2.7.2007 von Caroline.

AAP news wire, Tue 06 May 1997
By Shoshana Lenthen of AAP

SYDNEY, May 6 AAP - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl ignored protesters wearing Nazi SS uniforms as he boarded a boat for a Sydney Harbour cruise this afternoon.

A group of 30 noisy demonstrators, members of the Australian branch of the US-based Church of Scientology, some wearing Nazi SS uniforms and carrying placards reading ‘Hands Off Our Religion’ and ‘Is Germany Really A Free Country?’, heckled Dr Kohl before his cruise.

One protester, Liz Reeve, said the German government was orchestrating a campaign against Scientologists, even taking their children from schools.

“That shouldn’t be happening to children in any country,” Ms Reeve said.

The German Scientologists have accused the German government of discrimination, by not recognising it as a legitimate religion with the attendant tax advantages.

The chancellor and his delegation, including 15 German business leaders, were rushed past the protesters to the Captain Cook cruiser, the John Cadman II.

On board, NSW Premier Bob Carr showed off his ministers including “his youngest one”, Sports Minister Gabrielle Harrison.

Others introduced were Roads Minister Carl Scully, Community Services Minister Ron Dyer and Sydney Lord Mayor Frank Sartor.

Earlier, Mr Carr introduced Opposition Leader Peter Collins to Dr Kohl as as “leader of the conservative bloc” of parliament, “like your Christian Social Democrats”.

Mr Carr was to have given a short speech welcoming the chancellor but for reasons not told to accompanying media this was put aside, probably so Dr Kohl could enjoy a meal of Tasmanian salmon, washed down with Tyrells Champagne, while taking in the views of a sunny Sydney harbour.

Other guests on board included former prime minister Paul Keating - who is believed to have talked about German architechure with the chancellor - NSW Chief Justice Murray Gleeson and former NSW premiers Neville Wran and Barrie Unsworth.

After the cruise, Dr Kohl was shown around the Sydney Opera House.

Despite a threat of rain earlier today, warm sunshine greeted Dr Kohl on his arrival in Sydney for the final leg of his five-day Australian tour.

A police motorcade escorted the chancellor through the streets of Sydney to the Inter-Continental Hotel, where he and his entourage are staying.

Later today, Dr Kohl and the man described as his likely successor, education and finance minister Dr Jurgen Ruttgers, will host a series of business meetings with the Australian-German Chamber of Commerce.

Dr Kohl will host a function for 1,000 people at the Sheraton on the Park Hotel tonight.

Source: http://www.suburbia.net/~fun/scn/press/970506-aap.html

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2.7.2007 von Caroline.

Scientology and Germany
Understanding the German View of Scientology

The German government considers the Scientology organization a commercial enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and an extreme dislike of any criticism. The government is also concerned that the organization’s totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to Germany’s democratic society. Several kinds of evidence have influenced this view of Scientology, including the organization’s activities in the United States.

[…]

Full statement: http://www.germany.info/relaunch/info/archives/background/scientology.html

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2.7.2007 von Caroline.

Mon Jul 2, 2007 12:11PM BST

By Louis Charbonneau

BERLIN (Reuters) - Makers of a movie about a failed plot to kill Adolf Hitler will not be allowed to use a German memorial site but this is unrelated to the fact that star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.

Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung had made it clear the filmmakers could not shoot at any military sites as long as Cruise plays hero Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg because of his link to Scientology. Berlin regards it as a cult masquerading as a religion to make money, a view Scientology leaders reject.

[…]

The American actor has had problems with German authorities due to his membership in Scientology in the past. Stauffenberg’s eldest son said he did not want Cruise to portray his father.

[…]

Full article: http://uk.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUKL0255346820070702

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1.7.2007 von Caroline.

The Mail - London
29 July 1984

The teenage bullies who reign supreme over a sinister cult.

It is the Children of Scientology who run the cult today, strutting young acolytes who shout abuse and instil other followers an awe bordering on fear. “Some of them act like the Nazi youth,” says 14-year-old Gulliver Smithers who walked out of Saint Hill, the cult’s East Grinstead headquarters in disgust six weeks ago. “they are arrogant bullies who must be obeyed.”

