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Indybay Feature

Church of Scientology linked to family breakups, child labour, exploitation

by Sydney Davis
Scientology's latest public relations stunt has drawn criticism, as former members speak out about the organization's destructive policies. Multiple reports indicate that children are being exploited, denied a proper education, and separated from their families by Scientology organizations.
Members of the Sydney Church of Scientology swooped upon Hunter's Hill's Moocooboola Festival last Sunday in an attempt to associate the controversial organisation with a legitimate police initiative focusing on missing persons. The Australia Federal Police (AFP) held Missing Person's Week to raise awareness of an issue that causes immense heartache to families. The AFP motto reportedly read: "When communication goes missing, so does our youth. Don't close the door to communication."

"This motto really tells it like it is," said Cyrus Brooks, the Vice President of the Church of Scientology Australia. However, these public comments are in stark contrast to the official policies of Scientology. In the United States, the Church of Scientology has come under intense criticism for its practice of enforced "disconnection". Critics claim this cult-like policy tears families apart, as Scientologists are required to cut off all contact with anyone who is considered by the Church to be a "suppressive person".

In a recent report aired by ABC Nightline[1], the niece of Scientology's current leader spoke out against Scientology's destructive and coercive policies. Jenna Miscavige Hill recounted how she rarely saw her parents, who were members of Scientology's core group known as the Sea Organization (Sea Org). "What we're told is that they have to work so hard because they're helping other people. Your family isn't the most important thing." At the age of 12 she was pressured into joining the Sea Org, where she was made to work extremely long hours for little pay. "I saw my mom probably a half an hour, one time, from when I was twelve 'til I was sixteen. I saw my dad maybe three times, for half an hour each time." After her parents left the church, Ms Hill was ordered to stop communicating with them, and she was prohibited from answering the phone in case they attempted to call her. Astra Woodcraft similarly was barred from speaking with her father after he left Scientology. She has since left Scientology and has joined Jenna Miscavige Hill and Kendra Wiseman in setting up the website exscientologykids.com to support those who have been harmed by the abusive policies of the Scientology organization.

In March 2008, Susan Lentsch issued a press release[2] pleading for the Church of Scientology to allow her to see her daughter, Katherine "Kate" Olson. Olson had repeatedly been denied permission to leave the Scientology facility where she works in Scientology's Sea Organization. Ms. Lentsch reports "Kate was crying when she was put on the speaker phone to say hello to her grandparents." Following the release of her statement, the Church allowed a brief meeting between the mother and daughter, in the presence of a Scientology handler.

In Australia, the Workplace Ombudsman and the Victorian Department of Education are investigating allegations that children as young as thirteen are being used as child labour in Scientology organizations, while being denied a proper education[3]. This investigation was prompted by the testimony of a whistleblower who went to the authorities with evidence of the illegal practice at the Melbourne Church of Scientology. "At the end of the day, Scientology is a business, that operates as a cult, pretending to be a religion." said the informant in comments to the media.

Former high-level Scientologist Jason Beghe left the organization last year, and has spoken out against the abusive practices in Scientology[4]. "What they do to recruit actors is one thing - what about the little children they get into the Sea Organization? You hear my story, and I got out and I got some sad tales and maybe I got ripped off for a good chunk of money... If you look at that, as compared to someone who joins the Sea Org, it's not even comparable... A hundred hours probably is what the average Sea Org person works a week... and then you get that for 50 years, 40 years, because they get them when they're teenagers. I mean that's taking people's lives away. That's enslaving somebody's mind."

In comments to the Australian media, Beghe said "Everybody has a right to believe what they want to believe. But I don't believe that anybody has a right to trick anybody, to hurt anybody, to harm somebody for their own purposes."



[1] Growing Up Scientologist. ABC Nightline. April 24, 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJu-j4aa90Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeKzuyyIfG0

[2] Press Release. Portland, Oregon - March 11, 2008. Susan Lentsch.
http://exscientologykids.com/kateolsen.html

[3] Scientology Child Labour Scandal Exposed. July 7, 2008. Channel 7 Today Tonight.
http://www.vimeo.com/1295178

[4] Scientology: Full Jason Beghe Interview. XenuTV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHb0BZyF5Ok

[5] Jason Beghe Interview. Channel 7 Today Tonight. July 8, 2008.
http://www.vimeo.com/1301625
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Bev
Thanks for setting the record straight about one of Scientology's countless self-praising, masturbatory press releases. It's good to answer those things with the truth. Thanks again.
by Terryeo
Jenna Miscavige Hill is an example of how a family member might disconnect themselves from other family members who remain Church members. Of course this sort of personal preference can be found in any religion, anywhere. One family prefer Church A over Church B and a family member goes to Church A during their formative years, quits, then seeks their own way.

