Prozess gegen Scientology in Belgien - Blog 14 bis 33

8/19/2019 Prozess gegen Scientology in Belgien - Blog 14 bis 33

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14. Personal data and the INVESTfiles

A Scientology executive on trial in Belgium denied his officekept files on those whom the movement considered itsenemies.At the start of the third day of the Belgian trial of Scientology, it was the turn of Fabio A.* toanswer the questions put by the judge Yves Régimont.

He was quizzed about a mass mailing to euro-deputies that might have broken Belgium's privacy laws; and he denied a suggestion from the prosecutor that his office collectedinformation on enemies in so-called INVEST files.

Fabio was perhaps the most senior of the Scientologists so far questioned: a former director ofthe European Office of Public Affairs and Human Rights – also known as Church ofScientology International – one of the two Scientology organisations charged.

An Italian, he had nevertheless chosen to follow proceedings via an English interpreter and toanswer the judge’s questions in English.

He explained to the court that his job as director of the Office was to manage its social andhumanitarian programmes and inform the public about Scientology’s good works. He hadworked in a similar role for the Church of Scientology in Italy before arriving in Belgium.

The work of the Office included distributing information on the dangers of drugs, promotinghuman rights and moral values, he said. And while these campaigns were led by Scientologythey were mainly offered to outside groups to adopt: both private organisations andgovernments.

Judge Régimont was puzzled: so where, he asked, did the International Association ofScientologists (IAS) come in? He had quizzed more than one of the defendants about the largesums of money they had paid into the IAS, over and above what they had paid for Scientologygoods and services. They had told him it was the IAS that financed the Church’s good works .

Fabio put it this way. “The International Association of Scientologists is an association ofmembers in the sense that it unites members and advances the aims of Scientology – and

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naturally it raises funds to carry out its humanitarian work; the work that is done by theChurch of Scientology.”

Just as the Catholic Church had Caritas to gather funding so the Catholic Church could do itsgood works, so the Church of Scientology had the IAS, he added.

A useful comparison, the judge noted: so the IAS raised the funds for the Church ofScientology to carry out its projects. “But then I still don’t I still don’t see what role theEuropean Office plays, unless it is carrying out the Church of Scientology’s projects. What isits exact role?” he asked.

They went over it again because, as the judge put it, It was not easy to understand just whowas financing what. But finally the picture that emerged was this: the IAS raised the money togive to the Church of Scientology International so it could pay for the publications and run thehumanitarian programmes.

Judge Régimont turned to some of the alleged offences that concerned Fabio himself,including criminal organisation and violation of Belgium’s strict privacy laws.

The judge had already questioned at least one defendanton the issue of privacy earlier in thetrial about the files Scientology kept on its members. This time it was more about the use ofdata on people outside the Church.

He raised the issue of a letter sent in early 2004 to Members of the European Parliament(MEPs) to promote a campaign that the European Office had put together for the Church ofScientology.

It emerged that, while these letters had been written mainly in French, a legal note at the bottom had been written in English. Another issue that appeared to be a potential problem wasthe fact that these letters had been sent from the United States.

Belgium’s privacy laws place clear restrictions not just on the collection of personal data, buthow that data may be used and its transfer abroad, as this summary from the country’s PrivacyCommissionmakes clear. According to the indictment, that letter was a violation ofBelgium’s privacy laws.

“We were poorly advised.” Coming from Italy, Fabio A. could perhaps not be expected to know every detail of Belgianlaw, said the judge: but he must have been surrounded by competent advisors.

“Were you not briefed on the current legislation on this and other matters?” Judge Régimontasked. Yes, he had been, said Fabio.

“Did you not know that there was a law regulating the protection of private life?” asked the judge. Yes he did, in the broad outlines.

“Were you advised by people who were meant to know this kind of legislation better thanyou?”

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“Yes there was a lawyer who advised us on how to proceed with these letters,” said Fabio.“And we followed the advice of this lawyer.”

And did this lawyer not know about the information at the bottom of the letter? Part of the problem appeared to be that the letter to the MEPs had not included certain legally required

information – or at least not in French.“I know Belgium is the capital of Europe, but it’s not certain everyone speaks English,” saidthe judge.

“Yes,” Fabio acknowledged. “It was a material error that was quickly corrected.”

“But this happened in 2004,” said the judge – years after the relevant legislation had been passed. Surely it followed from this that the issue of privacy would have been raised. Couldthey not at least have got the language in the letter right?

“Yes,” replied Fabio. “As I said, it was a material error that was quickly corrected.” But as herecalled it, he added, their lawyer had not warned them about this problem.

“So you were poorly advised?” asked the judge.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Fabio. “Yes, if that should have been in French then that was an errorand we were poorly advised.” But again, he stressed, they had corrected it as soon as theynoticed the error.

“Well, as soon as you were informed,” said the judge. “Because it was not just theinformation at the bottom but thecollection of the information.”

Judge Régimont asked about the mailing list used for the mail shots to the Euro-deputies.Fabio said it had been from a CD-ROM they had bought in Brussels commercially,supplementedwith addresses they had found on various websites. “These addresses were inthe public domain,” he stressed.”

“So you acquired a CD commercially.” said the judge. He had the clerk note that: Mr. A saysthat the information concerning the addresses for the letters sent to the MEPs was mainlyacquired through the purchase of a CD-ROM in a shop.

“I won’t go so far as asking which shop,” said the judge. “This information didn’t come fromthe United States?”

No, said Fabio.

“So you bought this information in Brussels, but it wasn’t sent from there,” the judgecontinued.

“That’s right,” said Fabio. “It was sent from the United States.”

And why was that, the judge wanted to know.

“We sent the information to them,” he said.


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And had they kept this information?

“No, we don’t have this now: 11 years have passed,” said Fabio.

But at the time he was questioned about this affair, he had told investigators that the

information had been kept for five years, said the judge.“When did I say that?” asked Fabio, puzzled. This was important because Belgium’s privacylaws also stipulated how long personal data could be kept.

This was what he had told investigators when they had interviewed him in September 2004,the judge told him.

“If it is written, then I must have said it,” replied Fabio, a strange echo of one of Hubbard’s better-known dictums: “If it isn’t written, it isn’t true.” ( HCOPL Feb. 9, 1979 “How to defeatVerbal Tech Checklist”)

“But after that,” he added, “I don’t know if it was kept for five years. The only reason weobtained these addresses was in connection with this project.” It had not been their intentionto hold on to the data.

The judge had the clerk of the court note that down too: “Monsieur says that the use of thisinformation and addresses was only directed at this specific campaign.”

He denied his office kept files on Scientology’s enemies.

“So if I understand you,” said the judge, “Supposing that there were infractions, it was notintentional: there was no intention to break the law.

That’s right, said Fabio A. It was done in good faith on the advice of a lawyer. “If we had been advised differently, we would have acted accordingly and that is why we acted as wedid.”

The judge had the clerk note that down too. Fabio added that he had not been aware at thetime that he might be breaking the law.

The judge gave the floor to the prosecutor, Christophe Caliman. He wanted to know moreabout the lawyer concerned. A little probing established that they had contacted him on theirown initiative and that it was not the first time they had used him. But Fabio A. could notremember who had first recommended him.

Then the prosecutor asked about what he called the INVEST files (short for investigation).

What, Caliman asked, was a human rights office doing investigating people? That suggestedthat they were busy gathering information on their supposed enemies, he said.

“No, we don’t have this kind of data,” said Fabio. He had already explained that the focus oftheir work was social and humanitarian.

Prosecutor Caliman asked the judge to have that noted by the clerk.


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“Monsieur A. says that the European office did not have INVEST files or any other file thatwould have been devoted to collecting information on ‘enemies’ of the Church ofScientology,” the judge dictated to the clerk.

