The Church of Scientology International is accusing two Web sites of trademark violation and is taking action to stop it. The church has threatened to see legal recourse against a Colorado Web site owner if he continues to run a site called "scientology-kills.net," which also sells T-shirts bearing the same phrase. In the second dispute, the church sent a letter to Tilman Hausherr of Berlin on Monday telling him to remove altered Scientology graphics from his CompuServe home page, which he ...

PARIS: The Church of Scientology is battling charges in a Lyon courtroom that it is a manipulative and fraudulent cult that practices false medicine and hounded one of its followers to his death. The case could derail the sect's campaign to be accepted as a mainstream faith in several European countries. Last week, it began beaming satellite television advertisements to Britain, its biggest recruiting ground in Europe, despite not being recognized there as a bona fide religion. The advertisements stress a ...

Free speech has come under renewed threat because of a little-noticed decision by the Australian Broadcasting Authority. In an ominous echo of moves to restrict free speech via racial hate laws, the ABA has ruled that radio station 3RRR breached acceptable standards on religious vilification. The unprecedented case centred on criticisms of the Church of Scientology by ex-Scientologist Cyril Vosper on 3RRR's The Liars' Club program last year. Among other criticisms, Vosper likened Scientology to an extremist political regime and ...

Clients of deprogrammer Rick Ross call him a savior. Perhaps that's why people he's branded cult leaders want to crucify him. Rick Ross is describing how Arizona's cults use mind control to exploit their members. He warns about 70 people gathered at Arizona State University's Memorial Union that they are prime targets for groups that tend to prey on university students. The Moonies have a house on North Central. Scientology has a church in Mesa. There's Scottsdale's CBJ, whose members believe ...

CLEARWATER — A Mexican woman has alleged that the Church of Scientology's security chief chased her and threatened to kill her for leaving the church. The case has been referred to the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office; no charge has been filed. A statement from a Scientology spokesman said the security guard has been suspended during a church investigation. The police investigation began Sept. 28 after Naxilly Sofia Perez-Morales, 22, called 911 about 7 p.m. from the Post Office on Cleveland Street. ...

The Suit Alleges The Church Of Scientology Violated Several State Laws And Led The Couple On An Emotional Roller Coaster. TAVARES — Samuel Williams' and Janet Miller's odyssey with the Church of Scientology began in 1986 and ended in less than a year. But the Lake County couple's struggle to recover from the experience is nearing 10 years. Their civil suit, which is seeking to recover $542,000 the former husband and wife from Leesburg spent on what they say were bogus ...

A NEW pressure group calling for government action to raise public awareness of cults has come under fire from the Church of Scientology. Founders of Families Under Scientology Stress (Fuss) say that in the few weeks it has been formed it has been amazed at how many people have come forward from all parts of the country pledging support. A group spokesman said: "Most of our supporters have been through difficulties of having a family member in Scientology and it is ...

The following message was posted on the Internet. The author, Lawrence Wollersheim recently won a $4 million judgment against the Church of Scientology. The church is extremely concerned about the numerous defections and a number of successful lawsuits and criminal proceedings against it, particularly in Europe. Subject: Emergency message to Internet users interested In protecting the freedom of information in the Internet. From Lawrence Wollersheim, co-director of FACTNet. For those of you unfamiliar with me I am a co-director of the ...

Perturbations, pleasures and predicaments on the information superhighway: The controversial Church of Scientology is not making any new friends on the Internet. In recent weeks, attorneys for the church have threatened legal action against people who they say post church documents in the alt.religion.scientology discussion group. Now the church wants to shut down the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup entirely, claiming its top-secret "scriptures" are being revealed, and its copyrights and trade secrets violated. "We are trying to deal with an anarchy created by ...

Computers have done what years of opposition couldn't do, uniting the handful of former Scientologists who have waged war against the Church of Scientology. These dissidents are now gathered under the rubric of the Fight Against Coercive Tactics (FACT) network, or FACTnet, a free data base and electronic bulletin board available to the public. The network, based in Golden, Colo., electronically stockpiles information critical of Scientology, from affidavits to court rulings to federal investigations. Although fewer than 150 people now use ...

A GRIEF-stricken man has accused East Grinstead's sinister Scientology cult of stealing his brother from his family. Heartbroken John Phelan says his brother Tony is now a virtual prisoner of the organisation, slammed by a British judge as "corrupt immoral brainwashers." This week officials at the cult's European HQ Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, refused to discuss the case with the Observer. Now the anguished Phelan family have threatened to step up their campaign against the Church of Scientology, unless Tony ...

