When People disappear in "Happy Valley"

From: "Stuttgarten Nachrichten"
February 25, 1999

Scientology re-educates "sceptics and failures" behind barbed wire in accordance with its own methods

Stuttgart - Scientology maintains a prison camp. Up to now there has hardly been any information about it available. And still no pictures. Peter Reichelt, the Mannheim Scientology critic, succeeded in tracking down the sect business' corrective institution.

from our reporter

Anton Notz

"Happy Valley" is a two hour drive from Los Angeles which lies in a desert-like landscape. David Miscavige, Scientology boss, has built an empire in its vicinity which is as luxurious as it is mysterious. Happy Valley, however, is no Club Med. About 100 people of the Sea Org elite guard must serve time there. "The people are genuine prisoners. They are absolutely not there of their own free will," relates Gerry Armstrong, ex-coordinator of the OSA Scientology secret service, who says he spent two and a half years in the prison camp.

Jesse Prince, former second man in the Scientology leadership, behind Miscavige, told Reichelt before the camera what goes on behind the barbed wire and walls which are watched by video cameras. Those interned at the camp must work as slaves day and night. Prince also had experience in there, of which he spoke. He went through Happy Valley for disobeying an order. "It was absolutely terrible. I slept on the floor of a chicken coop, along with the rattlesnakes and scorpions." Hard labor, mandatory hypnoses, brainwashing - those are they methods which former members say Scientology uses to try to bring "sceptics and failures" back into line. Not all, but those who are of importance to the organization because they know too much or are too big of a cog in the worldwide money-making machine.

Scientology itself does not at all dispute that its own people are re-educated in the USA as well as in Europe. It calls this procedure of suppression the "Rehabilitation Project." Marline Getanes, spokesperson of Scientology Europe stated, "It has to do with a program for reparation when one has made serious mistakes. Anyplace else one would simply be thrown out."

How one must rehabilitate oneself in a prison camp in Copenhagen was described by a former high-ranking Scientologist woman: no newspaper, no radio, speak with nobody, eat others' leftovers, always work. Everybody keeps everybody else under surveillance; "knowledge reports" are used to record the wrongdoings of others. The California prison camp inside of Miscavige's paradise on earth contains another peculiarity which Peter Reichelt discovered in a flight over the area: the "track." Jesse Prince commented that some "failures" ran around a pole here for twelve hours in order to become respectable Scientologists once more.

Prince freed himself from the clutches of the sect business. After numerous murder threats, he lives apart from his family in order to protect them. Meanwhile, Peter Reichelt and his colleague, Ina Brockman, who were forcefully held captive on an open road by Scientology members while filming, have produced a show which will be broadcast tonight at 10:45 p.m. on Suedwest 3.

51 year old Wiebke Hansen is still living in Happy Valley. She was once a Scientology manager in Hamburg, one of the most successful worldwide. In 1995 she disappeared without a trace; her brother, Jochen Koerner, has now had contact with her again. He was recently able to visit with her in Hollywood for one day. Wiebke produces advertising spots for Scientology. In the evening she returned to Happy Valley more or less voluntarily. "Re-education camps, we used to have those," said Jochen Koerner in puzzlement.

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