At his lawyer’s prompting, Fabio offered a little more detail on some of the various

international institutions with which the Office worked: they included the United NationsOffice on Drugs and Crime and membership of a number of UN committees. Their links withthe European Commission were also excellent, he added.

And did he know anything about Narconon, the prosecutor wanted to know. Narconon is adrug rehabilitation programme run along principles set out by Scientology’s founder L. RonHubbard.

Prosecutor Caliman’s point appeared to be that Narconon uses the process known as thePurification Rundown in the religious setting of the Church of Scientology, but in a non-religious, medical context. During his work with all these international groups, he asked, hadFabio promoted the Purification Rundown?

“I don’t especially deal with this programme...,” said Fabio A. “We haven’t particularlyworked in this domain in the European office.” The judge had the clerk note that.

Prosecutor Caliman asked several questions too about Fabio A.’s working relationship withanother of the defendants, Martin W., who also worked at the Office of Public Affairs andHuman Rights.

Fabio A. had already said he was Martin W.’s superior, but from what emerged later, the prosecutor may not have been convinced of that.

Did they see each other day, the prosecutor wanted to know. Was he kept informed of Mr.W.’s activities or were their links relatively distant?

“We worked together,” said Fabio. “But given that Mr. W. is a gro wn man and perfectlycapable, I didn’t have to accompany him like a child. I had perfect confidence in him,” headded. “The work he did in human rights was quite visible.”

“But my question was ‘What was your link?’,” said the prosecutor. “Formal or close?”

“He handled human rights, I ran the office, and so I was regularly informed of what he did,”said Fabio.

The judge had all of that noted, but there was some amusement when, during his dictation, heinadvertently reformulated Fabio A.’s answer: “Mr. W. is an adult and competent in his fieldand so he did not have to be followed like a little dog –”

Fabio A. corrected him, the judge apologised –

“– didn’t have to followed like a child.”

The court adjourned, before the questioning of the next witness.


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15. "Students to recover"

Quitting Scientology is not as simple as just walking out thedoor, the Belgian trial of the Church heardIt was a Catholic priest who introduced him to Scientology, Stéphane J. told the court. ACatholic priest who was also a Scientologist.(1)

On Thursday, the third day of the trial, it was Stéphane's turn to trace his progress throughScientology for the president of the court, Judge Yves Régimont. For health reasons, he preferred to remain seated to give his testimony.

When Stéphane started to tell the judge about the auditing he had received at the start of his progress through Scientology, the judge asked how an auditor could help someone he knewnothing about.

“How can they audit you when they don’t know you?” he asked. “How can thi s auditing be asefficient as with an auditing sessions after the OCA?” The judge was referring toScientology’s Oxford Capacity Analysis (OCA), a questionnaire Hubbard devised that isoften offered to prospective members as a personality test.

Stéphane reassured the judge: auditors did not need the OCA results to effectively auditsomeone. To get people up the Bridge, he said, the auditor applied everything they hadlearned to eliminate all negative emotions and incidents in the auditing subject. To illustratehis point, he gave an example of what he said auditing could achieve.

“My wife was a gymnast and had an accident and so couldn’t compete anymore,” he said.Then she had some auditing sessions. “When she came out of her auditing session she did a

flip salto , [a forward flip] as if she had never been operated on.”

Early on, he said, he had done Scientology courses because he too wanted to be an auditor. “Ialways wanted to help people and and then I found Scientology, something clicked and it wasthat that I wanted to do. So my first aim was to be an auditor.”

“These courses,” said the judge. “They’re no pushover ( c’est pas donné ). You have to do thehours and pay for them.”


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Stéphane agreed. While he had not been paying much back in 1984, it got more expensivelater. So at some point along the way, he decided to join staff to become an auditor, quittinghis job as a typographer. But he resisted any suggestion that he had signed on as staff becauseof the rising cost of auditing. “The price was not the issue,” he said. “It was to help people.”

Four months into his staff job, he realized that there were only nine members of staff and heneeded to do his share. “The others were putting all their energy into advancing the Church,so I decided to change direction.”

He took up a job in Division 1: personnel, ethics and communication. But he was alsoinvolved in the Ethics division, the judge noted, which appeared to be a fairly important post.“You arrived in the Church,” said the judge. “You stopped your studies to be an auditor – wasit you who decided or was it someone else?”

“It was me who decided, given that we were only nine people,” Stéphane replied. They wereso few, he explained, that each member of staff had several jobs – or hats, as Scientologists put it.

“Why did all these people say ‘They did not stop harassingme?’” the judge asked.

Judge Régimont spent some time trying to get a clearer idea of just who it was decided whichcourses a new Scientologist did: was it the client, or was it the staffers dealing with him?Who, for example, decided when a person was ready to do the Purification Rundown?

Stéphane appeared to suggest that it was a bit of both: the case supervisor decided, based onwhat he found in the student’s files; but the person himself usua lly knew when he was ready.

“The Bridge to Total Freedom passes through several stages,” said Stéphane. “The preclear[someone on the early stages of Scientology’s programme] knows when he has passed thatstage.”

“He decides?” asked the judge.

“The course supervisor decides… He becomes more conscious and is ready to attest – withthe agreement of the case supervisor.”

So if someone wanted to move on to the next stage, they could say so, said the judge. Andcould students stop when they wanted to?

Yes, saidStéphane: “I can give you an example,” he added. But the judge wanted to pursuehis train of thought.

“If one can stop when one wants – and that is what people have been telling me since Monday – the common denominator of each is that it is the student who decides to buy a course or not;and it is the parishioner who decides to stop or not; to leave the church or not,” said the judge.“So thus far it is clear that one can enter and leave as one wants.”

“And if you put the same question, I would say the same thing,” said Stéphane.


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But Judge Régimont had been looking at the case files.

“I found a list of students,” said the judge: a 1998 list that Stéphane had drawn up of “studentsto recover” ( récuperer ). He wanted to know more.

“There are the names, the lev el they are following – one is PTS/SP – I even see Monsieur G.here,” the judge added, referring to another defendant, Vincent G.

“So what does that mean?” the judge asked. “That mak es me think of someone who wants toleave but you, … you are not going to let them leave like that.”

“Normally, these are people who have abandoned their courses without finishing them,” saidStéphane. “And our responsibility was to at least have them finish.”

But these people don’t have to finish their courses, the judge insisted. “They can get a refund,no? So what is this for? Scientology’s language is perhaps not the same as the Frenchlanguage, but when it is written here that someone must be ‘recovered’...?”

“So it is that the term – “ Stéphane began.

“– is badly put?” the judge broke in.

Stéphane tried again. If someone had not finished course, it was because they had notunderstood something, he said. That was a basic precept from Hubbard’s writings. “And so itis our duty to help them complete it. It is not as if we are phoning them every 25 minutes.”

Judge Régimont did not seem satisfied. What Stéphane was saying did not appear to squarewith what he had in his files.

The plaintiffs in the case were no longer here, he said. “But there are people who weredisappointed,” he said. “Why did all these people say ‘They did not stop harassing me?’” the

judge asked. “They have very detailed a ccounts of what happened. Even if you take theseaccounts with caution, there are a lot of people saying this.”

Judge Régimont remarked that he had already been rebuked for not understanding how theScientology system worked – a reference to exchanges with some of the defence lawyersearlier that week – “...but when I see a document on ‘Students to Recover’ I see someone who

has left who must be contacted to get him back”.

"Can you not just go through the door and leave?" the judgeasked.

“No,” said Stéphane. “The aim is not to oblige people to stay in Scientology, but only toensure that they have not left because they have not understood something or had a clash withanother Scientologist – which has happened in the past.

“Our aim is that these people and all the people on the planet go up the Bridge,” he added.

