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"Diferencial" Newspaper - 3rd April 1996
Jorge Martins with Joao Henriques




			    LONG HISTORY IN PORTUGAL


Church of Scientology (CoS). A name pratically unknown to the majority of
the portuguese. And yet, thousands of people in Lisbon [capital of Portugal],
have already been approached by this organization: it is this same Church
that has that habit of distributing, near several subway stations, some
panflets alleging, quoting Einstein, that we only use "10% of our mental
potential". Using this tactic, Scientology makes a first contact with the
potential followers and also tries to sell the cult sacred book, written by
Hubbard, "Dianetics - The Modern Science of Mental Health". This book has a
portuguese edition, by "Europa-America" editors, and in some libraries of our
country we can find Church publications.


Riot in the 70's

Scientology was founded in 1954, in the United States, and about a decade
later started trying to expand to the Caribbean, Europe and North Africa.
Ronald Hubbard bought the Apollo ship and, in the end of the 60's and
beginning of the 70's, visited several sea ports of countries going through
political or economic crisis, where he expected to find suitable conditions
to establish the Church. Portugal was important at that time. In the Church's
calendar for 1995 most of the photographs are from ports visited at the
beginning of the 70's: Setubal, Lisbon, Porto and Funchal [all ports of
portuguese cities; Funchal is the capital of the portuguese island of
Madeira, in the Atlantic Ocean]. In this calendar is also stated that Hubbard
compiled a "historical series for the Maritime Museum of Lisbon" and there is
a mention to the "remarkable portrait of Marcello Caetano" [the last leader
of our 50 year dictactorship]. On the cover, the Tower of Bethlehem [Torre de
Belem - Monument in Lisbon]...

William Robertson, Captain of the Apollo at that time [founder of the Free
Zone splinter group in 1982], revealed that in 1972 Hubbard rented a movie
theatre in Lisbon where all the crew attended the world premiere of the movie
"Butterflies are free", from director Milton Katselas (a scientologist).
There is also another report, according to which Hubbard had rented a theatre
in Portugal, about the same time, for the recording of an album of his
private band, the Apollo Stars.

When visiting sea ports (sometimes very frequently), the ship always rose
some suspicions about his mysterious activity. But, the scientologists always
answered with the same story: they were training executives in management
techniques. At the 3rd October 1974, in Funchal, the Apollo Stars were
scheduled to appear in a concert. Once more, the boat story sounded false
and, in a political reunion of the MRPP [a left-wing political party], the
rumour was spread that the boat was from the CIA (after the end of the
dictactorship the left-wing parties were fighting against the interference
of the United States in internal affairs). An angry crowd decided to attack
the ship (with stones, sticks and other objects) and even throwed to the
water 2 motorcycles and 2 small cars belonging to the crew. After the fight
between scientologists and local people (that, apparently, lasted for more
than one hour) the ship had to abandon the port. There are strong indications
that Hubbard was aboard the Apollo at that time and this incident was the end
of his approaches to the countries of Europe and North Africa.


Route of the Church

Scientology installed permanently in Portugal at the beginning of the 80's,
being directed by spanish people at that time. For several years, the CoS has
dedicated its time to approach people on the street, inviting them to do a
"personality test" and trying to persuade them to enroll in one of its
courses. The Church has also used small publicity actions, like newspaper ads
our the above mentioned distribution of panflets about Dianetics.

The portuguese press has dedicated some attention to the activities of this
cult. The weekly newspaper "Tal & Qual" described the saga of Mafalda, who
went to take a course in Denmark and ran away, with the portuguese embassy
financing her trip back. In 1984, Victor Paulo worked at the Church for 3
months and left, disappointed with what he found there. In an interview
to the "Correio da Manha" newspaper, Victor described the methods to "draw
money", referred a secret account as destiny of 70% of the money and
mentioned some alleged "brainwashing" practices where the victims were
sujected to cure sessions, staring for 1 or 2 hours at the eyes of the
auditor. Victor Paulo said that, after some sessions like these, people
"freaked out" and could be easily convinced to participate in other courses,
spending their money or their family's. After abandoning the cult, Victor
Paulo alledgely received several anonymous threatening phone calls...

