Even the French think you’re smelly

It’s certainly been a roller-coaster ride of win this month! Some said Chanology wouldn’t be around after all this time, but this month has certainly proven otherwise - this movement can certainly sustain itself. With some of the greatest achievements against Scientology to date unfolding, we are making some amazing progress, and perhaps even approaching the end, in this 50 year war which has been fought in many ways and in many places. It’s been quite a journey.

So what’s been happening on the front more recently? Well, let’s have a look…

The French Trial
As you’ve probably heard, Scientology is being tried tried in France for fraud. This isn’t the first time it’s gone on trial, so what’s different?
Well, in previous cases only individual Scientologists have been tried for their crimes. This time the organisation itself is at the stand hanging on for dear life as the prosecution attempts to snuff Scientology’s French flame for good.
The epic media storm the trial has generated has also uncovered a number of lulzy incidents and footbullets, such as Valli’s poor Photoshop skills:

“Another Church of Scientology recruiter, Jean-François Valli, was also questioned about his commission on sales of the church’s products and services. He tried to justify his payment by supplying documents to the court, one of which was an internal financial document dating from 1998 and containing figures relating to cash payments which were expressed in Euros. That which surprised the court, and subsequently led to Valli being reminded that the Euro didn’t come into existence as a hard currency until 2002.”

Whoops…

Seaarrrg II
This has been one of Anonymous’ most successful internationally coordinated raids. We once again revisited Scientology’s Sea Org in true pirate fashion to raise awareness of numerous human rights violations within Scientology’s little navy (the Sea Org) and aboard their asbestos-filled floating fail, the M.V Freewinds. Anonymous teamed up with The Pirate Bay crew to have Chanology promoted on their front page for a day before the raid. The response to this was enormous and Chanology experienced a level of interest that had not been seen since Seaarrrg I last year. Win for us! In Sydney we were soaked to the bone, but we soldiered on in this rain-blasted front and by the end of the day, we had contributed to what was an all-round success on a global scale.

Just to show a little extra support, Anonymous and WhyWeProtest again joined with The Pirate Bay team to create the Anonymous Iran project in wake of the spiralling chaos and censorship in Iran. While not precisely ‘On target’ with Project Chanology, the parallels with the events that started Chanology were enough for some to join in this side quest. The project also gave much attention to our original movement, providing great support from some who would have otherwise never heard of our work.

The St Petersburg Times expose
What a week in news! Perhaps the greatest of current events comes straight to us from Florida – the home of Scientology – with the well established St Petersburg Times newspaper in Florida dropping a cluster bomb of epic proportions on Scientology. This came in the form of a devastating 3 part expose which shed some light on just what Scientology leader David Miscavige is doing and uncovered the abuse and violence within upper management of the ‘church’.
The story was picked up by the AP and countless news outlets which spread the story far and wide around the world. The fallout has been enormous. It even sent Scientology in Clearwater, Florida into lockdown for the release of the paper! Reports tell of OSA security guards out en masse in the city’s streets in an attempt to censor all related material from local Scientologists.
This sort of PR disaster hasn’t been seen since the famous Time Magazine expose in 1991, and according to the OldGuard there is supposedly even bigger news coming down the pipeline
If you’re up for a bit of a read (or perhaps a bit of a laugh), be sure to check out the project page of the expose for in depth articles and video and audio recordings of church defectors (as well as Scientology’s response!). You’ll even find a few hilarious audio clips from the everybody’s much-loved Scientology spokesman, Tommy “Footbullet” Davis.

Being hammered from all sides with all of the latest events has sent the Church of Scientology into damage control. In a vain to fire back and repair its public image, they have launched a new, expensive and perhaps a little bit futile television and radio ad campaign. Good luck with that – you’ll need it.

So, what now?
Come full circle and we can see a full month of activism in store for Sydney as we gear up for another raid in July and many weekends of enturbulation along the way.

To whet your appetite a peek of what ASYD has in store for you:

• Scientology will be holding a ribbon cutting event for the Temp Org on the 4th. Plans for a potential flashraid are being developed.
• It’s that time of year again: The Maiden Voyage/OT summit is beginning, with events held every weekend this month. Possible flashraids are being planned in response.
• Our major raid for the month will be on the 18th. As always, we’ll be meeting at the fountain in Hyde Park at 11:00am. Hopefully the weather will better suit our protest than the last month.

Stay tuned for further details.