“But why ‘recover’?” the judge asked. “In Scientology, even when one writes in French it isnot French,” he added, increasingly exasperated.

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“I don’t see why ‘recover’ is a problem,” said Stéphane. “A student is in a course, he is notthere any more, we want to find out why.” And when students did come back and finishedtheir course nine out of ten of them were happy they had, he added.

“So is there a procedure?” asked the judge. “Do you say, ‘We rea lly have to know if theyreally want it, before you refund their money, before you let them leave’?” “The idea is to see whether we have made a mistake,” said Stéphane.

“So it’s for you, not them,” said the judge.

“Nine -tenths of the time, when they come back, they are happy,” Stéphane replied. “If thestudent comes back they will be interviewed to find out why it didn’t work, and anythingmistaken will be set right.

“But if the student wants to leave then they can,” he insisted. It was not as if they wereholding a gun to their head. “If someone wants to leave they will leave in any case.”

And what about staff, the judge wanted to know. Stéphane explained that staff who wanted toleave would have to fill out a routing form, go through Ethics and speak to the chaplain.

But the judge was still chewing over the previous answer.

“Why do you always have to ensure that there has not been a mistake?” he asked. “If someoneworks for a bank….” he left the point hanging, but it was fairly clear: in any normal job, you just quit.

Stéphane tried again. “I will want to know if there is a problem with your work, or with yourcolleagues. It is important.” And that wasn’t just a Scientology thing, he added.

Judge Régimont moved on to another document. This one dated from 1991, when Stéphanehad occupied a fairly senior executive position. He had written to a Mme K. about the factthat she had not routed out properly from a staff position.

If she did not come in to fill out the staff routing out form, he had written, she would bedeclared suppressive, as per Hubbard’s written directives on the matter. (2) The judge wantedto know more.

It was because she had not left staff correctly, said Stéphane. But the judge was not satisfied:if you want leave, he asked: “Can you not just go through the door and leave?”

“In the world of Scientology, there are certain stages to go through, which staff membersknow very well” said Stéphane. They had to go to see the Ethics Officer and apply Hubbard’sdirectives on these matters. “As I recall,” he added, “Mme K. came back and followed thesesteps and left and she was not declared suppressive.”

“So does that not mean that these people are constrained by the rules of Mr. Hubbard?” askedthe judge. It was just like any workplace, said Stéphane. “W hen I worked at the printworks, Icouldn’t just arrive when I wanted to.”


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The judge tried another analogy: if a student signed up to study medicine at university andthen, three months in, decided it was not for them, there would be no procedure to follow toquit.

“Certainly,” said Stéphane. “But that is not the case in the Church of Scientology, and

experience has shown to Mr. Hubbard that two-thirds of these situations can be resolved.” But he added: “If someone wants to leave, they can go. My son decided not to continue withservices, and that was it.”

But that was your son, said the judge.

“Whether it is my son or not is neither here nor there,” Stéphane replied.

“For me, the most important rule is not to break the law,”

Stéphane protested.The judge tried another scenario. “Someone finishes their courses and decides that there aresome good things but nevertheless decides to leave and do other things…

“I’m trying to understand here…” Judge Régimont was citing another document now: itappeared to be one of Hubbard’s policy letters listing high crimes, the kind of offences forwhich one could be cast out of the movement and declared suppressive, an enemy of themovement. This policy letter instructed Scientologists to cut off all contact with anyoneasking for a refund.(3)

And what was a Suppressive Person anyway?

“A Suppressive Personis a person who suppresses the Church of Scientology, or who breaksthe copyrighted materials to do something else (with them), which is one of the majorcrimes,” said Stéphane. “Because Mr. Hubbard developed a technology that works as heapplied it but not when others adopt it,” he added.

“But what does all this mean?” the judge asked. The idea he was getting was that whensomeone wanted to move on from Scientology and so something else, that was not okay withMr. Hubbard or with Scientology officials. “So you have to exclude them,” he said. “ It is a

kind of social death of the person.” Stéphane did not agree. He knew at least three people who had left Scientology in recentyears, he said. “We have remained friends, and they are still ready to defend Scientology,” headded. “Certainly there are rules and laws, and like you, we require that they are respected.”

The prosecutor took a different view, the judge reminded him. His view was thatScientology’s rules, its laws, did not correspond with Belgian law.

The prosecutor saw your rules, your criminal code, as those of a society running parallel toBelgian society, but which by its rule and attitude violated Belgium’s laws. “Can we put itlike that?” asked the judge.

No, said Stéphane: it wasn’t like that.

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“ Monsieur le Procureur says there are rules in Belgian society. You don’t follow themaccording to him.” And that was why he was in court, the judge continued – just asScientology had its own courts.

“What is the difference between the rules defended by Monsieur le Procureur and the rulesthat you have in your society?” he asked. I am part of a church, said Stéphane. And when Judge Régimont pressed him on the

possibility that Scientology’s rules might break Belgian laws, he protested: “For me, the mostimportant rule is not to break the law.”

“But your rules,” said the judge. “You don’t want to break them.”

“But the rules of Scientology are natural,” said Stéphane. “Arrive on time to courses.” It wasan example that his fellow defendant, Vincent G., had offered in his account of Scientologyethics.

Fair enough, said the judge: he got that part. But, headded: “What I am trying to understandis that in the Church of Scientology you have rules regarding … people who want to leave,and those who don’t respect the rules are declared Suppressive Persons. Fine.

“But what is the difference between your need to have your rules respected, and the positionof the prosecutor who says that you have not respected the rules of Belgian society and [thathe] wants them respected?” the judge asked.

“We have an organisation that has rules. Fine. They have to be respected. But according to the prosecutor you have to respect the rules of Belgian society.”

So what, the judge asked, was the difference between what the prosecutor was doing, “...andwhat you have done to those people who wanted to leave?

“What is the difference?”

"I assure you, we have other documents," said the judge.

The judge did not sound angry so much as frustrated, exasperated: he was still trying to get ananswer to what he clearly considered a key question.

There was a long pause.

“I would say that the process is similar,” said Stéphane at last. “The aim is to have Belgianlaw respected, and the aim is to have Scientology law respected. The way it is done is perhapsnot the same,” he added.

The prosecutor had not charged them under Scientology’s rules but Belgium’s laws, said the judge. He was about to to go back to the document asking about “recovering” people, whenone of the defence lawyers came to Stéphane’s rescue.

The first principle in Scientology was to respect the laws of the country, she said.

“They’ve all said that at least 10 times,” said the judge. “That’s fine.”


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“Mr. Hubbard says that one of the rules of Scientology is that the laws of the country should be respected,” she added.(4)

Maître Quentin Wauters, another of the defence lawyers, stepped in. “You are asking himabout general points,” he objected. “These same questions are not put to the others: why not?”

His point, it seemed, was that the defendants were not being tackled on the specific chargesagainst them individually, but questioned more generally, an objection that the defence hadraised earlier.

The judge did not appreciate the intervention. Since Monday, he had been gettingobservations about how he was conducting the trial. First he had been criticised for askingquestions that were too general: then again when his questions were too specific.

“So on what basis do you want me to put my questions?” he asked. “I am citing thedocuments and trying to answer all the objections put – which I don’t always do. So what dowant me to do?”

Once again, Judge Régimont made it clear he wanted to understand how Scientology worked,how the defendants saw it: but still, he said, he was getting objections. So once again, he brandished the doomsday option. He could stop the questioning right there and then and moveto straight legal arguments, he said.

Mtr. Wauters stood his ground. He could only speak for his two clients, Marc B. and MartinW., but some questions were better put to specific defendants, he said. He seemed to besuggesting that others might be better able to answer the kind of question the judge was putting to Stéphane J. (just as Stéphane himself had, on the first day, been asked to help with a point that a fellow defendant could not answer).

