STATEMENT FROM CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL REGARDING THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Church welcomes Commission’s censure of French law

In its Third Annual Report, released today, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has, for the first time, included two western European countries, France and Belgium, alongside known religious freedom violators such as China, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The Commission, which visited France and Belgium in March 2002, has issued an unprecedented warning that recent legislation in France targeting religious minorities poses a threat to religious freedom around the world.

The French legislation is directed, according to the Commission, at “Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists and various Roman Catholic and Evangelical Christian groups.” It has been condemned by Catholic, Muslim, Jewish and Protestant officials in France, by the Vatican and by international human rights organizations.

“The French government has passed the most repressive, anti-religious laws of any western European country since the 1940s”, said Leisa Goodman, Human Rights Director of the Church of Scientology International. “Worse, Alain Vivien, a fanatic who heads the French government’s ‘Interministerial Mission to Fight against Sects’ (MILS), is promoting these laws to other governments, including the Chinese.” She accused Vivien of “trying to inaugurate a new dark age of religious intolerance.”

“With French voters resoundingly rejecting extremism in the recent election, the French government must recognize that there is no place in today’s democratic societies for an anachronism like Vivien,” she said.

The Commission’s Report states that the French law, enacted in June 2001, “has had an influence far beyond [France’s] borders, as other countries are emulating French ‘anti-sect’ initiatives, in some cases at the urging of French officials.” Legislation similar to France’s is underway in Belgium and Russia and is being considered in countries including Chile, Hong Kong, Lithuania and Kazakhstan. The Commission calls for stronger U.S. government engagement with the French government over the issue.

Goodman also welcomes the Commission’s inclusion of Belgium and heightened concern about “a growing atmosphere of intolerance with respect to new religious movements and other religious minorities in Belgium.”

Earlier this year, the Church filed an official complaint to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, requesting U.N. intervention to protect the rights of minority religious members in France. The complaint described 18 separate incidents in which Scientologists had been denied fundamental rights due to a hate campaign by Vivien and his office. Further information about these violations is on the Church’s human rights website at france.freedommag.org or www.scientology.org