Since some of the materials which describe the $cientology cult could be
considered to be copywritten materials, I have censored myself and The
Skeptic Tank by deleting any and all possible text files which describes
the cult's hidden mythologies. I have elected to quote just a bit of the
questionable text according to the "Fair Use" legal findings afforded to
those who report. - Fredric L. Rice, The Skeptic Tank, 09/Sep/95
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Big Suprise - France
Date: 7 Jul 1995 15:27:21 +0200
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30 arrested in Paris crackdown on Scientologists
Agence France Presse
January 14, 1992 18:37 GMT
Thirty leading members of France's Scientology Church were under
arrest here Tuesday after police raids Monday on the Paris
headquarters and an annex of the controversial sect, security
forces said.
They said 15 sect leaders were detained on Monday and another 15
on Tuesday with warrants issued by a judge acting on complaints
by former sect members who say they have been defrauded of a
total four million francs (740,000 dollars).
The searches were at the headquarters of the Church and a
building called the Celebrity Center, which bills itself is a
school for dianetics, the philosophy of "spiritual awareness" at
the center of the sect created by the late science-fiction writer
L. Ron Hubbard.
Police said Yves Veau, director of the Celebrity Center, was
among those detained.
It was the second police swoop in less than two years against the
Scientology Church here.
About 30 Scientologists were arrested -- and 19 of them later
indicted -- between May and October 1990 on charges of fraud,
conspiracy to defraud and the illegal practice of medicine
following the 1988 suicide of a church member in Lyon, eastern
France.
Veau was one of those indicted in the 1990 arrests.
The Scientology Church, founded in 1954 by the mysterious
Hubbard, who died in 1986, claims six million members worldwide.
But a French group opposed to religious sects, the Center for
Documentation, Education and Action against Mental Manipulation
(CCMM), says it has only about 400,000 members in some 30
countries, including several thousand in France.
Scientology presents itself as "an applied religious science,"
which promises "scientific mental health" through dianetics. The
philosophy claims that all illnesses can be cured on condition
that the human brain rids itself of "aberrations" -- learning how
to achieve this costs around 100,000 francs (18,500 dollars) plus
several costly "purification" sessions, CCMM says.
The answer to all the world's problems according to its
followers, a cynical and manipulative financial operation
according to its critics, Scientology is said to have an annual
turnover of some 150 million dollars.
Converts include such celebrities as soprano Julia
Migenes-Johnson, actor John Travolta and jazz pianist Chick
Corea.
The sect has often found itself in trouble with officialdom the
world over, accused of defrauding and brainwashing followers and,
in France, of quackery at its illegal anti-drug clinics called
"Narconon."