They went back and forth on that a little more, until the judge restated his position. He notedthe objections from the defence, but his mission was to clear away some of the bushes in thisforest so as to try to see more clearly. This case was particularly complicated and tangled andIt was for the court to decide how best to proceed, he said.

So the objections were noted and if they wanted to put more questions they could. Thedefence lawyers resumed their seats.

Stéphane J. meanwhile, had had time to reflect on the judge’s questions. He wanted to point

out that what the judge had been asking about was only part of what the ethics office did.Agreed, said the judge: but it was part of the bigger picture.

“But if you only go on that – “ said Stéphane.

“– I assure you, we have other documents,” the judge replied.

(1) While Belgian law allows me to identify the defendants, most of the news media herechoose not to do that. After consulting with local colleagues, I was told that the convention isto wait until the judgment. It seems reasonable to respect that practice. And yes, there was a

Catholic priest who was also a Scientologist: more on that, perhaps, after the judgment ishanded down on March 11.

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(2) Anyone declared a Suppressive Person in Scientology is cast out of the movement andScientologists in good standing cannot have any contact with them.

In a December 7, 1976 Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter (HCOPL) “Leavingand Leaves” Hubbard specified that a staff member who failed to route out using the proper

channels should be automatically declared suppressive. You can also find it listed in Hubbard's book, Introduction to Scientology Ethics (Chapter 7 in the "Supressive Acts" section).

(3) Hubbard’s injunction to declare a person suppressive for seeking a refund is listed in a December 23, 1968 polic y letter (HCOPL), “Suppressive Acts: Suppression of Scientologyand Scientologists". This policy letter forms part of Hubbard’s book Introduction toScientology Ethics (Chapter 7, in the “Suppressive Acts” section).

(4) I think the defence lawyer who intervened here was Maître Ines Wouters. While she didnot specify a text, she may have had in mind one of the precepts in Hubbard’s The Way to

Happiness , which reads: “Don’t do anything illegal”.

Photo, La Coupole du Palais de Justice, Bruxelles by Michel Wal, Creative Commons licence

16. "Sell and deliver"

The judge in the Belgian trial of Scientology pressed a former president of the Church there on the movement's sales tactics.Judge Yves Régimont had already questioned Stéphane J.* on why it appeared to be sodifficult to leave Scientology. Now he turned to the Church’s sales tactics.

People had explained to him the use of the e-meter, the device used in Scientology’s form ofcounselling, he said. But what concerned him more was it price.

Back in the 1990s you could buy one for around 24,000 Belgian francs (600 euros), he noted: but some former plaintiffs in the case had complained that they had been obliged to buy

models costing 200,000 Belgian francs (nearly 50,000 euros).

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“I never forced anyone to buy anything they didn’t want,” said Stéphane. “I never obligedanyone to buy anything if they didn’t want to.”

“And if they didn’t have the money to buy something?” asked the judge.

“I would look at solutions, including taking out a loan if one was available," he replied. “And why not say to them, ‘Look, everyone wants something, but – ’”

“ – It is the decision of the person,” said Stéphane. And if the person said they didn’t want aloan, then he accepted that.

“If you say to them ‘You have got to this stage and you still have problems,’” said the judge.If someone had started up the Bridge to Total Freedom and still has psychological problems,he asked, would you not be saying to them that if they wanted to advance then they had totake this course?

“Technically, you don’t say you have to take this loan," the judge continued. "But when you put it like that, is there not still a pressure? I’m sure that all the people in Scientology want to progress, but there is a difference between the will and the means.

“So is it not by titillating … someone that you take this person unconsciously by the hand toget them to pay for a service?” the Judge Régimont asked.

No, said Stéphane. All they did was set out the possible options. “The parishioner decides ifhe wants to take the service, and if he has not got the money, we will help him find solutions.It is the parishioner who decides what he wants to do,” he insisted.

“I am there to help people, and I know that the Bridge to Total Freedom is the solution,” headded. “We are not in a society where everythin g is free, so when we have to discuss money,we discuss money.”

“But as Mr. Hubbard says, the more people, the more money,” Judge Régimont replied.

“He says the more people you get into Scientology the better society will be,” said Stéphane.

“You and others have been saying that it is the progress of the person that counts,” the judge

continued. “Their progress up the Bridge to Total Freedom.” But when he looked at the instructions that Hubbard had left behind, he added, it was not thatthat counted. He quoted from a policy letter written by Hubbard:

The only reason orgs exist is TO SELL AND DELIVER MATERIALS AND SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC AND GET IN PUBLIC TO SELL AND DELIVER TO. THE OBJECT IS TOTALLY FREED BEINGS! (1)

“The last line is the important one,” said Stéphane.

“I’m sorry,” the judge replied, exasperated, “but the important stuff, you put at the top.” Theonly reason the orgs [Scientology centres, organisations] exist is to sell and provide materialsand services to the public, he repeated. That was the thrust of it, said the judge.


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“No,” Stéphane objected. There was not just one aspect. There was the broader aim ofScientology. “We are there to bring people up the Bridge, and to do that we have to sell booksand services to the public. The most important thing is that the public is up the Bridge asquickly and correctly as possible.”

“The only aim is to get people up the Bridge," the defendantinsisted. Judge Régimont quoted another Hubbard policy letter:

[N]o org that doesn’t sell books hard [sic] can long survive. This is the front line and itsneglect causes the later financial troubles. (2)

“Mr. Hubbard says 25 books make a Scientologist,” Stéphane replied. So the more books yousell the public, the better, he said.

The judge tried him with another Hubbard quote, this one about the importance of creatingmore Field Staff Members, or FSMs: Scientologists who sell good and services to othermembers, taking a commission on their sales.

Stéphane did not see what the problem was: the more Field Staff members there were, themore books would be sold, he said. And Scientologists needed advice on their way up theBridge.

In any case, said the judge: what was clear was that for a church to function properly it had to bring in money. He cited another Hubbard policy letter that set out instructions on how to geta student who was off lines – no longer doing courses – back on lines.

“These are not documents that I invented,” said the judge. These were not comments from theinvestigating judge, the investigators, the prosecutors. These were internal Scientologydocuments.

“Perhaps I don’t understand them – it is entirely possible – but me, when I see them, I havetroublereading anything other than what is there.” What then, the judge asked Stéphane, wasthe ultimate aim of the Bridge so far as he was concerned?

“The only aim is to get people up the Bridge,” Stéphane replied. And so far as the Scientologydocuments the judge had cited were concerned, he had not seen anything there where the lawwas being broken, he added.

“If you take it document by document you are perhaps right,” said the judge. “But if you takeit as a whole…” he added. The prosecutor was arguing that Sc ientology was a business, that itwas essentially about making money, he explained. The defence position was that this wasnonsense, the judge added.

“He has the first word and you have the last,” he said. But if what the prosecutor said wastrue, then at that point the defendants had a problem.

“Do you understand the importance I put on hearing what you have to say?” the judge asked.“I have some elements of the puzzle, but perhaps I am missing a few.”

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And with that, the court adjourned for lunch.

* While Belgian law allows me to identify the defendants, most of the news media here choosenot to do that. After consulting with local colleagues, I was told that the convention is to waituntil the judgment. It seems reasonable to respect that practice.

(1) This passage is from “The Reason for Orgs”, a Hubbard Communications Office PolicyLetter dated January 31, 1983.

(2) This passage is from “Field Staff Members” another Hubbard Communications OfficePolicy Letter, this one dated March 26, 1965.

Palais de Justice , by unknown photographer; public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

17. Conflict Resolution

The judge in the Belgian trial of Scientology pushed a formersenior member to explain why the Church insisted on gettinginvolved in people’s private lives. Judge Yves Régimont had already questioned former president of the Church Stéphane J.* on

why it appeared to be so difficult to leave Scientology and on the movement’s sales tactics. Now he asked him about the e-meter (or electropsychometer), the device used inScientology’s counselling sessions, to measure and evaluate people’s reactions.

