WASHINGTON — The State Department's annual survey of human rights conditions around the world will contain expanded, toughened language criticizing Germany for restrictions on the Church of Scientology and its members, administration officials say. The report, to be issued Wednesday, will chastise Germany for what a senior administration official called "a campaign of harassment and intimidation" against the controversial church. He said the United States, seeking to protect religious freedom, has urged Germany through diplomatic channels "not to prosecute people for ...

Regarding "An Open Letter to Helmut Kohl" (Advertisement, Jan. 9) and letters (Jan. 16) critical of the advertisement: As the author of the open letter to Chancellor Kohl, I feel entitled to a brief reply to some of the letters you received on that subject. First, our letter never compared modern Germany, as a whole, to the Nazi regime, and we certainly never compared the treatment of Scientologists to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. What we compared was the ...

Movies: The success of the film, targeted by conservatives because it stars Scientologist Tom Cruise, eases studio fears about releasing other films featuring members of the movement. Despite the much-publicized boycott in Germany of "Mission: Impossible" because its star, Tom Cruise, is a Scientologist, the film grossed about $24 million, considered a huge success for the important German market by Hollywood studios, and ranked eighth in Germany for 1996. The results could help assuage the Hollywood studios that are preparing for ...

Europe: Open letter to Kohl draws analogy to treatment of Jews before World War II. Politicians respond angrily. BERLIN — A running battle between German government officials and the Church of Scientology escalated this week, with 34 prominent Americans from the entertainment industry denouncing Germany for allegedly treating Scientologists as it treated the Jews in 1936, and the German foreign minister accusing the celebrities of "falsifying history." "It's out of the question that there's persecution of Scientology in Germany," Foreign Minister ...

Title "The S Files" [S as in Scientology Logo] [Presenter Dermot Murnaghan (DM henceforth) no relation to any other DM] Tonight we're going to expose serious financial crime in one of the Scientology cult's most successful operations in Britain. We show how they cooked the books, made false statements to obtain bank loans, and changed invoices to fiddle their VAT. [Extract from "Trust" ad] This advert for the Church of Scientology was recently shown on cable TV. It was a major ...

Lawmakers are looking at barring its members from teaching, police work, other government jobs. HAMBURG, Germany — As the politicians see it, Germany, is being threatened by an evil plot to infiltrate business and government. "A giant octopus . . . that will stop at nothing in its desire to spread its blind ideology" is how Labor Secretary Norbert Blum has described the plot against Germany. Claudia Nolte, another member of Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Cabinet, warns, "They aim at world domination ...

THE Church of Scientology has attacked what it called "religious apartheid" in Germany after a Bavarian move to bar its members from public service and calls to boycott Tom Cruise's latest film because the star is a Scientologist. In a communique issued in Bonn, the church said "officially-sanctioned religious apartheid" was "the result of years of unsubstantiated emotional propaganda against the Church of Scientology and other religious minorities in Germany". It was "incredible" and "blatant hypocrisy" that the Christian Democratic Union, ...

(CNN) — Actor Tom Cruise may have a movie blockbuster in the United States, but in Germany, the star of "Mission: Impossible" faces a controversy that could hit where it hurts: the pocketbook. Germany's problem is not with the movie plot or dialogue. It's with the star and his religious beliefs. Cruise is a member of the Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology, a credo that critics say is steeped in science fiction more bizarre than any cinema plot. Opponents of Cruise's ...