The article mis-evaluates the importance of these matters and makes no mention of parallel situations in other religions - which are pretty common in our mobile society of today.
by ANONYMOUS
Wrong again, Terryeo. Check out http://www.scientologydisconnection.com .
by bob
But I bet church A and church B will let children see there perants for more than half an hour in four years.
also, why the link to wikinfo? it's the most unrelyable wiki out there
by Relanon
There are other religions that practice "excommunication". The difference is that in those religions, the excommunication is normally within a specific church or encouraged within a family.

In Scientology, it isn't only encouraged, it is threatened. If someone does not follow through with a disconnection in Scientology, they face being kicked out of Scientology and stripped from their title of being a Scientologist. Scientology teaches that anyone who questions policies is PTS (Potential Trouble Source). If this is a relative of a Scientologist, the person must be dealt with so they are no longer critical. If they continue to be critical, then the Scientologist is told to close all ties with this person, with threats to kick them out of Scientology. Scientologists fear this, because they are told that the outside world will end up killing them and they will never reach their goal of "clearing the planet".

At least in legitimate religions that shun people within the religion do not tell them that they're not allowed to call themselves such (Christian, Jew, Catholic, Muslim, etc.), as personal decisions within a religion are made on faith, and not necessarily by the order of an "authority" within the church. The religious leader may encourage an excommunication, but he cannot force it.

In Scientology, they got to extreme lengths to make sure their members do not hear any critical information about their church. If it means never seeing or talking to your family ever again, that's a chance their willing to take. Scientology teaches its members to put themselves before their family and friends.
by Quentin Hubbard
First, Terryeo, aka Terry E. Olsen, is well known as a scientology troll and mouthpiece. He was banned from Wikipedia for repeated violations of Wikipedia policy.
I have several friends who have had family members forced to disconnect from them by scientology "ethics officers" and "masters at arms". To maintain the cult, damaging facts cannot be allowed to be communicated to members. SP declares (the scientology version of the old label of witch) and enforced disconnection are used to tear families apart.
Scientology is a totalitarian organization that is dedicated to undermine democratic governments and free societies, all the while pretending to support human rights. In fact, it is a notorious violator of human rights within its own group and outside its group with its Fair Game practice.
by CommentOpener
Jenna didn't choose to disconnect from her parents.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disconnection

"Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of David Miscavige, spoke out about the policy's effect on her family. She revealed that, once her parents left and she remained in the group, she had been forbidden to answer the telephone in case she spoke to them and that her parents only restored occasional access to her by threatening legal action."

If disconnection were a personal choice, why did the Church of Scientology forbid her to answer the telephone after Jenna's parents left the church?

Therefore, Terryeo, your statement "Jenna Miscavige Hill is an example of how a family member might disconnect themselves from other family members who remain Church members." is false, and properly backed up with documentation. But, like all Scientologists, well-sourced evidence means nothing to you.
by Terryeo
Why a link to Wikinfo? Because its mission statement is to create new, innovative and useful information. Anyone willing to register can edit. Meaning multiple articles on a single issues, each with a strong, individual point of view. A reader is invited to satisfy themselves.

Disconnection, for example. Critics say one thing and support their say with specific data (some do, anyway). The Church says another thing and supports its say with specific data (critics deny the data's validity).

In practical fact, most of us have disconnected from someone, sometime in our life, 'eh Quentin Hubbard? :)
by Mia
Terryeo, I don't think you are really a Scientologist. You're too nice.

Nice, but incorrect!
by Fredric L. Rice (frice [at] skeptictank.org)
Also do a google search on the title, "Missing in happy valley." The Scientoilogy crime syndicate kidnaps people, holds them against their will, and denies family members from seeing or even talking to their loves ones who disappear inside of the crime syndicate.