The prices he had heard cited for the devices – in the thousands of euros – still seem to botherhim.

Stéphane explained that the price of each model was a reflection of how precise, how accurateit was. “With a Mark V meter you can audit up to Clear, and if you want to go further youhave to have a Mark VI,” he added.

It was like the difference between a Ferrari and a Volkswagen Beetle he said; one wascustom-built for an individual and the other was mass-produced for the general public.

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The judge consulted some of the expert reports on the e-meter submitted to the court. One, atleast, had dismissed it as little more than a basic device for measuring electrical resistance.The implication seemed to be that there was little justification for the price tag.

Stéphane was not having any of that. The e-meter was a precision device for which

Scientology held the patent and which no one else could build, he said: and it was made to thestrict specifications of the Church.

The judge was puzzled when Stéphane confirmed that one could solo-audit: how could anauditor audit himself, he wanted to know? How did he answer the questions he was himselfasking? Stéphane could not say: that level of auditing was not done in Belgium.

But he was clear on this point: “Anyone who is a Scientologist and wants to go up the Bridge… will at some point need an e-meter to audit themselves.”

Stéphane acknowledged that he had not been earning much as a staffer: so how, the judgewanted to know, had he been able to afford the substantial payments he had made for an e-meter and for membership of the International Association of Scientologists (the IAS)?

Stéphane repeated what he had said earlier about his wife having a job, but he also confirmedthat they had got themselves heavily into debt, something to which the judge had referredearlier.

In all, they had ended up one million Belgian francs (nearly 100,000 euros) in the red. And ofthat sum, he had paid 400,000 Belgian francs to the International Association ofScientologists. (Judge Régimont had already questioned defendants on why the IAS got somuch money.) (1)

The judge reviewed the sums of money he had spent on Scientology over the years. “How didyou finance that?” he asked. “Because what is striking here … is the way one invests in one’sspiritual programme; but there is a link between the spiritual programmes and the moneyspent.”

Did there not come a point when you said “Stop”?

“That is one of the reasons I left the Church,” said Stéphane, referring to his decision to quitstaff. “Because I was in an impossible position and I had to do something about it.” But the

massive debts he had run up were not due to his 15 years in Scientology, he said, but becausehis wife had lost her job.

One of Stéphane’s staff duties had actually been selling IAS membership to otherScientologists. Judge Régimont had already noted that Stéphane was on something called theHonor Roll, which he took to mean he had contributed a lot of money to the Church. Stéphanesaid it wasn’t necessarily about how much money he had given. (2) Pressed by the judgehowever, he elaborated.

“When I convince someone to make a donation I receive a commission, and effectively, itoften happened that I would pay it to the IAS, because my aim was not to make money but tohelp the IAS.”


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“You picked a strange way to settle the conflict,” the judgeremarked. Now the judge returned to more sensitive matters.

He wanted to know more about a case he had already discussed with another defendant,Bernadette P; that of Mme V., a woman in severe distresswho had been refused Scientologyservices by the Church.

The judge had been struck by the fact that Bernadette had pressed Mme V. for a signedstatement to the effect that her attempted suicide had had nothing to do with Scientology.

All this had happened in 1997, when Stéphane had been president of the Church ofScientology Belgium. He confirmed that he had been aware of the case at the time.

“You knew that she was in bad shape?” the judge asked.

“But not to that point,” Stéphane replied.

The judge pressedhim on Bernadette P.’s bid to get the letter from Mme V. clearingScientology of any role in her suicide attempt.

"What was the point of that document?” the judge asked, referring to the suicide memo thatBernadette P. had tried to obtain.

“It was to protect the Church if someone made a suicide attempt,” said Stéphane. It wasnormal to get such a document to protect the Church, he added.

So had there been other such cases?

There had been cases of Scientologists who had made suicide attempts before they had joinedthe Church, Stéphane replied.

“People who attempted suicide before entering Scientology? You had them sign a documentto say that it was nothing to do with that?” The judge did not sound convinced.

He turned to another case, a Monsieur C. who had had a dispute with a Scientologist: he hadtaken a loan and not respected the repayment terms.

Stéphane had got involved even though Monsieur C. had already left the Church. As presidentof the Church, he had written to him to say that he had a debt to pay off first – and that he hadto pay by a certain date or he would be “handled”.

“You picked a strange way to settle the conflict, if I may say so,” the judge remarked. (And,he added later, coming from someone who could not manage his own debts,that was a bitrich.)

Stéphane tried to explain. If his memory was correct, he said, it was the Church chaplain whohad got involved in that dispute – he did not think he had signed the document to which the

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judge was referring. But in any case, they had simply applied Scientology’s ethics code to getthe person concerned to meet his financial obligations.

“He changed his attitude and in the end he disappeared and we never heard any more fromhim.”

What bothered Judge Régimont however was that the Church had felt the need to get involvedat all. It wasn’t just the question of the debt, he said. The man's wife blamed Scientology forhaving got him into this mess in the first place.

“He was declared PTS – a Potential Trouble Source – because his wife had said she woulddivorce him if he did not leave Scientology,” the judge pointed out. “One gets the impressionthat anything that can hurt the image of Scientology, then – no? That is not it?”

“I don’t see what is wrong with that,” Stéphane protested. “Monsieur C. gave a very badimage of Scientology,” he said.

He could have understood the judge’s objecting if they had been pressing him to get money back for Scientology, but this was money owed to one of their parishioners, he added. Andthis was someone who had borrowed money for uses totally outside the Church ofScientology, he added.

“This was interference in people’s private life,” Judge Régimont objected. And it was not as ifthis was the only such example, he added.

The judge was just getting started.

* While Belgian law allows me to identify the defendants, most of the news media here choosenot to do that. After consulting with local colleagues, I was told that the convention is to waituntil the judgment (due on March 11). It seems reasonable to respect that practice.

(1) For more on the International Association of Scientologists see the earlier court reports:Money and Ethics, Pieces of the Scientology Puzzleand The IAS: funding Scientology’sGood Works.

(2) Stéphane was right when he said that the Honor Roll was not necessarily about how muchmoney one paid: it can also be a reflection of how many members he recruited to the IAS. In

Scientology publications, Stéphane’s name is listed on the Senior Honor Roll in an offic ialScientology publication. That means he recruited 100 new members for the IAS or“contributed to IAS expansion in some stellar fashion”.

Photo, Bancs du Palais de Justice de Bruxelles by Mûtty, published under a CreativeCommons licence.

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18. Justice and Ethics

The judge in the Belgian trial of Scientology reduced onedefendant to tears as he pushed him to justify the Church’s‘meddling’ in its members’ private lives. Judge Régimont had been questioning Stéphane J.* for some time already when he began pressing him to explain why Scientology insisted on getting involved in every aspect of itsmembers’ private lives.

Stéphane had done his best with the first few cases, of which he had some personalknowledge, but Judge Yves Régimont kept supplying more examples. Now he cited a case inwhich a couple doing courses had been told to break up.

“Is that normal when the main aim of Scientology is to help people progress spiritually?”asked the judge. “Why keep meddling in people’s private lives, and then keep saying ‘Youhave to do this” or ‘If you don’t do this, then that,’?... Or am I wrong?”

“As a Church we try to help people,” said Stéphane.

“Up to a point, that’s fine,” the judge replied. “But there’s helping and there’s insisting! Whydo you meddle so much in people’s lives?” the judge asked again, somewhat exasperatednow.

“The aim is to help people,” Stéphane said again, a little flustered. “And 99 percent of thetime, everything goes well.”

