Scientology has been hit by a fresh wave of allegations, likely to give added weight to calls for a Senate inquiry into the church. Several Australians have spoken out for the first time about their experiences with the church, accusing it of forced abortions, holding slave labour camps and exploiting child workers. Former rugby league player Joe Reaiche told ABC's Four Corners program on Monday of being coerced into spending $400,000 on spiritual books and being paid just $20 a week ...

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 ...

Nancy Many appeared on a KNOP radio show today from Washington state to promote her new book, My Billion Year Contract. She talks about her experiences in Scientology as an aide to L. Ron Hubbard, being sent to the RPF by Hubbard where she was locked in the garage of the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater when she was five months pregnant, escaping from Scientology with her husband, disconnection and much more.

A former Scientology leader says bullying is widespread in the church, writes investigations reporter Nick O'Malley. Coerced abortion, violence, intimidation and demands for ever greater "donations" have become unofficial Church of Scientology policy, beginning at its Florida head office and leaching around the world, the church's most senior defector has said. Marty Rathbun, who until 2004 was the church's second-most powerful man, answering only to the present leader, David Miscavige, said the church leadership was obsessed with destroying dissent and increasing ...

Hollywood figures quit 'rip-off' church as Australian prime minister threatens parliamentary inquiry into its activities The security at the red-brick and glass-walled horseshoe of the John Joseph Moakley courthouse on Boston's waterfront was unusually tight. Anybody who was not a member of the city's bar association was swept with a search wand. Photo IDs were checked. Mobile phones were taken from guests, who included the Hollywood star Tom Cruise. The occasion was a memorial service for Scientology's top legal adviser for ...

This is a speech Senator Nick Xenophon gave in the Senate on November 17, 2009 I rise to speak tonight on an issue of utmost seriousness that I believe deserves a great deal of scrutiny by law enforcement agencies and by this parliament. In the past few weeks, I have been contacted by former members of the Church of Scientology after I questioned the tax exemption status the organisation has under our tax laws during an interview on the Seven Network’s ...

I knew Scientology was in trouble when the media moved on from the usual silly gossip about its celebrity members to much darker, disturbing issues at the heart of the movement. After a Paris court last month convicted several Scientologists and two organisations associated with the movement in France of organised fraud, and amid other investigations in France looking at a suicide and an alleged abduction, Oscar-winning film-maker Paul Haggis, a long-time member, quit Scientology. Haggis, who wrote and directed Crash, ...