At the beginning, the Church was situated at Chiado [location in Lisbon].
Posteriorly, the scientologists moved to Actor Taborda Street and, at the
9th September 1995, the new facilities were opened, at Conde Redondo Street,
in Lisbon, with the presence of the director for the Iberic Peninsula [name
for the land occupied by Portugal and Spain], Antonia Navarro (who was
arrested in Spain, in 1988, because of a suit yet to go to trial). According
to an article of the "Diario de Noticias" newspaper (10/09/95), the CoS now
wants to open a local org in Porto [portuguese city also known as Oporto].
At the beginning of the 90's there was also the news of a possible
installation of a Narconon clinic in Viseu [another portuguese city, not a
big one; - Narconon is the organization of the drug addicts rehabilitation
clinics of Scientology].


Conferences at the Technical Superior Institute (IST)

In November 1994, the Scientology rented an auditorium at the IST, through
a young assistant of the Mathematics Department (whose name we prefer to
omit) that takes Church courses. That assistant convinced several of his
freshman students (and also other students, since he asked to speak in
other teacher's classes) to attend at one of the events that would take
place. In 2 consecutive saturdays, 12th and 19th, two distinct conferences
were held, under the suject of "Study Methods". The price, symbolic, was
3000 escudos [about 20 american dollars] and 3 very simple techniques were
studied. According to some of the participants, only some common sense
techniques were mentioned and some were even disappointed. At the end, the
participants were asked to fulfill a questionaire with some personnal data
and to give an opinion about the conference they had just attended to. It was
that the time when some students discovered that the organization of the
event was the responsability of the Church of Scientology. They were also
invited to participate in an advanced course, at the Church facilities, that
would cost about 15000 escudos [about 100 american dollars]. According to our
sources, some students accepted the offer and participated in the advanced
course.

Meanwhile, after the second conference, the Student's Association got to know
who really was the organizer of the conferences and discovered some
irregularities in the renting process of the auditorium (the assistant had
rented the space for the Maths Department), later corrected by the Church.
Also, some propaganda had been placed in the 'campus' without authorization.
Since then, the portuguese Scientology Church never again tried to put up any
activities at the IST and the assistant had his case taken care internally in
the Maths Department, where he still works.


Violent deaths in Lisbon

Still in 1994, there was a serious event related to Scientology. At the 29th
July, Joao Cancela, a 32 year-old enterpriser, showed up with a gun at the
Church's Lisbon org, at Actor Tabord Street, and shot several times. Maria do
Rosario Almeida, an employee of the Finances State Department and part-time
worker at the Church was deadly hit. A second person was also injured before
the attacker was stopped by Jose Jesus, another part-time worker and employee
of the Transports Company of Lisbon. Joao Cancela was arrested and, according
to the "Independente" newspaper, he confessed to the judge his intention to
kill and his "intense antipathy to the Church of Scientology doctrine". After
the detention, Cancela's phsicological condition soon declined and he was
transferred to the Phsychiatric Hospital of Caxias [Prison Hospital], where
he committed suicide, hanging himself, at the 16th August.

According to the investigation conducted by the "Independente" the conclusion
is that Joao Cancela had, apparently, no previous relation with Scientology,
and his motives were unknown. The efforts of our paper did not lead us to
collect new facts referring to this case, seeming to confirm the version of
the portuguese director of Scientology, that the man suffered from mental
disorders. Filomena Pereira, who agreed to discuss some topics with our
paper, claimed no knowledge on any obscure activities of Scientology, as well
as on the judicial defeats in foreign countries, and denied some accusations
of critics towards the Church. As a matter of fact, this director even
guarantees to the portuguese members of Scientology that the Church never
lost a single court case...

[END]

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[Academic newspaper of the most prestiged engineering school in Portugal.
The paper is generalist, totally free, edited by the Student's Association
of the Technical Superior Institute (IST), in Lisbon. The paper comes out
in 6000 copies and there is a version for the WWW (only in portuguese,
at the moment) at:
http://alfa.ist.utl.pt/~dif
E-MAIL: dif@alfa.ist.utl.pt]

[This is the second of 3 articles about the Church of Scientology. The story
was covered because of the conferences that were held in our Institute.
Another article is about the war in the Internet and the last one is about
the Church's doctrine and beliefs, the critics and the situation worldwide.]

[Copyright 1996, by "Diferencial" Newspaper.
Permission for distributing, archiving, copying, printing, etc, is granted
as long as the article is kept is this original from (including all
information in square brackets) and is not used for commercial purposes.]
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