The judge was still not satisfied. “Here’s what I mean by meddling in private lives,” he said.And he raised the issue of Knowledge Reports; documents that Scientologists are required towrite denouncing any acts by other members that violate the Church’s ethics code.(1)

Judge Régimont cited one particular Knowledge Report about two members of staff who hadgone on holiday together. It was not quite clear what their supposed offence was, but a reporthad ended upin the woman’s ethics folder, a kind of disciplinary file Scientology keeps oneach member, listing any transgressions of the Church’s ethics code. (2) The judge named the person concerned and Stéphane was familiar with the case.


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We are talking about people’s private lives, here, the judge pointed out.

“You are quite right,” said Stéphane.

“But it is in her ethics file!” said the judge.

“But that doesn’t mean – ” Stéphane began.

“– What is it doing there?” said the judge.

The person concerned had received a copy and the matter had been resolved, said Stéphane.“You are saying that it shouldn’t be there [in the ethics file] and you are right,” he continued.That was something the chaplain should have handled – but the judge had moved on toanother case already.

As the judge laid out one example after another, Stéphane did his best to field his questions.

“These elements have been taken out of context,” he said of another case, in which a couplehad been advised to separate. The man and his wife had been receiving marriage counselling,he explained.

“A kind of marriage counselling?” said the judge. Scientology seemed to get involved inevery aspect of its members' lives, he noted: debt management, marriage counselling ... thewordemmerdeurs came up – which can loosely be translated as pains-in-the-arse. JudgeRégimont was working up a head of steam.

“Why not just let them leave?” he asked again. “What bothers is me is this interfering in therecesses of people’s private lives. Once they are in, they have to sta y and you do everythingyou can to ensure that they stay.

“You try to get students back because they ‘haven’t understood’; members of staff, becausethey ‘have not respected the procedure’,” the judge continued. “But there comes a time whenyou have to sto p.”

When Stéphane tried to explain one complaint by a former member by saying the person had been “annoyed” at the time, the judge only became more irritated.

“Why do you have to – at all costs – meddle in everything that concerns a person?! Why?Why? Why?That is my question! If people don’t want to be helped, well too bad for them,”he said.

“The only thing that I wanted to do was to help people,” he said, in tears. The judge ran through the charge sheet: fraud, extortion, illegal practice of medicine andmore… “So for you, this trial is complete nonsense?” he asked.

Stéphane was by now, struggling to maintain his composure. “All the things I did, if theywere illegal it was my responsibility,” he said. He paused, as the tears came to his eyes.


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“Take your time, Monsieur,” said the judge, noting his distress. “You’ve got all the time youneed.”

But Stéphane was by now weeping unrestrainedly. It was a moment before he could continue.

“For 17 years, the only thing that I wanted to do was to help people,” he sa id.The judge turned to the court clerk and had her make a formal note of Stéphane’s remarks.

Now it was the turn of the prosecutor, Christophe Caliman, to put his questions.

“Can you continue?” he asked Stéphane.

“I’ll do my best,” the defendant replied. But he was clearly still shaken. Caliman suggested a pause might be advisable and so Judge Régimont called a five-minute recess.

As it turned out, Stéphane got plenty of time to recover his composure. When Caliman produced a CD-ROM packed with Hubbard’s po licy letters for the use of the court, theensuing legal arguments took up a good 20 minutes.

Several members of the defence team refused the copies he offered them: how were theysupposed to digest such a mass of documents at such short notice? The prosecutor insisted hewas only trying to help. These same documents were already scattered in the case files amongthe documents seized when police had raided Scientology premises, he assured them. Not allthe defence lawyers were convinced, however.

The judgedid not appear moved by the defence objections (“I think perhaps we are makingsomething out of nothing” he remarked), but they were duly noted by the clerk. Only then wasCaliman able to start questioning the defendant.

He started by saying that one thing that had struck him was the frequency with whichScientologists were asked to write up their overts – confess their sins – especially when theywere under financial pressure. Why was that?

Had it never occurred to him, Caliman asked, that when people were in Ethics (beingdisciplined) and under the threat of being disconnected (kicked out of Scientology and cut offfrom any contact with members in good standing) they were effectively being unduly

pressured to submit overts, or confessions, that could sometimes contain very sensitivematerial? “Does that strike you as normal? What is your personal opinion? I know you willsay that Hubbard wrote it.”

It was a long and convoluted question, like many put by the prosecutor. But Stéphane got thegist of it.

“This is something we do very routinely,” said Stéphane, “and we put it in the Ethics file, thatis all. A person who is in a Condition of Danger writes up his overts and withholds to try toestablish what is not going right in life,” he added. (A Condition of Dangeris a negative statusthat an Ethics Officer in Scientology will assign to someone who is not doing their job properly.)

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So if you were working, said Stéphane, and something was not going right, this was theformula you applied to fix the problem. He himself had written his Overts and Withholds (Os& Ws) at least once a month, he said – and not necessarily because an Ethics Officer hadasked him to do it.

It still struck the prosecutor as as strange, however. He might want to discuss a sensitive issueat work, said Caliman, but he would not expect his boss to tell him to write it up.

“‘I never felt so bad in my life’,” said the prosecutor, quotingone Scientologist's account in the case files. “Do you consider it normal,” he continued, “that Hubbard wrote that any person who refusesto answer a question on an e-meter must be put in the hands of an Ethics Officer and put before a Committee of Evidence with a summons? Do you find it normal that if someonerefuses to cooperate, that they can be subjected to discipline?” (3)

When Stéphane protested that the prosecutor was quoting documents out of context, Calimanoffered to read him the whole thing. “The rest is worse,” he assured him. And all these overts,these often intimate, compromising documents, were in Scientologists’ Ethics folders, headded.

“But it is not the same thing,” said Stéphane. “It is written in a particular situation. It is notthat I have a particular interpretation. You can ask anyone in Scientology – they have allwritten up their Overts and Withholds, and they understand that it is only going to be used tohelp them advance spiritually.”

Caliman consulted his papers and quoted a part of a statement from a Scientologist: “‘Theyask me to write up my Overts and I feel like throwing up,’ he read. “When you are an outsideobserver and you read that, …”

“I know that person,” said Stéphane. “Ask them now. That was how she felt at the time, but…” There were reasons for that kind of reaction, and Hubbard had talked about it, hecontinued. There was a proper way to handle the situation so that when that same person wasasked to write up their Overts, they would do so with no problem.

Caliman went back to the case papers. “‘I never felt so bad in my life’,” he said, quoting again

from the document in front of him.This passage made him think of someone who was in real pain, he said.

“But that is what they overcome during the process,” said Stéphane. “That can happen duringthe process. I don’t write my Overts and Withholds because I’m fine, but because there issomething I need to confront.”

“But don’t you think it is even harder when there is an Ethics Officer on your back?” askedCaliman.

“There are two things: Justice and Ethics,” said Stéphane. “The Ethics Officer is there to help

the parishioner resolve a problem: he has all the Ethics technology to help the parishioner toresolve the situation.”


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But if the parishioner continued to commit offences ( faire n’importe quoi ) then the Justiceelement took over, he added. And that was only normal.

“No, it’s not normal,” said the prosecutor. “As the judge said, is it really nec essary to force people to ‘improve’ at whatever cost?”

“If someone comes into Scientology it is because they want to improve themselves,” saidStéphane. And if that was so easy, there would not be any need for Scientology.

Here, Judge Régimont stepped in again. “But as I said earlier, one gets the impression – oncesomeone has taken the decision to see what Scientology is, and has done a certain number ofcourses and at some point has decided that it isn’t for them – one gets the impression thatonce that threshold has been crossed, your mission is to do whatever it takes to get them backon the right path, even if that is not what they want.”

“No,” said Stéphane. “If someone really wants to stop then they can.” And he cited the

example of one former member who had filed a complaint against Scientology beforereturning to the fold.