It's an insane hypocricy that the crime bosses in the dieing cult still try to play act that they're some how anything other than a sinister, human-right denying criminal enterprise bent solely on rooking and swindleing money from rubes, marks, and suckers that fall for the frauds.

During human rights protests outside of the Scientology business office's barbed wires in Gilman Hot Springs, California, mothers have parked and yelled for their loves ones to come out and talk with them only to be denied by the crime bosses within.

The last thing that Scientology wants is Democracy, human rights, freedoms, and liberties. Scientology is organized crime. Period.
by RONBOTHUNTER
Ronbot is a pejorative term for some or all fanatical followers of Scientology. The term is a pun on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's first name and the word robot.
The term Ronbot is meant to express the habit of Scientologists of being so programmed with the "Tech" that they can't express their own viewpoints on life, because that has been suppressed and prohibited of them from doing so.
The fanatical Ronbot never doubts any thing he is told by staff, never investigates, never thinks beyond what he is told, never seeks to know more than he is permitted to know, never refuses to turn on his family, never reads what he is told not to read, never refuses to hurt the feelings of his family, never refuses to kill the love he had for his family, never doubts PTS or SP data, never seeks other ways to heal any symptom, never wonders why he is so fanatical and why? Never wonders why he hates SPs, never refuses to hurt, damage or harm an SP, never doubts he is superior to us, never refuses to obey his masters on staff, etc.
The fanatical Ronbots that guard the military bases and navy of Scientology are ordered to kill or shoot at any SP that comes near or invades their ships or bases, even if it is their own parents who go there to get them out. He is so robotic that the killing of his own parent will not produce the same mental effect that it would produce in us – if we killed our own father or mother, whose only crime was the hurt of disconnection ordered by the Anti-God cult.
Ex-scientologists view a fanatical anti-god Ronbot as a brainwashed Robot, since he can't ever leave the Tech and express his own view points.
His reading material, his TV viewing and his interpersonal relationships and what he says and the way he talks, are closely monitored by other Ronbot Staff. If they discover that he went out with or talked with an SP and read material from Anti-cult websites, he is in deep trouble and must now face an ethics review.
He in fact does not have his own viewpoints, but just thinks so. His mind is so flooded with the Tech that to speak to, associate with, date or love a person who is classed as an SP is instant insanity (drastic down-tone slide) and he will be classed by the Cult as a “risk” or PTS.
Remember this fact—that all true fanatical Ronbots have a weak mind and spirit. They are actually very willing to be a slave of the Tech without question.
In the CULT OF SCIENTOLOGY YOU HAVE NO CONSTITUTION RIGHTS SUCH AS FREE SPEECH – you are told what to think, do and say. Your actions, your friends your relations, your books, and everything else you can think about is RESTRICTED to their approval.
In the CULT OF SCIENTOLOGY YOU HAVE NO CONSTITUTION RIGHTS OR CIVIL RIGHTS SUCH AS THE RIGHT TO MEDICAL CARE OF YOUR OWN CHOOSING. IF YOU ARE SICK IN ANY WAY – YOU ARE PROHIBITED BECAUSE YOU ARE CLASSED AS A PTS PERSON AND AS SUCH, YOU HAVE NO FREEDOMS.
YOU ARE NOT A FREE MAN OR WOMAN ABLE to do as you please at home, read what you please at home, your home TV set has a little censorship lock on it placed there by the cult to keep you inline.
Even your thoughts and innermost secrets are investigated and if they are considered wrong or un-approved by your ETHICS OFFICER you are taken (scammed) for more money.
The fanatical Ronbot was told that "suppression is illness and illness is suppression", therefore he thinks that all illnesses come only from suppression or a PTS condition.
Remember that Ronbots are told that “all illnesses to a greater or lesser degree are due to only a PTS condition”. Any illness or symptom makes a fanatical Ronbot turn on anyone he was near in the past 72 hours. He is programmed to believe that his Mother or Father now is a Monster called a“SP” or “Suppressive Person.
He is never given the facts on “symptom re-stimulations”. He is never told about it being a physiological reaction, he is never told that all symptoms and illnesses are physiological reactions and that some symptoms can be re-stimulated by stress and arguments. And those symptoms are never the same for all; because every one has different deficiencies and different levels of toxins in their body that will always bring out a different symptom each time he is argued with.