Exclusive A former cult security guard blows apart the star's squeaky clean image with claims of shocking abuse HOLLYWOOD megastar Tom Cruise has been sensationally named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the United States alleging receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illicit perks from the controversial Scientology religious cult. The 32-year-old Oscar winner is alleged to have turned a blind eye to the use of slave labour to build him a gym, an apartment and other gifts ...

THIS man is working for the Church of Scientology. But you won't find him hovering on a street corner with a smile and a clipboard. He is an American private detective. Ex-Los Angeles police officer Eugene Ingram was sent to Britain to investigate the alleged theft of confidential documents from Saint Hill in East Grinstead, the national headquarters of the cult. Relatives of one leading anti-Scientology campaigner in Sussex have found Mr Ingram on their doorstep. Clergymen who have attacked the ...

[PDF pages 32-34]

To Mr. Mark DeEulio, Tampa, Florida Obviously, there was a concerted effort on the part of Scientology and Richard Haworth to flood my fax machine with requests on an upcoming legal issue. Also it appears that Dr. David Singer, a local chiropractor and Scientologist, used his offices to process the vast majority of this mail. It appears you were not acting as individuals expressing your own personal concerns, but you were expressing the concerns of a manufactured perspective. With regard to ...

No one would ever accuse the Church of Scientology of not being vigilant about its press coverage, especially when it comes to its famous Hollywood members. One of the latest cases in point was the 2,000-word response in Premiere magazine after a recent story about Scientology's ties to the entertainment industry. This was followed by the publication of a 16-page booklet dubbed "Premiere Propaganda." "Premiere's reporter was not interested in writing a fair story on the church. Instead he went out ...

A controversial drug and alcohol abuse center in north-central Oklahoma achieved a big victory Friday in its two-year battle for state approval. Less than a year after calling Narconon Chilocco New Life Center's treatment program unsafe and experimental, the Oklahoma Board of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services voted unanimously Friday to exempt the facility from a state requirement to be certified. The decision came after Narconon showed it had gained approval from a private organization, the Commission for Accreditation of ...

And now, the next Walt Disney Studios— the Church of Scientology! That is, if entrepreneurs connected with the Hollywood based cult can muscle into the film business with their proposal to homogenize films by tailoring them to the tastes of the unwashed masses. It all began last July, when Future Films, a new, eccentric studio, began running ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter touting its revolutionary ideas. No one knew what to make of it all. The grand concept, to ...

The Church of Scientology has a long and undistinguished history of harassing its detractors — but that shouldn't stop the media or anyone else from speaking out against it, cult experts say. The church commonly threatens lawsuits, tries to have detractors arrested, and harasses sources and individual reporters, said Cynthia Kisser of the Cult Awareness Network in Chicago. And recent Sun stories linking the church — alleged by experts to be a dangerous, mind-control cult — to Narconon, a drug rehabilitation ...

When Narconon comes to town, the Church of Scientology — and trouble — follows, residents of Newkirk, Okla. warned yesterday. Newkirk civic leaders were threatened and harassed by the controversial church and its private investigators after they opposed a Narconon treatment centre set up on Indian territory near the small, rural town in 1989, Mayor Gary Bilger said. "We had three investigators in our little town of 2,300 off and on for weeks," he said. "My little boy was 11 years ...

A personal aide to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for eight of her nearly 20 years with the group says that fluoxetine (Prozac) and therapy have finally stopped the depression and suicidal ideation she had suffered since 1976. "I have to speak out." Hana (Eltringham) Whitfield told The Psychiatric Times. "The Scientologists choose the most prominent psychiatrists and the most successful drugs to attack. That's why they attacked Ritalin, and that's why they are now attacking Prozac." Although ...

The Church of Scientology began as a pseudo-scientific healing cult, Dianetics, described by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, in his best-selling book "Dianetics: The Modern science of Mental Health" (1950). At first, Dianetics attracted followers by promising to cure psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders through a procedure called "dianetic auditing," based on pop-psychology, hypnosis, and cybernetics. Hubbard's theory as based on the principle that people can achieve health through abolishing ("clearing") negative influences ("engrams") from their minds by going back ...

The San Diego Union first asked for an interview with Bridge Publications in December 1989. The request was referred to the L. Ron Hubbard Office of Public Relations, a Church of Scientology organization in Los Angeles. Several times throughout January, Union reporter Mike McIntyre contacted the L Ron Hubbard Office of Public Relations to request an interview with Bridge personnel. Each time, L. Ron Hubbard spokeswoman Sharyn Runyon said that a decision had not been made. Runyon later asked McIntyre to ...