Documents alleging discrimination of Scientology

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The U.S. State Department

The U.S. State department issues annual Human Rights reports. In these reports to Congress, for every country on earth - except the United States themselves - its adherence to the U.N. declaration of Human Rights is evaluated. The alleged religious discrimination of Scientology is mentioned in every report since 1993.

Here are hotlinks to the sections on Germany of the annual reports.

1993 report
1994 report
1995 report
1996 report (also from the U.S. and Sweden)
1997 report (also from the U.S.)
1998 report (also from the U.S.)
1999 report (also from the U.S.)

In 1997, the U.S. State department issued a special report on religious freedom in which Scientology is quoted as being discriminated against in Germany. Somewhat surprisingly, the treatment of Scientology in other European countries is not mentioned.

The U.S. Congress

U.S. Congress resolution 22, 13 Feb 1997
U.S. Congress resolution 325, 6 Aug 1998
U.S. Senate resolution 230, 9 Nov 1999
U.S. Congress resolution 388, 17 Nov 1999

Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress is rather uninterested in human rights violation by the U.S. To learn more about human rights violations in the U.S., read Amnesty International's Rights for All pages.

The CSCE

The CSCE, also called "Helsinki Commission", is

an independent agency of the United States Government mandated to monitor and encourage compliance of the participating States with the Helsinki Final Act and subsequent documents. It is composed of nine members from the United States Senate and nine members from the House of Representatives, as well as one member each from the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce.

(from the CSCE homepage). Note that the CSCE is not really related to the OSCE.

In 1993, the CSCE issued a report on Germany titled "Human Rights and Democratization in Unified Germany". This report contains the following paragraph on Scientology:

Members of the Church of Scientology, for example, have protested harassment harassment in the form of firings, expulsion from political parties, and discriminatory treatment from local and state authorities, solely based on their affiliation with Scientology. Indeed, in one recently publicized case in which the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg broke off contract negotiations with jazz musician Chick Corea upon learning that Mr. Corea was a Scientologist, state officials explained quite unapologetically to the Helsinki Commission that "The position that Baden-Wuerttemberg takes toward Scientology is shared by all other German States ... We judge the practices of Scientology in a very critical manner", and "Neither would we engage in a contractual agreement with an artist who is either radically to the left or radically to the right because we feel that it would be bad advertising for the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg."

(The report is also available via gopher from server.gdn.org in Common Ground Format.)

In 1997, the CSCE had a hearing about violation of religious tolerance in Europe. You can find the full protocol at http://www.house.gov/csce/hearing.htm or excerpts concerning Scientology here.

The U.N. Commission of Human Rights

The Special Rapporteur of the U.N. Commission of Human Rights, has also included Germany in his reports on religious intolerance in

1993 in French, 429 kBytes; in English, 360 kBytes; the chapter on Germany in English (23 kBytes)
1994 (471 kBytes); the chapter on Germany and its creatively edited version, published by Scientology
1995 (46 kBytes; there are no special chapters on countries in this report. The other group which - according to the report - Germany discriminates against is the group Universal Life which has a reputation similar to Scientology.)
1996 (67 kBytes; there are no special chapters on countries in this report. Germany was apparently not the target of complaints in that year.)
1997 (126 kBytes). Interestingly, Scientology has this year complained about discrimination in Switzerland, but not in Germany. In fact, Germany was not the target of complaints that year.

In September 1997, Abdelfattah Amor, then Special Rapporteur of the U.N. Commission of Human Rights, visited Germany and afterwards issued this report.

The House of Lords, Great Britain

In 1996, an "ad hoc committee" visited Germany to investigate the situation of religious minorities. The committee was put together by the member of the Liberals, Lord Duncan McNair, who is a Scientologist himself. Together with Lord Hylton he introduced the results of his visit into the House of Lords. Since the visit had not been authorized by the House of Lords or the Liberal Party, the German parliament and the German government refused to deal with the commission.

Report of the ad hoc committee to investigate discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities in Germany

Human Rights Organizations

Contrary to claims in Scientology propaganda rags, Amnesty International has not commented on religious persecution in Germany.

Amnesty International annual reports:

Neither has Human Rights Watch in its April 1995 report "Germany for Germans" mentioned Scientology.

Notably, Scientology is not interested in Human Rights violations anywhere on the world unless its own rights are affected. For example, Amnesty International issues country reports for the U.S. as well (which the U.S. State department conveniently forgets). These deal with the death penalty, the forcible return of asylum seekers back home, and racism.

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