On 2 Oct 1999 05:50:57 GMT, in alt.religion.scientology you wrote:

Mark Bunker wrote:

Belgian police on Thursday seized what were described as "truck loads" of documents during raids throughout Belgium of 25 offices

Hartley Patterson <hpttrsn@REMOVE.ME.vossnet.co.uk> wrote...

According to the CoS Web site there is just one Org (in Brussels), no Missions.

"Piltdown Man" <piltdown@newsguy.com.NOSPAM>

That is correct. The Church of Scientology Brussels had been at the same address in the Rue du Prince Royal in Brussels since its foundation. They were in the process of moving to a new address in the Rue MacArthur (which seemed rather downstat from the TV pictures). Both were raided. All the other places raided were the offices of Scientology-related companies such as U-Man, and private residences.

Hartley Patterson <hpttrsn@REMOVE.ME.vossnet.co.uk> wrote...

The church claims 8,000 members in Belgium.

"Piltdown Man" <piltdown@newsguy.com.NOSPAM>

Which would be 0.08% of the population.

How many full-time staff would be needed anyway if there really were 8000 active Scientologists in Belgium?

Hartley Patterson <hpttrsn@REMOVE.ME.vossnet.co.uk> wrote...

Well, that's another country onto my list. I'm still searching for the '3 million members' the CoS claims to have in Europe.

"Piltdown Man" <piltdown@newsguy.com.NOSPAM>

Some time ago somebody who had been on staff in Brussels for a brief while and had worked on their address list posted to ARS. From my vague recollection, they had a few thousand addresses on file, but almost all were people who'd never been seriously involved or no longer active. I recall he made it out there were something over a hundred active members a few years ago. I don't know who he was or how reliable he was, but he seemed to know what he spoke about. Maybe someone can dig it up out of the ARS archives.