Oppressive court decision overturned in Russia

It is interesting how, in the 60 year history of Dianetics and Scientology, you will see a repeating pattern: a court comes out with a ruling against Scientology, the Church appeals, the appeals court throws out the lower court decision and the corruption involved in the lower court decision is then revealed.

Some examples are Spain, Italy and Australia. In those cases it took many years to get the oppressive decision overturned, so the fact that it only took a few months to get such a court ruling thrown out in Russia is a sign of how far that country has come on the path towards a free society.

Here is the English translation of the story:

Surgut city court ruling that Scientology materials are extremist overturned

October 12, 2010

On October 12, the Khanty-Mansi district court overturned the decision of the Surgut city court, which ruled as extremist works of L. Ron Hubbard containing the basics of the teachings of the Church of Scientology.

The March 26, 2010 decision of the Surgut city court was made behind closed doors. No one representing the Scientologists was allowed into the process. The prosecutor, and then the judge, decided that the fundamentals of the doctrine of the Church of Scientology are extremist. The prosecutor later acknowledged in an interview that he did not read the materials and relied on expert analysis. An expert was recommended by Galina Vydrina, an adviser to the governor of Khanty-Mansi who has long been fighting against non-traditional religions. The expert was anti-cult specialist Evgeny Volkov, who, instead of answering the court’s questions, summarized his “scientific” theories without even browsing through half of the materials submitted for analysis. The court as well did not familiarize itself with the materials by Ron Hubbard. The entire judicial process lasted 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Believers in the local community (whose representative is Alexander Ilyin) feel that this decision was taken in retaliation for the recognition by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that local authorities had violated the rights of Surgut Scientologists to freedom of conscience.

Despite the fact that the decision of the Surgut city court had not yet taken effect legally, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation illegally added these materials to the list of extremist materials. Since the publication of this list, law enforcement agencies have been on the hunt for these materials across the country from Blagoveshchensk to Krasnodar, conducting searches and raids, unsealing materials at customs, calling citizens to administrative proceedings.

“The Surgut decision is a disgrace to the judicial system. As a citizen of the Russian Federation and as a lawyer, I’m glad it has been overturned. Even though it would have been excellent grounds for an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, I believe that the ability of the court of appeal to make decisions independently of religious preferences and of the political situation bears witness to the triumph not only of law but of common sense,” said lawyer Galina Krylova.

The head of the chief Scientology Center in Russia, Natalia Dvoryadkin, explained that the works of R. Hubbard have for over 50 years been distributed worldwide in 165 countries. The total circulation of the published materials today exceeds 81 million copies. For more information about the Scientology religion visit the sites Scientology Russia, Church of Scientology Moscow, Facts on Scientology in Russia.

(Here is the original: Surgut city court ruling that Scientology materials are extremist overturned) .

Scientology - Recent Statistics

Here are some recent statistics regarding Scientology from Freedom Magazine:

• Number of new Scientology Churches opened since 2007 when Panorama started its “investigation”: 14


• Number of countries and territories with members of the International Association of Scientologists: 140 (two-thirds of the nations and territories of Earth across 22 time zones)


• Number of Guinness World Records awarded to Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard in the past three years:
  
  
  
  • Most published works by a single author: 1,084
  
  
  • Most audiobook titles: 185
  
  
  • Most translated author in the world: 71 languages

• Increase since 2007 in production capability of the Church’s Bridge Publications in Los Angeles and New Era Publications in Copenhagen, the world's largest all-digital, on-demand publishers: 660 percent
  
• Number of L. Ron Hubbard Dianetics and Scientology books placed in 97,997 libraries in 155 countries since 2007: 2.4 million

• Number of L. Ron Hubbard books and recorded lectures recovered and verified under the direction of ecclesiastical leader David Miscavige, a 2-million-man-hour restoration project: 1,317


• Number of books and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology distributed in the last decade to individuals: 91 million


• Number of people helped during the last year with the social betterment technology of L. Ron Hubbard: 3.5 million


• Number of people helped by Scientology Volunteer Ministers in the last 12 months: More than 1.5 million

Not bad.

Scientology: The Basics versus The Beginning Books

Mr.Pete brought up an excellent point: "I think a little more distinction between the Basic and Beginning books would be helpful rather than just links to them."

"The Basics" are a big deal right now in Scientology. They are mentioned a lot by Scientologists and there have been questions about them in comments on this blog. So I think I'd better clearly explain what they are.

We actually have three things that get talked about:
- The Basics
- The Basic Books
- The Beginning Books

First the word "basic". Here it is being used to mean "most important or essential". It is not being used to mean "elementary: serving as a starting point or minimum". I think some confusion has been caused because the word "basic" has both of these definitions.

The "Basics" are a collection of books and recorded lectures regarded as containing the fundamentals of Scientology and Dianetics. That may not seem significant on first reading, but think about it this way: the Basics are what Scientology is built upon and if you have not studied them then you really don't have a full and complete grasp of what Scientology is.

The "Basic Books" are the books within the the Basics. That is, the books excluding the recorded lectures.

The "Beginning Books" are the books to read to get an introduction to Scientology. They are a sub-set of the Basics and fit the "elementary: serving as a starting point or minimum" definition of the word basic. But to call them "basic" would be really confusing, so we call them the "Beginning Books".

I hope that helps.

The Mosque Next Door - What should you do about it?

A huge Islamic Center is about to be built next door to your local church. What do you do?

Unfortunately, due to misrepresentation in the media and outright lies by people with a vested interest in creating conflict, the all to common reaction is protest and outrage.

Lies such as "They're funded by Saudi Arabia," and "It's a breeding ground for terrorists," get yelled out by intolerant bigots and passed on by a media that thrives on controversy and conflict.
Luckily there are still sane and tolerant people in this world who instead welcome their new neighbours. Here is a wonderful tale of such tolerance and sanity: Cordova Christians put out welcome mat for mosque.

Well done to the pastor and congregation of Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tennessee. They are applying the tenets of their faith and not only offering the hand of friendship, but are also communicating with the "Muslims next door." The result is peace and understanding as it should be between us all whatever our religion or lack of.

I wish the so called "Christians" in other parts of the country would take a lesson from these good people and act likewise.

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How supported is Al Qaeda by Muslims?

Too often the media portrayal of Muslims implies that they support Al Qaeda. Too often the media portrayal of Islam is that it is a violent and hate driven religion.

Both of these ideas are false generalities and, just to prove it, there is a very interesting diagram on the "Anonymous Arabist" blog which you can see below.

Notice that the Al Queda population is at most 0.00063% of the Muslim population of the world. Not exactly a significant amount.

So let's realize that Muslims are just human beings like the rest of the population of the world and stop creating controversy over building Mosques in New York and stop the misrepresentations of their intentions in the media.

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