A Belgian prosecutor recommended that the Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology stand trial on charges of fraud and extortion, after a 10-year investigation. The prosecutor, Jean-Claude Van Espen, said that up to 12 people from the church should face charges and that his inquiry had concluded that Scientology’s Brussels-based Europe office and its Belgian missions had conducted unlawful practices in medicine, violated privacy laws and used illegal business contracts. The Church of Scientology said it would fight the charges.

[JURIST] Belgian prosecutor Jean-Claude Van Espen said Tuesday that the Church of Scientology [church website] should be classified as a criminal organization after completing a 10-year investigation into the church's activities. Van Espen also recommended that the Church and a dozen of its adherents should face criminal charges of fraud and extortion in Belgium [JURIST news archive], where the Church is not deemed an official religious group [IRNA report]. The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office also alleges that the Church of Scientology ...

The Belgian authorities have indicted the Belgian chapter of the Church of Scientology, the European headquarters of the Church, as well as 12 of its leading members. According to the office of Public Prosecutor Jean-Claude Van Espen Scientology is a criminal organization which has committed several crimes including extortion, fraud, violations of the trade law, violations of the privacy law and the illegal practice of medicine. On 30 September 1999, 120 Belgian police officers raided 25 Scientology offices and seized tons ...

The chance is real that several leading figures in the Church of Scientology in Belgium could be issued with court summonses. The Federal Judicial Authorities plan to prosecute the church for being a criminal organisation that has defrauded its members. The judicial authorities opened their investigation into the Scientology movement in Belgium back in 1997, after having received tip-offs from ex-members of the church. All aspects of the Scientology Church's practises were gone through with a fine tooth comb. Now the ...

A Belgian prosecutor on Tuesday recommended that the U.S.-based Church of Scientology stand trial for fraud and extortion, following a 10-year investigation that concluded the group should be labeled a criminal organization. Scientology said it would fight the criminal charges recommended by investigating prosecutor Jean-Claude Van Espen, who said that up to 12 unidentified people should face charges. Van Espen's probe also concluded that Scientology's Brussels-based Europe office and its Belgian missions conducted unlawful practices in medicine, violated privacy laws and ...

The optometrist wants to hear about my most painful memories. This is an auditing session, an important component of a religion called Scientology. The optometrist is the auditor. His name is Steve Sasala. He is skinny. And tall. His face is long and narrow. I can make out the shape of his skull. We sit across from each other, on opposite sides of a tiny desk inside a claustrophobic room at the back of some historic building in Parma Heights. The ...

Hollywood, Tel Aviv is right behind you: Artists, businesspeople and middle-class seekers are filling the classrooms of local Scientology centers, hoping to rid themselves of excess spiritual baggage. Opera singer Gaby Sade used to have a very short fuse. If someone cut him off, he was capable of getting out of the car and giving the offending driver more than a piece of his mind. If if did not come to blows, he would at least tell him, in choice language, ...

Harlem, beware! The neighborhood long weary of gentrification may soon have to deal with the likes of Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. The Church of Scientology, known for its celebrity devotees, is making a big push to expand its empire along 125th Street, purchasing three properties there last week, and planning a major recruitment drive in the neighborhood. The Rev. John Carmichael, president of the church in New York, declined to give details about the purchase, but reports put ...

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) — A group teaching the core moral values as outlined by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard has been conducting workshops at Israeli summer camps this month without the knowledge of the children's parents. During the month of August, most Israeli children attend summer camps, as both parents typically work. News First Class, an online Israeli news agency, learned that at many of those camps, the children are getting morning lectures by volunteers from the Association for Prosperity ...

L. Ron Hubbard had a restlessness that led to a lifetime of traversing the globe. So it was scarcely three years that the eclectic writer and adventurer lived at his "House on Camelback." That modest home in Phoenix, recently restored to how it looked in 1952, is regarded as a religious historic site _ the birthplace of Scientology. "For it was here that he developed the first exteriorization process and advanced fully into the realm of the human spirit, and here ...

They run summer camps for children and teach them all about love, modesty, and safe sex. They even hand out awards. Yet, it turns out that behind the volunteers of the Association for Prosperity and Security in the Middle East stands the disputed Scientology sect. Association members insist they are not missionaries. 'Our aim is to teach values,' they say. The surprised parents are not convinced. 'How come they run such activities without even asking us?' "Don’t be promiscuous. Sex is ...

The church will soon command a higher profile in Harlem. The first thing many subway riders hear as they exit the subway station at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue often is, “Ma’am, do you have stress in your life?” It's an initial hint of one newer brand of religious outreach that continues on street level – and 125th Street in particular has seen its share of street-corner religion, from mainline Protestant denominations to the Nation of Islam. The latest comer is ...

TAMPA, Fla. - The Rev. Charles Kennedy travels the country preaching the brilliance of L. Ron Hubbard’s words. Children in his after-school program learn with the Scientology founder’s methods; church members study one of his books. The minister calls Scientologists the kindest people he’s met and their programs the best he’s found. One thing sets Kennedy apart: He and his congregants are not Scientologists. They are Christians. The Glorious Church of God in Christ here is among a number of houses ...

