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Open Letter to Joseph K. Grieboski
Institute on Religion and Public Policy October 25, 2004
Joseph K. Grieboski
Institute on Religion and Public Policy
1101 15th Street NW
Suite 115
Washington, DC 20005
Dear Mr. Grieboski:
I have webbed the
statement of Professor Alexander Dvorkin made at the recent forum you and
he attended at Rhodes, Greece. Dr. Dvorkin, who devoted part of his time to responding
to a statement made by you, cites to and challenges you about the Gerry Armstrong
case. I am that Armstrong, and I also challenge you and your organization about
my case.
Dr. Dvorkin says:
"Mr. Grieboski says that without freedom of conscience, freedom
of speech and other freedoms cannot exist. But totalitarian cults deny freedom
of speech. After all, religious criticism is also an inalienable component of
freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We see how totalitarian cults silence
criticism of themselves with endless, grueling court proceedings, so that today
in the USA it is extremely rare that one can encounter in the open press criticism
of totalitarian cults or statements defending their victims. Indicative of this
is the well-known case of Gerry Armstrong, who lost eleven years of his life in
Scientology, for whom a court judgment of a California court now not only prohibits
to speak about his experience in this cult, but even to pronounce in public words
like "Scientology," "Hubbard," Dianetics" and so forth.
For each violation of this prohibition he is supposed to pay 50,000 dollars. If
for a moment one concurs with Scientology's assertion that it is a religion, then
such a prohibition could be compared to a court order prohibiting a former Muslim
from uttering the word "Mohammed," "Koran" or "Islam."
But if we were to say in this case that Scientology is an international intelligence
organization that uses criminal methods, then the prohibition is the equivalent
of prohibiting the victim of organized crime group from saying the word "Mafia"
or "godfather." And this abominable judgment was made by an American
court and is upheld by American law enforcement agencies. Is this called freedom
of speech?
At the same time, in the annual reports of the US Congress, publications
by other countries that are critical of one or another cult are viewed and cited
as violations of freedom of conscience."
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/dvorkin-speech-2004-09-29.html
You and your organization clearly support Scientology, and criticize
those countries that oppose Scientology fraud, abuses, criminality and human rights
violations. Scientology, as is also clear, portrays itself as a courageous defender
and promoter of human rights, when the Armstrong case shows that Scientology is
anything but.
Your research
associate Kyle Ballard writes this about his project “The Study of Religious
Freedoms in Russia:
"In modern democracies, religious freedoms are fundamental.
Thus, as Russia is shedding its Communist ideology and emerging as a democratic
state, religious freedoms have become essential. With this in mind, I traveled
to Moscow and Nizhniy-Novgorod to attend the Experts Conference on Religious Freedoms
in Russia and to study the position of religious minorities in Russian society.
My assistant was Alexei Danchenkov, Russian national and a legal
analyst and spokesman for the Church of Scientology. In attendance at the conference
were academics, journalists, state servants, political advisers, and religious
freedoms advocates from both Russia and the United States. The conference provided
an open forum to discuss the state of religious freedoms in the Russian Federation
and allowed U.S. experts to share the American experience. Moreover, because the
Church of Scientology works extremely hard on religious freedom issues, I was
provided with much information the struggles of religious groups around the world."
—
Kyle Ballard
Your board member Lynsey Bartilson, who is identified on your
web site as a “human rights activist,” is a Scientologist. She describes
herself on her own web site as “the International Spokesperson for Youth
for Human Rights.” She says that the purpose of this Scientology group is:
“To teach youth around the globe about human rights, thus helping them to
become valuable advocates for the promotion of tolerance and peace.” http://www.lynseybartilson.com/
The Gerry Armstrong case demonstrates beyond any doubt that Scientology
is not seeking religious freedom, and not defending and promoting human rights,
as the organization publicly claims, but is a wholesale suppressor and destroyer
of religious freedom and basic human rights.
Scientology seeks to have me jailed, fined and assessed the obscene
amount of $50,000 in “damages” for every religious expression of my
religious experiences, or my religious knowledge, or my religious beliefs concerning
this organization, which insists that it is a religion.
Virtually all of my religious expressions of my religious experiences,
knowledge, or beliefs for which Scientology wants me jailed, fined and ruined
utterly have occurred in Canada or Europe. What Scientology seeks is in direct
and flagrant violation of international human rights declarations and charters,
which the U.S. lists in its own “International Religious Freedom Act of
1998:
"(2) Freedom of religious belief and practice is a universal
human right and fundamental freedom articulated in numerous international instruments,
including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, the Helsinki Accords, the Declaration on the Elimination
of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, the
United Nations Charter, and the European Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/laws/majorlaw/intlrel.htm
This same U.S. law, H.R. 2431, states as U.S. policy:
"(b) POLICY- It shall be the policy of the United States,
as follows:
(1) To condemn violations of religious freedom, and to promote,
and to assist other governments in the promotion of, the fundamental right to
freedom of religion."
Pursuant to its own law, the U.S. Government should be condemning
what the Scientology organization is attempting to do with me, especially because
Scientology is seeking to deprive me of my religious liberty and other rights
and privileges secured to me by the U.S.’s own Constitution and the U.S.’s
own Laws under color of the U.S.’s own law.
