Another Religious Recognition for Scientology

Scientology just had another religious recognition from a branch of the United Kingdom government.

The Crown Prosecution Service is an entity in the UK that determines whether cases prepared by the police in England and Wales should be brought to trial. They were recently asked if Scientology was protected under hate crime laws as are other religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Their answer was "yes."

Some of my fellow bloggers already wrote about this:
- CPS gives Scientologists same legal protection as mainstream religions
- Crown Prosecution Service gives Scientologists same legal protection as mainstream religions

Scientology and Germany - Latest News

The German government's announcement last week that it is dropping its attempts to ban the Scientology religion in Germany is something that could probably have been predicted by simply looking at the history of such attempts.

In his 1974 book "The Hidden Story of Scientology", investigative writer Omar V. Garrison says:

I have read through thousands of pages of transcripts covering such hearings, official enquiries and parliamentary debates in the U.S., Australia, South Africa, Rhodesia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain. Yet in not a single instance that I have been able to discover have any of these lengthy proceedings produced a shred of evidence that Scientologists or Scientology's founder have been guilty of anything actionable under the criminal or civil laws of the countries conducting them.

The inquiries in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) were conducted by repressive, apartheid governments, and even they couldn't find anything wrong.

I'm not familiar with the Canadian investigation, but as far as I know the inquiry in New Zealand was probably the quickest and most honest of them all. The New Zealanders found one minor policy they didn't like so the Church canceled it.

In Australia, in the late 1960's an inquiry in the state of Victoria banned Scientology. But in 1975 after many years of legal attempts to right this blatant wrong, the Supreme Court of Australia fully recognized Scientology as a religion and the ban went the way of the dinosaur.

In the UK in the early 1970's a government inquiry resulted in a ban on foreign Scientologists entering the country. No evidence was ever presented as to why such a ban was put in place and after a decade the ban was lifted after demands were made in the House of Commons for the evidence to be made public.

In Spain, an investigation went on for seventeen years and resulted in full religious recognition just last year.

The US government has the record for the longest history of harassment and bogus investigations: after 35 years of "investigations", which included infiltrating agent provocateurs into the Church, attempting to plant false documents and other illegal activities, the IRS fully recognized every Scientology Church and related organization as religious, public benefit organizations.

So, now it is Germany's turn. After eleven years of wasting tax-payers money while they spied on the Church in Germany, they have found that the Church of Scientology and its members have not been guilty of doing anything wrong. (For the history of this up until 2003, scroll down to "fact sheet".)

You can probably see a repeating pattern in all this:

1. Accusations are made.
2. Measures are taken or investigations are instigated.
3. After many years, and millions of taxpayer dollars, marks or euros being spent, no wrong doing of any kind is found.

Because governments are limited in their activities by the law, eventually the fact that no evidence of wrong doing exists forces them to stop their harassment and remove the false reports they have been gathering and disseminating.

Unfortunately this is not the case with the Internet. Accusations can be made, lies can be told and no one has to prove it in a court of law, so the lies can go on forever. Entities such as "Anonymous" can gather supporters based on accusations backed by nothing that would stand up in a court of law and the poor dupes who believe them then go on spreading the lies and getting themselves into trouble.

Hopefully, this article will be instructive to people who have been duped and will help them to re-examine their ideas about Scientology and perhaps they will begin to use the requirements of legal evidence as their yardstick when examining information they encounter about Scientology, the Church and Scientologists.

More Information:

• Scientology: Religious Recognition


• Official Recognition of Scientology as a Religion


• What Religious Scholars Say About The Scientology Religion


• Governments and courts of countries worldwide recognize the religious character of the Church of Scientology


• What is Scientology? Religious Recognition

 

Scientology is recognized as a religion all over the world

In my browsing around I just found this cool website: Governments and courts of countries worldwide recognize the religious character of the Church of Scientology.

It contains data about recognitions of Scientology, a long list of countries that have recognized Scientology as a religion and it also has a downloadable 28 page booklet that gives even more data on court and government recognitions of Scientology.

This find brings home to me the value of Web 2.0 sites. I got an email from a friend that had a link to someone's Stumble Upon Profile. I started looking at their recent additions and there was this one. How would I have found it otherwise?

Great News In Spain

The Church of Scientology of Spain just won total religious recognition. This is not just a victory for Scientologists but a win for all the people of Europe who want religious freedom and freedom of thought and expression.

Guilty until proven Innocent

If the police walk in on a guy standing over a murdered corpse, the blood stained knife in his hand and his clothes spattered with the victim's blood, even he is treated as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

But in matters of religion it seems that any bigot can make whatever outrageous accusation he wants and the target of his venom is assumed guilty and the unsubstantiated claim is repeated and repeated as if proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

This method of attack on religion is very ancient. It was used against the early Christians who were accused of cannibalism (a twisting of the communion). For hundreds of years during the dark ages Jews were told by their Rabbis never to drink red wine during the Passover because a rumor had been put about by the Vatican that they drank the blood of Christian babies.

In this day and age, accusations of cannibalism and drinking the blood of babies would be laughed at, so the hate mongers have to turn to the modern equivalents: brainwashing and financial exploitation. Outrageous accusations can be made, put onto web sites, given to the press and generally spread around and the religion is considered guilty without any trial or anyone having to provide any actual evidence.

This happened to Scientology in the United States until finally in the early 1990's the IRS did the biggest investigation ever of an organization applying for tax-exempt status. As part of that examination they investigated all the claims, no matter how outrageous, and came to the conclusion that the Church of Scientology was a religious, public benefit organization.

This same pattern has been repeated in other countries and the result has always been the same: when the accusations are investigated they are found to be false and Scientology is recognized as a religion and as innocent of the charges of wrong doing.

So why am I writing this? Because I am sick to death of seeing the press mindlessly repeating the ridiculous accusations of certain bigots in the German government. If such libelous statements were made against an individual he could sue, but when they are made against an organization which is never given a chance to answer the claims in a court of law there isn't much you can do about it, except make posts to your blog.

Some data on Official Recognition of Scientology as a Religion:

- Official Recognition of Scientology as a Religion
- Scientology Religious Recognition in Tanzania and Zimbabwe
- Official Recognition of Scientology as a Religion
- First Official Scientology Wedding In Sweden Follows Religious Recognition
- Overwhelming Religious Recognition for Scientology
- More than 50 courts around the world have ruled that Scientology operates solely for the benefit of Mankind
- Scientology Religion Bona Fides - Recognition by the Courts
- Church of Scientology of Moscow Wins Landmark Decision in European Court of Human Rights - Confirmation of Scientology's Religious Bona Fides by the Highest Court in Europe
- Scientology Wins 17-Year-Old Case In Spain - Total Victory as Court Declares Charges Groundless

Church of Scientology wins major legal victory in Europe

Here is something pretty awesome!

In a unanimous landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights found in favor of the Scientology religion, upholding the religious freedom of Scientologists throughout the forty-six nations that comprise the Council of Europe, in a precedent-setting ruling that will help guarantee these rights for people of all faiths.

Read the full article here: Church of Scientology of Moscow Wins Landmark Decision In European Court of Human Rights—Confirmation of Scientology's Religious Bona Fides by the Highest Court in Europe

What's really great about this is that this decision helps people of all faiths in Europe.