TAMPA — Scientology's most vocal local critic, Ken Dandar, faced disaster. A circuit judge had found him in contempt of court this week and assessed a judgment of $130,000 — to be paid to the Church of Scientology. Dandar might lose his car. He might even lose his law license. All of that, he told a federal judge Friday, because Dandar isn't bowing out of a federal case against the church. But the judge may have given Dandar a reprieve. And ...

LARGO — One of the Church of Scientology's most vocal critics, Tampa lawyer Ken Dandar, is in a pickle. Six years ago, he settled a wrongful death case against the church on behalf of the family of Lisa McPherson, who died in 1995 after 17 days in the care of church members in Clearwater. Part of the settlement agreement, approved by a judge in state court, required Dandar to never again represent anyone suing Scientology. But last year, Dandar took on ...

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith, who died yesterday aged 86, was a charismatic television reporter who switched to politics and enjoyed a 41-year career in the Commons. [...] Johnson Smith, who was later to launch a successful campaign on behalf of haemophiliacs who had been given infected blood, fought a long battle to curb the Church of Scientology, which had its headquarters near East Grinstead, in 1970 enduring a six-week libel case before a jury vindicated his stance. [...]

The Church of Scientology won a major victory in federal court when U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer granting summary judgment in two major lawsuits alleging labor law violations, human trafficking and forced abortions. The opinion raises some interesting questions over the deference shown by courts in such disputes. Two of the litigants, Claire and Marc Headley, detailed how they allegedly worked as virtual slaves for Scientology as part of the organization’s super secret Sea Organization. They left Scientology in 2005. ...

The Church of Scientology won an important victory in federal court Thursday when a judge dismissed two lawsuits that accused the church of labor law violations, human trafficking and forced abortions. Claire and Marc Headley, who left Scientology in 2005, said the church controlled them with threats of harsh punishment and other tactics that prevented them from leaving the Sea Organization, Scientology's religious order. But U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer ruled that the Sea Org is protected by the First ...

[...] 72. Guilt, shame, and separation constituted the social and psychological force that induced sustained, long-term commitment. Physical force, physical abuse and the fear of even greater abuse if one tried to escape were powerful deterrents to any attempts to leave. It could easily be argued that these coercions could have been sufficient to keep anyone from ever making an attempt to get out. There was, though, another level of forces exerted by Scientology that made leaving even more costly – ...

Laura Dieckman was just 12 when her parents let her leave home to work full time for Scientology's religious order, the Sea Organization. At 16, she married a co-worker. At 17, she was pregnant. She was excited to start a family, but she said Sea Org supervisors pressured her to have an abortion. She was back at work the following day. Claire Headley joined at 16, married at 17 and was pregnant at 19. She said Sea Org supervisors threatened strenuous ...

Former Scientologists Claire and Marc Headley are suing the Church of Scientology in separate actions in federal court in Los Angeles. Marc Headley, 37, alleges he was the victim of unfair business practices, labor law violations and forced labor, or human trafficking, during his 15 years in the church's Sea Organization. Claire Headley, 35, alleges the church forced her to have two abortions during her 13 years in the Sea Org. She also claims working conditions at the church's international management ...

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The daughter of the president of the Church of Scientology in Australia is speaking out for the first time about past treatment of children within the church. In an exclusive interview with Lateline, Scarlett Hanna has described Scientology as a toxic organisation and says that many of those who've grown up in the church are damaged. Scarlett Hanna talks of children being deprived of contact with parents and communal living conditions where 25 children lived in one unit. ...

[Picture / Caption: Scientology leader David Miscavige (l.) is being accused of gossiping about Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson after snooping in her confidential confessional file.] The Church of Scientology is bringing down the hammer on a renegade member who alleges leader David Miscavige loves to gossip about his star parishioners. Former high-ranking member Amy Scobee claims in her just-out book, "Scientology: Abuse at the Top," that Miscavige and other officials "snooped" in confidential confessional files - a charge vehemently ...

Inside Scientology, superstar Tom Cruise is regarded as its most dedicated follower. The mystery is why he never joined its most elite unit. Now, a former top-ranking defector who was just a teenager when recruited into Scientology says she knows why. Amy Scobee claims she knows the truth about how the cult controls celebrities, the way it handled Tom Cruise's marriage to Nicole Kidman and tells eyewitness accounts of what happens when its leader loses it. She began life and work ...

TAMPA - A lawyer suing the Church of Scientology has filed a motion asking to withdraw from the wrongful death case – but he doesn't really mean it. Kennan Dandar says the state judge who ordered him to withdraw doesn't have jurisdiction in federal court. He also says he doesn't want to abandon his client, who blames the church for her son's death. The highly unusual motion is rooted in the longstanding animus between the church and Dandar. The order to ...

