Sydney

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story ... 39,00.html

A GLOBAL day of protest against the Church of Scientology organised by internet group "Anonymous" began today with demonstrations outside the church's Australian offices.

About 150 people gathered at the Church of Scientology building in the Sydney CBD this morning, most of them carrying picket signs and wearing costumes or masks.

At 11am, when the protest was scheduled to start, staff inside the building set up a video camera pointed at the street below and locked the front doors. Two security guards stood outside the building and were later joined by several police officers.

The protestors, who said they had worn masks to remain anonymous and prevent possible legal action or retribution from the church, chanted "Church on the left, cult on the right", "Religion is free" and "We want Xenu".


They also made a reference to Lisa McPherson, the US woman whose death in 1995 while under the care of a branch of the church led to a civil wrongful death lawsuit. Criminal charges filed against the church over Ms McPherson's death were dropped in 2000.

Members of the crowd said they had been told not to use "geek speek" during the protest and to put their message across as clearly as possible. They handed out flyers accusing the church of financially exploiting its followers and suppressing criticism.

Anonymous, a notorious internet group whose membership includes hackers, last month declared "war" on the church and temporarily prevented access to at least one official Scientology website.

In a statement released this afternoon, the Church of Scientology's Oceania branch condemned the actions of Anonymous and described the group as "cyber-terrorists".

"Anonymous is perpetrating religious hate crimes against Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry," the statement said.

"It is Anonymous that has repeatedly attempted to suppress free speech through illegal assaults on church websites so as to prevent internet users from obtaining information.

"They have also engaged in other harassment including threats of violence in telephone calls, fax transmissions and emails, not to mention the Anonymous mailing of white powder to dozens of our churches."

Anti-Scientology demonstrations in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide were promoted from a blog called "anonaustralia" which offered flyers people could download and print to hand out at the demonstration and suggested attendees wear masks.







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http://mojobaby.com/posts/8125

i am so glad this is the last thing i am reading before i go to sleep

This sort of stuff really needs to start happening more often.

GTFO!!!

Meh, I'm on the fence. If someone wants to throw their money away being a Scientologist, that's their right. However, if this group really knows about some nasty and dangerous goings on that need to be exposed, then I'm behind them. But I haven't seen any proof, and even the examples that they have used have been random and vague. So I'm interested in seeing where this leads, but I'm not chosing sides just yet.

make no mistake, the chan sites, ebaums, and the rest of the ilk have based this war on youtube censorship, scientologists' ridiculous lawsuit threats at every criticism of their religion, and an ongoing quest for the lulz.

Still, it seems to be snowballing into something larger. This could only be a good thing.

lmao




get the story here
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/PROJECT_CHANOLOGY

I'm not sure why Scientology is singled out. It's just as bad as any other religion

Because it is extremely young compared to the other religions. Doing this against Christianity, Islam, etc wouldn't do anything because they are too deeply ingrained. I guess some would see that there is still a chance to put a bullet in scientology's head before it proliferates to a point like the Abrahamic religions.

One point that I wish people would realize with the rise of scientology is how ridiculously easy it is under circumstances for a religion to be formed and grow from bullshit stories. You'd think people would start to apply this to others as well, especially since they had a two thousand year head start and there was a lack of media sources to point out how whacky the whole crap was when it initially gained popularity...

Its not a religion.

Legitimate religions tend not to silence opponents based on copyright protections of 'trade secrets'.

It pretty much sucks entirely too.

look up operation snow white, where they fucking infiltrated governments all over the world in order to steal files that said bad things about scientology. wikipedia says "This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members; the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history with up to 5,000 covert agents." they even kidnapped their own people so that they couldn't testify in the trial.

look up operation freakout, where they tried to ruin the life of a woman who wrote a negative book against them. things they did include: "painting her name and phone number on street walls so that she would receive obscene phone calls, and subscribing her to pornographic mailing lists. She also received anonymous death threats and her neighbors received letters claiming that she had a venereal disease." they also got a scientologist inside her home to steal some of her paper, which they then used to type up a bomb threat, send it to themselves, and get her indicted for it.

look up project normandy, where they decided to completely take over clearwater, florida. the mayor did a little investigating and uncovered what was going on. as a result, scientology "made plans to smear him with sex allegations and a phony hit-and-run accident."

Lets not forget the death of Lisa McPherson



http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_53390011

these guys are doing this down the street from me today

this is one of the funniest things i've ever seen.

Anyone else see the irony of that sign on the right?

Oh there we go. No, it isn't. It's a money scam focusing on brainwashing by hypnosis and is considered a criminal organisation in several countries. and that's just scratching the surface.

you know, you can't expect these kids to rid the world of scientology but it's good that this stuff raises public awareness of the fact that scientology is not a religion and should not be dealt with as one.

edit: http://www.xenu.net/ for quick browsing and/or deeper reading

does not compare