Remember this one fact that Scientology rejects—“symptoms are not illnesses!” But Ronbots are never taught the true causes of real illnesses, and are trained to despise their parents when they get a symptom of a real illness. Symptoms can be re-stimulated by many real causes of illnesses even by stress—which in the cult is accepted by the brain-washed ronbots as “suppression”.
Scientology NEVER teaches Ronbots that symptoms are really physiological reactions of all life on Earth.
A physiological reaction is an effect of some cause. The real causes of all illnesses produce the symptom.
They use this brain-washing about symptoms, in order to control them and make them hate whoever opposes the cult.
In his weak fanatical brain-washed mind, he can't ever accept that legal and illegal drugs, chemicals, parasites, toxins, toxic plants, mutated foods, Nuked (irradiated) Foods, or poisonous animals or insects, poisons, viruses or bacteria or over acidity etc., are the only and true causes of illnesses in the world. His mind rejects these well known facts as SP propaganda.
When he faces you in the street—he can’t see you, he can only see what is programmed into his brain-washed head. To him, you are the SP monster who is no better than his SP father or SP mother he turned his back on and now hates and/or distrusts.
He is not free to think for himself--therefore he is a ronbot.
It is senseless to argue or fight with a Ronbot—he needs de-programming—he needs to be told he is a Robot and that he can’t pull the plug and reset his brain. Do not confront a Ronbot the old way – just pity him and dare him to talk with you about how Physiological Reactions are connected to study tech.
Dare him to have a friendly conversation with you—the more of a Ronbot he is – the more he will be afraid to go to ethics for daring to talk with an SP.
The fact that is easily proved is that he is really SCARED to have a friendly conversation with you – to him you are a suppressive person – to him you are a MONSTER – the kind of monster his cowardly mind could not face in his nightmares.
The Anti-God cult will threaten any person with total exposure of all their confessed sins and secrets, if you dare leave, EXPOSE or confront them. That is the weapon that controls ALL CELEBRITIES, PROFESSIONALS AND COWARDS. The weak have given up their soul and now find that it will be made public knowledge.
The programming that he has received will force him to ask for your sins and secrets. He sincerely believes that you are against the Cult ONLY because you have sins of omission and commission.
Explain to him that he has sins and secrets too and that you would like to know his first, since he brought up the issue first. But don’t ask to hear them as a treat or condition to talk with him—if he refuses to give you his own sins and secrets—let it pass as long as he is willing to talk with you.
Do not argue with or insult a Ronbot, talk with him in a polite way even if he disgusts you. Arguments are commercial Controversies and make you lose the game. Get him to identify who he is and find out if he has property or a website. He if is connected to any website that libels and slanders your actual name on it—he just made you rich.
Then hire a Private Investigator to find out who owns or runs the website. Write them and accept all their attacks on your name for value. Start the UCC method to counter-attack them and take them for all they own.
Know this for a fact. -- His brain is not his anymore. He can’t be proactive and dare to talk with a person who he was told is a MONSTER. But if he dares to talk and you only ask questions and never argue with him. He will begin to doubt and you know what happens to him after he is in the Condition of Doubt.
He is as evolved as a snail-or he was one in another life. In this life, he consented to be a mind-slave. Just dare him to read and dare him to talk with any anti-cult person on a friendly basis for at least one hour—dare him to get to know you--by then after that hour he is now a damaged ronbot to the cult—he won’t be trusted and now he is on his way to freedom from control.
For you to defeat the Anti-God “Church” of Scientology you must expose these truths about how Ron discovered Study Technology.
Once you put this NEW DATA into his brain, he is now damaged goods and is no longer a Ronbot, but a suspected PTS person never to be trusted again by the Cult.
To save a RONBOT BRAIN you must deprogram it with NEW DATA.

Sincerely yours,

Ronbothunter
All Rights Reserved


Copyright Ronbothunter--- All Rights Reserved, Without Prejudice UCC 1-308 & 1-103.6 including rights under the UCC and common law remedies. I reserve my right not to be compelled to perform under any contract or commercial agreement that I did not personally sign and enter knowingly, voluntarily and intentionally and especially if I was not given full disclosure. I do not accept the liability of the compelled benefit of any unrevealed contract or commercial agreement.

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