Amy Scobee is a former high-ranking Scientologist. She's about to publish a book about her time with the Church, which contains some interesting details about Tom Cruise. Last week, Cruise's lawyer has sent her an angry letter, countering the claims. Scobee, who'd been with the Church since age 14 and used to work at the LA Celebrity Centre, has spoken out before—most recently during Anderson Cooper's CNN Scientology expose. Next month, her book, Scientology: Abuse at the Top, will be (self-?) ...

[Unofficial English translation by Anonymous of an article in Itialian entitled, "Le falsità del comunicato stampa di Scientology in merito alla richiesta di risarcimento danni a Maria Pia Gardini"] [Quoted] you can read the press release of Scientology, my answer [follows each quoted passage]. The National Church of Scientology of Italy has brought proceedings against Mrs. Maria Pia Di Gasparro Gardini for damages totaling two million euros. Scientology forgot to state that this is what they are asking for ...

LOS ANGELES – A federal judge has dismissed part of a lawsuit brought against the Church of Scientology by a woman who alleged she worked 100-hour weeks for almost no pay for years while a member of Scientology's elite inner corps. U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer issued a written order late Friday that dismissed the wage claims portion of Claire Headley's lawsuit. The judge did not address two other causes of action: allegations that the church coerces members of the inner ...

Scientology is suing Maria Pia Gardini for 2 million euros and has cowardly decided not to face off against the publisher, Edizioni Paoline, or to sue the journalist co-author of her books, Albert Laggia. The persecutory intentions of the well-known psycho-sect, which is at the center of controversy and trials around the world, are clear. In the citation [dated March 30, 2010 and available in Italian in a PDF file], Maria Pia Gardini is accused of having "behaved and spoken on ...

SAN JACINTO, Calif. – At the edge of arid foothills far outside Los Angeles, hundreds of Scientology followers live on a gated, 500-acre campus and work long hours for almost no pay reproducing the works of founder L. Ron Hubbard and creating the church's teaching and promotional materials. The church says its 5,000 so-called Sea Organization members are religious devotees akin to monks who are exempt from wage requirements and overtime. But two lawsuits filed by two former Sea Org members, ...

[Transcript by Anonymous @ http://forums.whyweprotest.net/1207504-post1/] Hello, everyone. I guess I'll start off with borrowing a lyric from The Grateful Dead: "What a long, strange trip it's been." My journey into Scientology started in 1976. I was in San Francisco and I was a young guy; I was twenty-one years old and full of piss and vinegar, trying to figure out what to do with my life. And I was walking down the street and this very attractive woman came up ...

[Transcript by Anonymous @ http://forums.whyweprotest.net/1207770-post6/] Thank you for allowing me to speak to you guys today. My name is Marc Headley and I'm here to tell you about a business enterprise. I'm not gonna be talking about any religious matters whatsoever; I'm going to be talking to you about an organization that I worked for. I worked there for fifteen years, and even after working there for fifteen years, not once was I told of the core religious or philosophy ...

Nick Xenophon will re-write and re-submit his motion for a parliamentary inquiry into Scientology and similar organisations after the South Australian senator declared himself a “stubborn bastard” who would not give up on cult victims. Both major parties voted to defeat Senator Xenophon's motion last Thursday to inquire into introducing a public benefit test before religions could claim a tax exemption. But he said he had been encouraged by conversations with some Coalition MPs since the vote to believe they might ...

The mother of convicted killer George Bell III could give a statement under oath soon for the first time about what she witnessed the night her son beat Heather Spencer to death. The statement would become part of a wrongful death suit filed in 2008 against the Bells as well as the drug treatment program George Bell III attended before the murder. The suit seeks the maximum amount of compensation and punitive damages allowed under Mississippi law. George Bell III killed ...

Read the full program transcript from Quentin McDermott's report, Scientology - The Ex-Files, first broadcast 8th March 2010. Reporter: Quentin McDermott Date: 08/03/2010 (On screen: Cars passing big blue building with 'Scientology sign') QUENTIN MCDERMOTT, REPORTER: Many religions claim to hold the key to man’s salvation. Scientology is no exception. TOMMY DAVIS: The most fundamental explanation as regards Scientology’s basic beliefs is that man is basically good, and that the individual’s a spiritual being; that you’ve lived before and you’ll live ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most. But after ...

TAMPA (2010-2-25) - The Church of Scientology is deploying a new weapon in its three-decade battle with the St. Petersburg Times: award-winning investigative journalists. Those reporters completed their own review of the newspaper's coverage of Scientology, but church officials won’t release it. In 1980, The St. Petersburg Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the secretive religion, headquartered in Clearwater. Since then, church officials have said the newspaper’s coverage is unfair. So church officials decided to do something about ...

Last week, the Senate Privileges Committee permitted the Church of Scientology to respond in Hansard to issues raised by Senator Nick Xenophon in November last year. The Scientologists promptly issued a press release declaring they had responded to Xenophon “in Parliament”, as if they had some sort of elected status. In allowing the Scientologist response into Hansard, the Privileges Committee has allowed itself to be made party to an attack on individuals who were brave enough to raise their treatment at ...