An alarming book, fresh demands for a ban and a rejection of those calls for a prohibition: the controversial Scientology organization has been all over the media, yet still aims to missionize Europe. Ursula Caberta expressed her opinion loud and clear: "Scientology is a dangerous, extremist organization which has declared war on Europe." As Commissioner for Scientology issues for Hamburg, Caberta is considered an expert on the subject. She has been observing the movement since 1992 and just presented her new ...

Senior politicians from Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition have rejected calls for a ban on the Scientology cult. A legal bid to outlaw it would fail because authorities haven't had time to build a proper case against the organization, they say. Politicians from Germany's two ruling parties have rejected calls for Scientology to be banned in Germany. A bid to outlaw Scientology may fail because Germany's domestic intelligence service is unlikely to have gathered enough evidence against it to back court action ...

A Queens legislator — who insists a controversial detoxification program he's promoting in lower Manhattan isn't a front for Scientology — attended a celebrity-studded Los Angeles gala sponsored by the Church of Scientology. City Councilman Hiram Monserrate said he paid his own way Saturday to the glitzy Hollywood event celebrating the 38th anniversary of the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center. Monserrate said the trip had no connection to his work on behalf of the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project on ...

HAMBURG, Germany, Aug. 8 (UPI) — The interior minister of Hamburg, Germany, sees Scientology as a threat to his state's security. Scientology is not a religious community but an "extremist grouping" that needs to be banned, said Udo Nagel, the interior minister of the northern German state of Hamburg. According to Nagel, Germany’s Interior Ministry in Berlin is currently probing whether a ban of Scientology would hold up in court. Observers and virtually all political parties in Germany see Scientology as ...

Almost all of those who attended a meeting Monday night to learn about a proposed drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility agreed on one thing. They do not want it in their neighborhood. Narconon Gulf Coast, Inc. wants to purchase a three-story beach house at 263 Snowdrift Road and turn it into a 28-bed residential rehabilitation facility. The nonprofit organization hosted the meeting to answer questions from those who live near the proposed location. Henry Pitts owns property one street over from ...

The Church of Scientology has purchased more property on 125th Street, and one of the buyers is listed in city records as Richard Fear. We kid you not. The L. Ron Hubbard-founded religion recently closed on 230 and 232 125th Street for $10.2 million, according to city records. The latter address was formerly the site of the St. Samuel Church of God. In 2003, the Scientologists acquired 220 East 125th Street for $3.45 million. They're currently building a 33,000-square-foot church on ...

MIRAMAR BEACH — Controversy over a proposed drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility has moved from one beachside neighborhood to another. Narconon Gulf Coast Inc. wants to purchase a beach house at 263 Snowdrift Road and turn it into a 28-bed residential facility. The nonprofit organization drew heated opposition earlier this year with its plan to buy a house on Scenic Gulf Drive for the same purpose. That purchase has since fallen through, and Narconon is now hoping to buy the house ...

The blog Boy Culture ran into (an all too common these days) "Travolting display" in the subway system over the weekend. Scientologists! The religion cult "legendarily opportunistic Church Of Scientology" is back underground giving out free stress tests. Though police kicked them out in 2005 for violating New York City Transit rules about vending in the subways, it seems they've still had a presence down there and, from this photo (taken in late 2006), they're still selling Dianetics (translated in 50 ...

Oh God. Sinister cultists the Scientologists are buying a new headquarters in Philadelphia on which (it being "a place of worship") they'll pay no taxes. The bastards. Soon they'll be out in the street–nicely dressed, glassy-eyed and grinning–conning innocent Philadelphians into taking a "free" personality test in an attempt to lure them into a hell world of unimaginably banal fourth-rate sci-fi gobbledeygook. Here are just some of the crazy mental-in-the-head, batshit insane things Scientologists believe: All humans contain an ancient space ...

The Church of Scientology has bought the former Duckworth Mills in Trafford, Greater Manchester. The church, which counts celebrities including Tom Cruise, pictured, and John Travolta among its followers, has paid Merseyside-based Maghull Group £3.65m for the 51,000 sq ft Victorian building. Maghull, which bought the property from Cargill Flavor Systems for £2.1m last year, had planned to redevelop the building as 42 flats and 20,000 sq ft of offices. The Church of Scientology has already submitted plans to turn the ...

The German Protestant Church compared the Hollywood film star Tom Cruise to the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels yesterday and claimed the actor was using his celebrity status to publicise the controversial Church of Scientology, of which he is a prominent member. The criticism of Mr Cruise, who is in Germany to make a film about an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, was the most vitriolic in a series of attacks on the actor over his membership of Scientology - regarded ...

[...] RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's played a top gun and secret agent. But it's his latest role, anti-Nazi war hero that's landed Tom Cruise in hot water. Germany is boiling over his religion. Filming began outside Berlin today, for a movie starring Cruise, as Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, a famed colonel who tried to kill Hitler. Back in 1944, Stauffenberg and his coconspirators were executed here at the defense ministry building. Cruise was planning to shoot scenes at the ...