Scientology: Religious sect, or money-making cult? ( Paris ? Special to The Globe and Mail)

Scientology: Religious sect, or money-making cult?
by Susan Sachs

Paris — Special to The Globe and Mail
Published on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 7:17PM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/scientology-religious-sect-or-mon
ey-making-cult/article1340903/
Last updated on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 2:58AM EDT


.The German domestic intelligence service keeps the Church of
Scientology under surveillance as a potential threat to democracy.
Belgian prosecutors have been building a blackmail case against it for
11 years.

Now the French have taken a more forceful step.

In a decision that could reverberate across Europe, a court in Paris
Tuesday convicted the French branch of the church of “organized fraud”
and said it had systematically tricked recruits out of their savings.

The two flagship Scientology outposts in Paris, a bookstore and an
information centre, were ordered to pay €600,000 in fines. The head of
the church in France was given a two-year suspended sentence for fraud
and fined €30,000.

However, the court allowed the church to keep operating in France. In
May, when the trial began, prosecutors asked that it be shut down as a
criminal enterprise, only to discover that the law that might have
allowed its banishment had just been deleted as part of an overhaul of
the penal code.

The judges said they did not order the church offices closed because
they did not want to drive Scientologists underground, where they
could not be monitored.

They also said a paid notice of the church's conviction would be
published in Time magazine and the International Herald Tribune so
that news of the church's conviction would spread beyond France.

“The court told the Scientologists, in essence, to be very, very
careful, because if you continue to use the same methods of
harassment, you won't escape next time,” said Olivier Morice, the
lawyer for the civil plaintiffs in the case.

Church lawyers, who likened the Paris trial to the Inquisition, said
they will appeal.

Individual members of the Church of Scientology have previously been
convicted in the French courts. The founder of the Lyons branch was
sent to prison for involuntary manslaughter in 1997 after the suicide
of a debt-ridden church member. In 1999, five church members were
found guilty of fraud.

Tuesday's ruling was the first to directly target the methods of the
church, which has been fighting legal battles across the continent to
be registered as a religious association and to fend off restrictions
from European governments that view it as nothing more than a money-
making cult.

In Germany, it has been under fire from local governments that have
shut down its after-school programs and distributed pamphlets warning
people against joining the Scientologists. National and state interior
ministers two years ago said the church posed a threat to
constitutional values and ordered the intelligence service to keep it
under watch.

But late last year they backed off from an effort to try to ban it
outright.

In Belgium, another country that has tried to marginalize the
Scientologists, the 12 members of the Brussels branch have been under
investigation since 1998 after a complaint from a woman who said she
was defrauded. In May, when hearings were finally opened in the case,
the church won a postponement.

The U.S. State Department regularly criticizes efforts by France and
other European countries to marginalize or regulate Scientology. The
church itself has also been aggressive in defending its operations.

Three weeks ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in
Scientology's favour in a case it brought against Russian authorities
who refused to recognize two church affiliates as religious
organizations. The court hears cases from the 47 countries that are
members of the Council of Europe.

The French case stemmed from similar complaints from people who said
that in 1998, Scientology officials harassed them into emptying their
bank accounts to pay for expensive courses, equipment, vitamins and
what were called purification treatments.

One of those plaintiffs, Aude-Claire Malton, broke down in court as
she described how the church pressured her to spend all her savings of
€30,000 in the space of four months and then tried to convince her to
borrow more. “They cleaned me out, demolished me,” she said. “It's
mental manipulation.”

The church's top official in France, who was convicted in the case,
called the payments demanded of adherents simple donations. “No church
lives only on the energy of the good Lord,” he told the judges.

France has labelled the Church of Scientology a cult, a designation
that brings it under the purview of a special government monitoring
commission that reports each year on “abuses by sects.”

At least five other cases involving complaints against the church are
under investigation by courts around France, according to press
reports.

One was brought by the family of a woman who said she threw herself in
front of a train three years ago after being told repeatedly by her
Scientology mentors that she was a failure.

Tuesday's ruling could encourage other unhappy Scientology recruits to
come forward, said Catherine Picard, head of the French Association of
Victims of Sects.

“They've had a real slap in the face,” she said. “Nationally and
internationally, the word Scientologist will be associated with
fraud.”

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