Scientology Harassment Fails to Prevent Anonymous

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Scientology's Attempts to Silence Anonymous With Litigation, Harassment and Intimidation Fails to Prevent Anonymous Protest

WORLDWIDE (March 18th 2008) - The worldwide Anonymous protests against the corruption and abuses of the Church of Scientology held on Saturday, March 15th have been a glorious success [1]. Attendance was estimated to be well into five figures. This was achieved despite numerous attempts by the "Church" to harass and intimidate demonstrators into silence. The "stats" for Anonymous are up, with major leaks from inside the Church revealing activities that are not permitted of a tax-exempt religious organization. Documents leaked included 208 scanned pages relating to the Church of Scientology's former "Office of Special Affairs" employee and subsequent apostate Frank Oliver [2]. These "Black Operations" documents are dated between 1986 and 1992 (inclusive) when, according to the file, Frank Oliver was declared a "suppressive person" and excommunicated.

When criticizing a totalitarian, mafia-like organization such as the Church of Scientology, it is only to be expected that one will encounter extreme and nefarious methods as the organization attempts to intimidate, harass and silence. This harassment began as a petition for injunction delivered to the Florida courts. This petition named over 40 individuals, including some curious onlookers and staff from local shops, and sought to keep them 500 ft away from Church property. This ludicrous petition was struck down twice by the courts.

Five demonstrators have also been named in videos posted on the official Church of Scientology channel "AnonymousFacts" [3]. This lead to a suspension of the channel from youtube, as it broke terms of service by posting personal information. One individual named in the videos posted by "AnonymousFacts" was served with an arrest warrant for Code 422 Criminal Threats on the morning of the March 15th protest. After being interviewed by the LAPD Major Case Squad, he was released on $50,000 bail. A court date was set for April 9th, 2008, 8:30am in Division 30 at the courthouse located at 210 West Temple Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90012[4].

This is only one of many cases where critics have been publicly identified by the Church and targeted using the legal system, then subjected to other intimidation and harassment. These tactics have become synonymous with the Church's notorious "Fair Game" policy, and have recently been expanded to include having lawyers send threatening letters to the parents of members of Anonymous[5]. All these examples show that the Church of Scientology will not only pervert the legal system, but will not hesitate to use illegal and clandestine methods to silence and intimidate their critics in order to suppress free speech.

The Church of Scientology has also released a DVD that was submitted as evidence with its petitions for an injunction. This disk is entitled "Anonymous Hate Crimes"[6]. Here, the "Church" accuses Anonymous of mailing white powder to their offices, posting a video onto youtube threatening to execute Heber Jentzsch, President of the Church of Scientology, and threatening to bomb Scientology churches around the world. The mailings of white powder had already been dismissed by authorities as having no connection to Anonymous [7]. Curiously, the video threatening an execution of Jentzsch and the bombing of churches appears on the DVD in far higher a resolution than could be achieved from a small and heavily compressed video downloaded from YouTube.com[8]. This suggests that the DVD was authored using higher quality source material than was available on youtube, and that the "execution and bomb threat video" was produced by the Church of Scientology themselves[9]. Such a finding is not entirely surprising, as the Church had previously gone to similar lengths in attempts to silence critics [10][11].

References:

[1] http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/PROJECT_CHANOLOGY/IDES_OF_MARCH
[2] http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_Office_of_Special_Affairs_and_Frank_Oliver
[3] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/03/youtube-video-d.html
[4] http://img1.anonbw.com/press/Bail-Receipt.JPG

[5]
* http://img1.anonbw.com/press/LegalLetterPage1.jpg
* http://img1.anonbw.com/press/LegalLetterPage2.jpg

[6] http://img1.anonbw.com/press/DVDCover.jpg
[7] http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-threat31jan31,1,6115546.story
[8] http://img1.anonbw.com/press/DVD-YOUTUBE-COMPARE.png
[9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZql-87Naoc
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout
[11] http://www.lermanet.com/scientologyscandals/keepoffmomsfrontporch.htm

Full Anonymous Report of Recent Activities in Project Chanology [Ides of March Edition]
Download PDF : [http://img1.anonbw.com/press/postidesreport.pdf]

Download this Press Release in PDF Format :
http://img1.anonbw.com/press/postidespressrelease.pdf

Anonymous - Project Chanology Information:

http://www.WhyWeProtest.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology

ENDS