And with that they were done.

* While Belgian law allows me to identify the defendants, most of the news media here choosenot to do that. After consulting with local colleagues, I was told that the convention is to waituntil the judgment (due on March 11). It seems only fair to respect that practice.

(1) “Knowledge Reports” Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, July 22, 1982.Critics, including former members, denounce Knowledge Reports for the way they say theyare used to control Scientologists.

(2) Earlier, one defendant had insisted that the judge had the wrong idea about ethics files:that they also listed Scientologists’ meritorious conduct: see “ Scientology’s ‘Gentle Ethics ”’.

(3) “Refusing an e -meter check” is listed as a misdemeanour in Scientology’s, which puts it attwo on a scale of four on Scientology’s list of offences (with four the most serious). “O ffenses& Penalties”: HCO Policy Letter, March 7, 1965.

Photo of the Palais de Justice, Brussels , by Romainberth under a Creative Commons licence

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19. Fighting the good fight

The prosecution case against Scientology is like blaming afireman for water damage, one defendant told the Belgian trialof the Church.The next man up might have been forgiven for being a little apprehensive. The previousdefendant afterall, had been reduced to tears at one point by Judge Régimont’s closequestioning. There was no trace of nerves however, from Marc B.*

At 84 years old, he was the oldest of the 12 individual defendants on trial in Brussels. One ofthe 11 who attended the proceedings – a 12th man, based in France, did not attend due to illhealth – he never missed a session.

More than once during the trial, defence lawyers referred to Marc B. asle sage : he wasconsidered the wise man in the community of Scientologists gathered in court. His fellowdefendants also appeared to treat him with a degree of respect, deference even, that was not just due to his age.

He was always impeccably turned out and while the attention of some of his colleaguessometimes wandered, Marc B. followed the proceedings attentively throughout.

And while his lawyer, Maître Quentin Wauters, regularly checked with his client during

recesses to make sure he was holding up to the rigours of the long, court sessions, he neverappeared to have any complaints.

So when Judge Yves Régiment called him to give his testimony, he showed no signs ofapprehensiveness: indeed, he seemed to relish the prospect of finally having his say.

Some of the others on trial had struggled to do more than offer the same stock phrases inresponse to the judge’s more pointed questions: there was a lot of talk, for example, of someof the more problematic documents the judge quoted having been taken out of context.Whatever the merits of the argument, it did not gain much from being repeated in much thesame fashion by successive defendants.


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Marc B.’s answers were, inevitably, along similar lines, but he seemed to do a better job of presenting his case. He listened carefully, spoke clearly and offered a defence of his churchthat went further than that of his colleagues.

Judge Régimont started by asking him about his position in Scientology in the mid-1990s, the period covered by the charges. “I have heard of the Sea Organization,” he said. “What wasyour role? What is the Sea Org and its role?”

Marc B. took his time. He decided, after all, to take the seat he had initially declined. Hecleared his throat discreetly and he began speaking.

He had arrived in Belgium in 1996, he said, but before that he had served in Scientology’s SeaOrganization until his retirement in 1993. Explaining his decision to join the Sea Org, he saidsimply: “I decided to devote my life to what was most important to me.” The SeaOrganization, he said, was “a fraternal religious organisation in which members devo te alltheir life to Scientology”.

And how was it different from other parts of the Church, the judge asked?

“It is a slightly different order in that the Sea Organization is responsible for the higher levelsof Scientology,” he explained. And if he said that, he added, it was because he had heard a lotof things over the past few days of the trial… He didn’t finish his phrase, but it was clear hethought that the previous exchanges had muddied the waters and he was keen to set the recordstraight. He wanted, he said, to talk about the true aims of Scientology.

“Scientology is a religion in which Scientologists find their salvation and it is that which oneshould put to the fore in this affair,” he said. Dismissing the prosecution case against theChurch ofScientology in Belgium, he said: “It is like blaming a fireman for water damage.”

“In Germany, it was discrimination, pure and simple,” said Marc B. Marc B. explained that he had been in the United States in the mid-1990s when he began tohear about what was happening in Europe. In Germany, children were being sent home fromschool because they were Scientologists, he said. One local authority had even tried to force people people to sign documents that they had not done Scientology courses, a so-called filter

that the Church denounced as an attack on their religious freedom. (1)“At that point I thought no, oh no – because part of my family died in the 1940s,” said MarcB., referring to the the Holocaust. (2)

“You mention Germany and filters,” said the judge. “Is there not some kind of filter for people who either want to enter Scientology or leave Scientology? Scientologists also have people sign a certain number of things in documents.

“I can understand what you say about discrimination,” he added, “ but can we also say fromanother point of view, the prosecutor’s, that in Scientology they also make people sign

things?”


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“These things are completely different,” Marc B. replied. “In Germany, it was discrimination, pure and simple.” Scientology had subsequent ly won lawsuits on the question that hadrecognised Scientology as a religion and not as a commercial operation, as some Germanofficials had insisting on characterising it. (3)

As for the documents in Scientology, he said: “Any organisation needs a certai n amount ofadministration.”

“You speak of discrimination,” said the judge. “We spoke about that yesterday. We havespoken a lot about the aims of Scientology to help people up the Bridge. You talk ofdiscrimination, but is there not the same discrimination when you say to someone who has

psychological problems, ‘You can’t come in’.”

This may have been a reference to the case of Mme V., discussed earlier, when a woman whowas in a state of distress, possibly due to postnatal depression, was refused Scientology processing. The judge had discussed it with Bernadette P., the woman who had turned heraway, and with the president of the Church of Scientologyat the time in question, Stéphane J.

Or he may have been referring to a more general Scientology policy banning the organisationfrom auditing people who had already received extensive psychiatric treatment. In any case,Marc B. did not accept his point. (4)

“Not at all,” he said. “We never close the door. They can still take part in religious services.As a minister I carry out marriages, funerals,“ he added. People denied the therapeutic side ofScientology’s teachings (such as auditing) could still do “co -religious courses”, he said.“There are multiple possibilities.”

“And you don’t have to pay, necessarily?” the judge asked.

“Not at all,” Marc B. replied. “The door is always open – just as my door is, as a minister.”

“So the limitation for psychiatric [cases] is for the courses they can follow? For the rest,anyone else can have access to events, and so on?” Judge Régimont asked.

“If someone comes in who is visibly deranged, it is certain the Church is going to lookclosely,” said Marc B. “But there are people who suffer from different problems who come tothe Church and stay there.”

The judge asked him to continue with his account of what had brought him back from theUnited States and Marc B. explained that he had become a member ofScientology's European Office for Human Rights. This was a precursor to the Church'sEuropean Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights, which along with the Church ofScientology Belgium, was one of the two organisations targeted in the indictment.

“The f irst reaction is – ‘You are a Scientologist?’ – and theylook at you sideways. So my role was to reach out andcommunicate.”

Questioned by the judge, Marc B. was clear that even if at one point he was working out ofChurch of Scientology premises in Brussels, the human rights office and its successor were



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both entirely separate, independent entities from the Church. In the context of the trial, giventhat both the Church and the rights office faced charges, that was an important point. (5)

“So there was no link between the two entities?” the judge asked again.

“No, no, no, not at all,” Marc B. replied. There was the Church of Scientology Belgium, andthen there was the rights office, which operated at a European level.

Asked about his position relative to Martin W., another defendant who had worked in theEuropean Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights, Martin B. explained that he workedunder him. (Martin W. had yet to be questioned by the judge.)

And if he returned from the United States in a response to what he saw as the deterioratingrights situation in Europe, what part did his new role in Belgium play in that problem, the

judge asked? “What were you going to do to make things better?”

His job, said Marc B., was director of interreligious affairs – and as such he had manycontacts with other religious leaders.