Instead, the U.S. Government supports Scientology in its drive
to suppress and destroy basic human rights, including by condemning those sovereign
nations who oppose Scientology’s suppression and destruction of human rights.
Your organization apparently does the same, in alignment with the U.S. Government’s
anti-human rights position and activities.
As Kyle Ballard observed, Scientology works extremely hard on
religious freedom issues. The Gerry Armstrong case shows, however, that this “religious
freedom” Scientology works so extremely hard on is the “religious
freedom” to suppress, punish and destroy religious freedom.
Scientology has paid millions of tax-exempt dollars to attorneys,
private investigators and other agents, and organization directors, officers,
employees and volunteers to achieve the criminal and condemnable goal of suppressing,
punishing and destroying religious freedom. Scientology has paid millions to achieve
that shameful goal in the Armstrong
case alone.
Every Scientology or Scientology-affiliated corporation, organization
or entity, and all of their directors, officers, employees, volunteers, lawyers
and agents sign on to the Armstrong
contract to suppress, punish and destroy religious freedom.
People like Ms. Bartilson, who probably have good hearts, but
certainly have celebrity, are used by Scientology as spokespersons for its “human
rights” front groups. As long as she remains under the domination of the
Scientology organization, with its well known cultic policy and practice of attacking
opponents, and even critics, will she really teach about real human rights, real
tolerance and real peace? As a Scientology representative, Ms. Bartilson is contracted
to suppress and destroy human rights.
Scientology’s ideal for peace is a state in which Scientology
and every Scientology or Scientology-affiliated corporation, organization or entity,
and all of their directors, officers, employees, volunteers, lawyers and agents
can attack, defame, silence, jail, fine, impoverish and destroy a designated target
and he cannot respond. The Scientology organization even claims that all of those
organizations and individuals have monetarily purchased such a state of “peace,”
and use the U.S. courts and the organization’s infamous “Fair
Game” machinery, to collect on and enforce such “purchase.”
Ms. Bartilson’s mother Laurie Bartilson was attorney of
record for a number of years in Scientology’s several litigations –
all using the U.S.’s courts – to deprive me of my basic rights.
Alexei Danchenkov, elsewhere called a spokesperson for Scientology,
or as the organization so ironically calls its Russian operation, the “Hubbard
Humanitarian Center,” is obviously a member of Scientology’s notorious
Office of Special Affairs. OSA has the specific function in the Scientology enterprise,
as directed by enterprise leader David Miscavige, of suppressing and destroying
the religious and other human rights of the organization’s designated targets.
Mr. Danchenkov is a signatory to your letter of July 24, 2003
to the US House Appropriations Committee Washington, D,C., and is identified as
“Chief Editor, Freedom Magazine in CIS.”
Scientology uses its magazine “Freedom” to
attack, defame and eliminate any opposition to its fraud, abuses and criminality.
See, e.g., these scandalous black PR attacks on me in “Freedom”
that I’ve saved over the past twenty years. “Freedom”
publishes typical hate literature of a typical rights-destroying totalitarian
cult.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/freedom-1985-04-1.html
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/scientology-da-docs.html
I’m sure you can easily see why thinking people would think
that you’re irresponsibly shilling for Scientology, and cults of its ilk.
I still retain a hope, however, that you would attempt to do what is right, and
to speak out against Scientology, which is the religious persecutor in this paradigm.
I’ll send a copy of this letter to Dr. Dvorkin, Mr. Ballard,
Ms. Bartilson, Mr. Danchenkov, Mr. Miscavige, and to the IRPP general address.
According to Scientology, this would amount to $350,000 in “damage”
penalties for the organization. I’ll also post the letter to Usenet and
web on my site, so if, for example, another seventy thousand people read the letter,
that would be another $3,500,000,000. Do you think there is any decency, sense
or worth whatsoever in the U.S. courts being used to silence a person whose slightest
utterances of his religious beliefs have such galactic value?
Is this letter not the writer’s religious expressions about
a religion? Is there anyone at IRPP who would come forward to argue that this
letter is not my religious expression of my religious experiences, religious
knowledge and religious beliefs, or indeed could not constitute religious
scripture?
Scientology, after all, pronounces this Hubbard policy letter
called “Battle
Tactics” to be “religious scripture.” Are not the words
of the victims and targets of these shocking and criminal war tactics of Scientology
just as holy, just as religious, and just as needful of protection as the “scripture”
that makes good people victims and targets and then victimizes them?
My suggestion is that you and your organization investigate the
nature of Scientology, and that you publicly cease support for Scientology until
you know the nature of what you’re supporting. I suggest that you locate
and engage people who are actual victims of Scientology’s “Suppressive
Person” doctrine, and that you fully and openly investigate this doctrine,
which is key to Scientology’s nature.
If you are satisfied that, having investigated Scientology’s
nature, you and your organization still wish to support this organization, then
shilling or collaboration is understandable.
I look forward to hearing from you, I look forward to your thoughts
about the Armstrong case, and I look forward to a really good debate about Scientology’s
nature.
Yours sincerely,
Gerry Armstrong
#1-45950 Alexander Avenue
Chilliwack, B.C. V2P 1L5
Canada
604-703-1373
E-mail to: Joseph K. Grieboski
Dr. Alexander Dvorkin
IRPP@ReligionAndPolicy.org
Kyle Ballard
Lynsey Bartilson
Alexei Danchenkov
David Miscavige
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