CLEARWATER - The Church of Scientology tried to stop protesters from returning to the sidewalks outside its headquarters this week by filing a type of petition in court usually used by women in fear for their safety. And in large part because of that approach, a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge denied it late Wednesday afternoon. In a petition filed Tuesday, the church claimed the Internet-based group Anonymous wants to harm the church and its leaders, in particular the Rev. Heber Jentzsch, the ...

Moscow: A Russian court has ordered a center operated by the Scientology movement in St. Petersburg to be shut down, city prosecutors said Thursday, after accusing the organization of unlicensed teaching and other activities. The St. Petersburg City Court ordered the Scientology center closed after it agreed with prosecutors who said the center's operations were violating its charter. "The center was engaging in 'auditing' and 'purification' activities," prosecutors said in a statement. "Such practices were advertised by the organization as healthcare ...

I am responding to the article "Scientology may make West Tampa home" by Shannon Behnken of the Tampa Tribune and published April 25 in the Herald-Tribune. I was interviewed by Ms. Behnken but her data is not entirely correct. What I said was that if we moved into the area we would enjoy meeting the neighbors and helping them with their ventures. We do pay taxes on the Andres Diaz building, which we purchased in October. We have honored the leases ...

Regarding "Reassessing U.S.-German Friendship" (Special Report, Dec. 9) by John Dornberg: Mr. Dornberg writes that claims of discrimination against Scientologists in Germany are "ludicrous." As human rights counsel for the Church of Scientology of Germany, I must inform you that Mr. Dornberg's statement is flatly incorrect. I have personally documented hundreds of cases of Scientologists who have been seriously discriminated against in Germany. In some cases they have been forced to leave their country and seek asylum abroad. Scientologists in Germany ...

On Dec. 2, the IHT ran an article concerning the tragic death of the Scientologist Lisa Mc-Pherson ("Police Studying a Life and Death in Scientology") that had appeared on the front page of The New York Times the day before. The article was a biased distortion of the facts that used the tragedy of Ms. McPherson's death to present a misleading picture of the activities of the church and its members in the city of Clearwater, Florida. The church and its ...

WASHINGTON— Helmut Kohl is seeking an unprecedented fifth term. America's most important ally seems headed for prolonged stability. So Germany promises to remain boring? Wrong. Chancellor Kohl governs a nation undergoing tremendous change. And Germany's political class is obsessed with youth. This is a story that many Americans miss because their media are hung up on the Holocaust and cover little but old and new Nazis, real or perceived. Essentially, American consumers of news get two stories on Germany: those about ...

Regarding "An Open Letter to Helmut Kohl" (Advertisement, Jan. 9) and letters (Jan. 16) critical of the advertisement: As the author of the open letter to Chancellor Kohl, I feel entitled to a brief reply to some of the letters you received on that subject. First, our letter never compared modern Germany, as a whole, to the Nazi regime, and we certainly never compared the treatment of Scientologists to the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. What we compared was the ...

PARIS: The Church of Scientology is battling charges in a Lyon courtroom that it is a manipulative and fraudulent cult that practices false medicine and hounded one of its followers to his death. The case could derail the sect's campaign to be accepted as a mainstream faith in several European countries. Last week, it began beaming satellite television advertisements to Britain, its biggest recruiting ground in Europe, despite not being recognized there as a bona fide religion. The advertisements stress a ...

NEWKIRK, OK – A proposed drug treatment and rehabilitation center which could be in operation on Indian land at the former Chilocco Indian School north of Newkirk by June 15th may be part of a notorious religious cult. Narconon was approved for a 75-bed facility by the State Health Planning Commission in January of this year as part of The Chilocco Development Authority. The projected cost is $400,000 for renovation and the five Indian tribes involved are projected to receive $16,000,000 ...

Throughout its nearly 30 years of existence, the Church of Scientology has had problems with its image in the media. Newspaper articles have called it a "bizarre brain-washing cult" founded by a former science fiction writer. Television coverage of recent hearings in Clearwater, Florida — home of the Church's U.S. headquarters — emphasized testimony that the group's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, is in hiding and, according to his son, might even be dead. And the Reader's Digest recently printed two controversial ...

Never have people been more interested in psychology and the art of living than today. The appeal which books dealing with these subjects have is a symptom of a serious concern with the human rather than with the material aspects of living. But among these books are some which satisfy the need for rational guidance and others appealing to readers who look for prefabricated happiness and miracle cures. Dianetics is the latest in this series of books and the author uses ...