“So you had nothing to do with what we have been discussing regarding the Church ofScientology Belgium, etc – you are totally independent?” the judge asked again, just to besure.

“Every Scientology org is responsible for its own running,” Marc B. replied. “What I did wascontact other religions to show them what Scientology was and to influence on the Europeanlevel.”

“So you did a bit more than Monsieur A.,” said the judge, referring to a defendant he hadalready questioned, Fabio A. “One of your objectives is to promote Scientology,” he pointedout.

Marc B. preferred to nuance it. “You could say that, but it is more specifically th at there iscontact with religious leaders to show them what Scientology is. If they learn about it throughthe media they get a completely distorted picture. The public is completely ignorant aboutwhat Scientology is: they learn about it by hearsay. My job was to go to people and help themunderstand what Scientology is – and also to mobilise them on the theme of religiousfreedom.”

The judge was curious about this. “You consider yourself a religion, fine,” he said. But howdid he go about approaching dif ferent religions, such as say Catholics and Muslims? “Can you be Catholic or Muslimand a Scientologist at the same time?” he asked. When you looked atthe Middle East, you did not get the impression that the different religions walked hand inhand, the judge remarked.

Scientology was still just a baby compared to a religion like Catholicism, Marc B. conceded.“But when I got to know Scientology, it immediately helped me in my life … and when youfind something that is good for you, you want to share it, and so I started to give courses inParis.”



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Now, he said, he was a visiting lecturer at a college in Anvers (Antwerp), a Catholicestablishment, contributing to a course on comparative religion, where his presentations wereappreciated, He was happy to work with them to promote freedom or religion, he added.

Part of his work, he said, had been simply to dispel the misconceptions about Scientology.“The first reaction is – ‘You are a Scientologist?’ – and they look at you sideways. So my rolewas to reach outand communicate.”

Having established Marc B.’s role in Scientology at the time in question, Judge Régimontstepped up a gear. As he had with the other defendants, he started presenting him with someof the more problematic cases that had brought the case to court.

* While Belgian law allows me to identify the defendants, most of the news media here choosenot to do that. After consulting with local colleagues, I was told that the convention is to waituntil the judgment (due on March 11). It seems reasonable to respect that practice.

Photo, Galeries de façade du palais de Justice de Bruxelles , by Jean Housen, CreativeCommons Licence.

See herefor a complete list of coverage so far.

(1) This appears to be a reference to a move by Hamburg officials to filter companies andindividuals they did business with: before they signed contracts with outside businesses, theywanted to ensure that they had no links with Scientology. The Church there successfullychallenged the practice in the courts, arguing that it was violating the city authority’s duty toremain neutral on religious questions. For a Scientology account of the affair, see this piecefrom its Freedom magazine. Here you will find the text of a leafletthe German embassy inWashington issued to counter some of the criticism levelled against Germany for its treatmentof Scientologists at the time.

Ursula Caberta, who for years ran Hamburg’s task force monitoring Scientology, told me thatthe so-called “sect filter” was not so much about stopping people having contact withScientology but getting assurances that a company was not using the “technology” of L. RonHubbard.“For the business world, it was important,” she said, because they wanted to keepthose ideas out of their operations. The mobilisation of the German authorities was inresponse to the activities of WISE, the World Institute of Scientology Enterprises, to import

Hubbard’s teachings into the German business world. She confirmed that Scientology did win one case in Germany, but added that they had lost acase that they tried to bring against her in Florida (personal communication).

(2) In an open letterto the then German chancellor Helmut Kohl drawn up in December 1996,Scientology drew parallels between his government’s treatment of Scientology and the Nazis’treatment of the Jews in the 1930s. It was signed by a number of American celebritiesincluding Dustin Hoffman, Goldie Hawn and Oliver Stone. Published in the International

Herald Tribune and the New York Times , it provoked an angry exchange of letters at theTimes and a protest from journalists at theTribune , who took out their own ad to disown the

full-page ad their paper had run.

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(3) The Germany embassy leafletquotes a judgment that ruled precisely the opposite: thatScientology, at least as it operated in Hamburg, “...was not a religious congregation, butclearly a commercial enterprise”.

(4) The judge may have been thinking in broader terms, of a Scientology policy that made it

clear that its teachings were to make the capable more capable, but not to cure the mentallydisturbed. In a 1976 policy letter, L. Ron Hubbard declared it a high crime for a Scientologyorg to treat anyone who has “...an extensive institutional history which includes heavy drugs,shocks of various kinds and/or so-called psychiatric brain operations.”

Later in the same document, he explained: “Doctors are too often careless and incompetent, psychiatrists are simply outright murderers. The solution is not to pick up their pieces forthem but to demand medical doctors become competent and to abolish psychiatry and psychiatrists as well as psychologists and other infamous Nazi criminal outgrowths." (IllegalPCs, Acceptance of, High Crime PL, December 6, 1976.)

(5) While European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights was on the initial indictment, prosecutor Christophe Caliman dropped the charges against it during his closing argumentslater in the trial. By the end of the proceedings, the only organisation left was the Church ofScientology Belgium, accused of criminal organisation: Caliman called for its dissolution.(For more see “Shut Down Scientology in Belgium: prosecutor ”)

20. Apostates

Some of those who filed complaints against Scientology areapostates, disillusioned former members determined to ‘burn’what they once adored, a defendant told the Belgian trial ofthe Church.Judge Yves Régimont had started by letting Marc B. explain his rolein Scientology when heworked at the Brussels human rights office. Having established that, he was ready to step up a

gear and present him with some of the more problematic cases presented to the court.

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So what were his thoughts on those cases he had already set out to his fellow defendants, the judge wanted to know? Judge Régimont had been left with the distinct impression that onceyou entered Scientology you were taken in hand, to the extent that you simply had to reachthe next level, “at any cost”, whether you yourself wanted to or not.

“When you look in as an outsider…,” the judge added. He did not finish his sentence, but hehad made his position clear earlier that day: why, he had asked repeatedly, did Scientologyinsist on meddling in people’s private lives?

“What do you say?” the judge wanted to know. “‘You don’t understand?’”

Maître Pascal Vanderveeren, the lawyer for the Church of Scientology Belgium, did not look best pleased at this line of questioning. That was perhaps understandable given how some ofthe previous defendants had struggled to answer the points the judge had put to them. (Morethan one had been reduced to tears.) Marc B. however, seemed happy to answer.

It was very difficult for the court, he said. The judge could only deal with what was in front ofhim, which was the prosecution case, even if he was not obliged to take the same line. “I’mnot a specialist in law,” he continued, “but if I look at the people who have made thesecomplaints, what do I see? I see that they were people in the church.”

Whether their complaints were justified or not was another matter, he added. For as soon asyou had someone who had left a movement, you were dealing with an apostate, and evidentlythere was a tendency to “burn” what they had once adored, he said. (1)

“But if you talk to the Scientology community, you get a completely different story. They willtell you ‘I went to see the Ethics Officers and they helped me’,” he added. (Ethics officers inScientology deal withcontraventions of the church’s rules.) “But I understand that you putthis question,” he added.

The judge did not seem satisfied. Could he not understand that a certain number of peoplewere not just saying that they did not believe in Scientology any more, but that they had beenswindled, he asked?

“I don’t know what happened to these people,” said Marc B. “‘ C’est un sujetmerveilleusement vain, divers et ondoyant que l’homme ’,” he added, quoting Montaigne(“Man to be sure, is a wonderfully vain, diverse and fickle subject”). (2) “But that does not

shake my attachment to Scientology,” he said. “I and my wife were given so much byScientology.”

Perhaps some mistakes had been made, he conceded: but we were dealing with human nature

“I was broken, phy

Documents

Prozess gegen Scientology in Belgien - Blog 14 bis 33