about the machinations of the business sect have continued to raise the suspicions of citizens. This was how "Eurosport", the television broadcasting company, pulled its advertisements for the Scientology organization from their programming. The broadcaster gave the reason as "partly because of negative audience reaction," and because of the protest of Renate Rennebach, the SPD Federal Assembly Sect Commissioner. The television spots were originally supposed to be broadcast until the end of September. An "immediate stop to these spots", argued Rennebach, is "urgently called for in light of the danger from Scientology, and also for our common welfare." She referred to a decision by the Minister of Interior from May of this year. According to that decision, Scientology possesses, under the cover of a religious community, "elements of economical criminality and of psycho-terrorism against their members."

The sect must also chalk up a defeat from another side. The chairperson of "Robin Direkt", the security community, published her book, "Scientology - Ich klage an." ("Scientology - I accuse you"). Within the first few weeks the first printing of 15,000 copies were sold out. At which time the sect sued the publisher and author for 100,000 marks damages. In order to increase the sales, according to the sect, the publisher knowingly marketed "a fabricated murder plot by a psychopathic criminal." In one chapter, Renate Hartwig told of a woman who, while she was in Scientology, is said to have planned the murder of the author and of other critics. The publishers have stated that the book was "researched with the greatest of care," and that they first learned of the complaint from the press.

In order to do something about ever increasing criticism, Scientology has now started a campaign in the USA. In the New York Times and the Washington Post, according to a statement by the sect, Scientology "brings attention to the growing fascism in Germany. On full-page ads, the active role of the German government will be unmasked in their advancement of intolerance, discrimination and violence against religious and ethnic minorities in Germany." Naturally, the sect counts itself among those minorities most discriminated against.

Scientology Sacrificial Lamb

From: "TAZ"
October 12, 1994

The Scientology Church warns of a new Nazi Germany in a full-page advertisement in the USA

by Felix Kreutzer

Berlin (taz) - For four weeks New York Times and Washington Post readers have received, every Thursday, full-page reports of horror from "Today's Germany." Burning synagogues, attacks on foreigners and prohibition of performances by foreign musicians round out the picture. Enlarged photographs show marching Nazi soldiers carrying banners bearing swastikas, harmless musicians with cellos and saxophones under a rubber-stamped text "Verboten", or pictures from the Dachau concentration camp. The accompanying text warns: "Never again!", "Religious Apartheid?"

The readers of both these respected newspapers are invited to write to Kohl, Kinkel and Clinton and "to not ignore the warning signals from a country which has unleashed two world wars in this century."

Underwriter and author of the effectively placed advertisements is the international Association of Scientologists, the mother organization of the German Scientology Church - a "sect" which, according to Norbert Reinke, department head in the Ministry for Women and Youth, "exploits its members under the cover of religion and by the employment of economic criminality and psycho-terrorism."

The Scientologists see themselves in their advertisements as a lamb: beside Jews, banned musicians and persecuted foreigners, the group lines up next to those who have been oppressed in Germany. Their complaint: "in Germany nobody whose religious views are incompatible with those of the government can be a member of a political party. In their annual meeting in Dresden, the CDU decided that membership in the Scientology Church is incompatible with membership in the party - incomprehensible in any other democracy." Besides the CDU, the SPD, FDP and the "Statt" party have also excluded Scientologists from their ranks. "The rest of the world must learn that the German government has reverted to the old traditions of prejudice and coercement," stated the Hamburg Scientology Center in a press release.

In reaction to the advertisement campaign in the USA, the Office of the Bundes Chancellor has received 2,000 letters. The press agents of the "Scientology-Kirche Deutschland e.V." talk about 5,000 letters. The letters are forwarded from the Bundes Chancellor's Office to the Department of Youth Sects and Psycho-groups in the Ministry for Youth and Family. According to department chief Weitzel, they have not been answered because of "their uniform content." The Chancellor is said to receive a monthly summary. In the Foreign Office, the damage to the image of Germany is seen as slight.

"Legal counter-actions or counter-advertisements" are not planned "so as to not afford the Scientologists any more publicity; such a campaign disqualifies itself," is heard from the government circles. Dr. Uwe Mazura, vice speaker of the CDU, said in a presentation that the CDU brochures do not contain pictures of squashed insects, as has been stated in the advertisements.

The German consulate in the USA reports little reaction to the advertisement campaign. In a letter to the New York Times, Abraham Foxman of the Anti- Defamation League characterized the advertisements as "exaggerated and unjustified." Also, the Jewish publication, "Jewish Week," complained in an article about the equal placement of the Jews persecuted by the Nazis on one side and the decision of incompatibility by the CDU on the other side. That was said to be an "insult to all victims of the Holocaust."

According to its own statement, the Scientology Church has 30,000 members in Germany and 8,000,000 worldwide. Scientology celebrities include actor Tom Cruise and Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter and newly wed wife of Michael Jackson.

USA renews concern about anti-Scientology "sect filter"

Washington, USA
September 5, 2000
dpa

Washington (dpa) - The USA renewed its criticism of the use of "sect filters" against the mentality of Scientology adherents in Germany. That was said to be a violation of their rights, stressed the U.S. State Department on Tuesday in its annual report on religious freedom in the world. "Sect filter" is used to describe statements in which job applicants must verify that they are not members of Scientology or of similar organizations.

The State Department emphasized that the treatment of Scientologists was the subject of much discussion in the German government. Scientology is under observation by Constitutional Security in Germany for suspicion of totalitarian endeavors.

34 countries were listed in the report for obstructing religious freedom. The nations of Burma, China, Iran, Iraq and Sudan, in particular, continued to cause concern because of persecution of religious minorities.

China was strongly criticized for its action against members of the Falun Gong movement and Tibetan Buddhists. The "report for religious freedoms had worsened considerably" there. Fault was also found with activities in the partial Yugoslavian republic of Serbia and in the area of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban militia, neither of which were acknowledged as "states." dpa hw xx rb

U.S. administration concerned about German "sect filters" in contracts

Washington, USA
May 2, 2000
dpa

Washington (dpa) - The USA has expressed concern about the so-called German "sect filter" in the awarding of government contracts. The measure which is directed against the controversial Scientology Church could lead to discrimination against American companies, emphasized U.S. Trade Commissioner Charlene Barshefsky on Monday (local time) in Washington in her latest annual report. The President of the Church of Scientology, Heber C. Jentzsch, described the step on Tuesday as a "clear condemnation" of German behavior.

The Scientologists went on to stress in a commentary that this was a "considerable increase" of American criticism. They said it also demonstrated the government's point of view that the German method of operation could endanger American trade. The U.S. State Department has previously exercised criticism of the treatment of Scientologists in its annual reports.

The trade commissioner urged that the U.S. government express its concern over the "sect filter" in use by the German side. It was said that a company must confirm that it rejected the principles of the Scientologists and that it did not require its staff to participate in courses or seminars from the sect. It was also said that those who did not sign would not be considered and that contracts could be immediately cancelled.

Although the regulation on the federal level only applied to consulting and education contracts and its exact effect was unclear, it was said that institutions of the states and even private companies used it to a large degree. At least one important American provider was said to have been subjected to a review process which result from prior business practices. dpa hw xx hi