Goverment officials and parliamentarians frequenly participate in religious freedom conferences and workshops organised by the Church of Scientology International European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights in Brussels.

In examining the sources of such abuses, the churches of Scientology looked into the activities of certain groups that agitate against all new and minority religious movements and often operate as an arm of the government or state church. To date, the Church has documented the illegal activities of members of these vested interest groups in Spain, Britain, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and Germany and has provided the information to the authorities. For instance, when a member of a peripheral Catholic movement in Spain was kidnapped, constrained in a psychiatric hospital and force-fed psychiatric drugs because of his religious affiliation, the Church’s human rights journal Ethics and Liberty investigated the perpetrators — members of the group “AIS Pro Juventud.” After Ethics and Liberty’s coverage, government funding of the group was abruptly cut. In 1999, the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg condemned Spain for violating the right of freedom of six members of the group CEIS who were subjected to a ten-day process of mental “deprogramming.” Both the sentence of the court and the government hold the family of the arrested and the anti-religious association AIS Pro Juventud “responsible for this violation of right to freedom.”⁴

In an overview of religion in Europe, no country serves as a better example of the struggle regarding such democratic concepts of religious freedom than Germany. In light of its past violations of human rights and its ascent to leadership in European and world affairs, Germany’s standing in the religious freedom arena is of no minor importance. The Church has repeatedly published extensive details of religious discrimination in Germany and helped to inform government, media, human rights leaders and the public on the issue.

The Church painstakingly documented more than 1,500 cases of discrimination against its parishioners and members of other minority religions in Germany and presented the information to international human rights agencies. It was so compelling as to convince the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance, the Human Rights Centre of Essex University, England, an ad hoc committee of British lords and scholars, the U.S. State Department, the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe and many other independent researchers that a serious problem of religious intolerance exists in Germany.

Then, in 1997, more than 10,000 Scientologists and members of other religious denominations held a march in Berlin in support of religious freedom for people of all faiths.

The Church’s documentation and demonstrations contributed to a decision by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance to conduct an 11-day visit to Germany, meeting with members of minority faiths and German government officials to ascertain the facts first-hand. In his report, published in December 1997, he found that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’is, the Unification Church, Mormons, Scientologists and members of the Hare Krishna movement all complained of a climate of religious intolerance. The Rapporteur urged that the German government “beyond day-to-day management, must implement a strategy to prevent intolerance in the field of religion and belief.” His recommendations and those of other human rights organisations had an impact: by March 2004, as Chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Rapporteur was able to welcome the establishment in Germany of an independent national Human Rights Institute.

Although undeniable progress has been made, in large part due to the Church’s work that led to more than 45 reports by human rights bodies criticising the German government for religious intolerance, much remains to be done. In its 2004 concluding observations on Germany’s adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Committee welcomed the positive developments while expressing concern about continuing violations of the religious freedom article of the Covenant. And, in July 2004, the European Commission announced that it is taking legal action against Germany in the European Court of Justice over the government’s failure to incorporate into domestic law two anti-discrimination directives that prohibit discrimination based on religion, racial or ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation and disability.

As Scientology has expanded into more than 150 countries, the churches of Scientology have increasingly adopted the role of religious freedom watchdogs and have found themselves fighting for the right to freedom of worship in countries all over the world.

⁴ 37680/97, Ribera Blume and others v. Spain