They wear U.S naval uniform with a distinctive blue lanyard around the neck which marks them out as members of the Commodore Messenger Organisation - children to be feared.

Devotion

The Messengers are young, very young. Three are just 14, one is only nine. Even their leaders are only in their early 20’s - children weaned into adulthood on Scientology and devotion to the cult’s founder L Ron Hubbard.

They have been given the reins of power by a signed edict from Hubbard, a recluse whom many believe may be dead. It says that no Messenger may be told what to do, unless by a senior within the group. At Saint Hill the children are all powerful. They hand out work targets, jobs to be done within a specific time. Failure to obey or achieve can mean a black mark on internal files and loss of status. Worse, offenders receive harsh work duties. A Messenger can hand out “sentences” of up to six months’ menial labour. Gulliver said: “This means six months, seven days a week, cleaning or emptying rubbish. The work begins at seven in the morning and goes on until four in the afternoon with only two half-hour breaks.

Now he is an outcast of the organisation, working in a community of other disaffected Scientologists at a country house near Aberdeen. In his sparsely furnished room in the Scottish hideaway he keeps his “E-meter”, used by Scientologists to measure electrical impulses around the body and thus, they claim, diagnose what is troubling fellow cult members.

Gulliver said: “I knew right from the start what sort of power they had and what I could demand from other Scientologists. I tried not to be too unpleasant, but others above us in the Messengers shouted and demanded results. the kids felt they had to do the same. They are strange children, who have led a life sheltered within Scientology. Some are not very clever and the church has influenced their minds.”

Struggle

The Messengers were born out of a power struggle in the late 70s when the leadership was overthrown by a new second generation of “Super-Scientologists”.

One to suffer under the change was American Jay Hurwitz, 42, of Sharpthorne, Sussex, a former senior executive at Saint Hill, and another independent Scientologist, who agreed with the Hitler youth description. He revealed that the changes had also resulted in financial upheavals and a sharp increase in course fees. Just over 12 hours of Scientology training now can cost nearly UKP5,000.

Morale at Saint Hill is low. The dormitory accommodation, poor food and wages of UKP4 a week, sometimes unpaid, give the place the air of a run-down youth hostel, Gulliver says. And documents handed to The Mail on Sunday confirm that the crude practice of “disconnection” -cutting off a dissenter from family and friends -has been reintroduced. “Disconnection is part of everyday life at Saint Hill.” Gulliver said. “It goes round by word of mouth when someone is an outcast. He or she is just ignored and shunned. It was what we were brought up to do.”

[a related story appearing above the foregoing text and with a smaller headline:]

Scientology leader is ordered: Stay away

The head of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, whose organisation was described by a High Court judge as “dangerous, immoral, sinister and corrupt”, has been ordered to stay away from Britain.

The 74-year-old recluse, himself declared a “charlatan” by the judge, had hoped to reverse a Home Office ruling which barred him from coming to this country to address his followers at the British headquarters in East Grinstead, Sussex. But when he refused to talk to British immigration officials who wanted to question him about a fraud conviction in France, the Home Office re-affirmed its decision to keep Hubbard out.

His elusiveness has fuelled stories that Hubbard is, in fact, dead. His own son unsuccessfully argued this before a U.S. court in an attempt to share his father’s vast fortune and Hubbard’s attorney has said that his dealings with Hubbard are “sporadic”. Scientology, which has 200,000 followers in Britain, was attacked in the High Court last week during a “tug-of-love” child custody case.

The judge, Mr Justice Latey, said that the tactics used by Hubbard and his helpers are “grimly reminiscent of the ranting and bullying of Hitler and his henchmen”.

This was echoed this week by one disenchanted teenage Scientologist who told The Mail on Sunday that Hubbard’s young acolytes “behave like the Nazi youth”. This is his story.

Source: http://www.lermanet.com/scientologynews/england/the-mail-uk.htm

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1.7.2007 von Caroline.

“Jesus Christ was said to be said to be born in Bethlehem. Tom Cruise was born in Syracuse, about 150 miles from Bethlehem… You’re going to want to take the New York State Thruway…”

Watch Cruise v. Christ