> Continued from Part 1

=== Scientology
11. Scientology critic is cited for contempt
12. Shock and Disbelief

=== Hinduism
13. Hindus build monuments to their faith

=== Islam
14. Mosques are brimming

=== Jehovah's Witnesses
15. The Venus Eye Trap Courting Attention,

=== Witchcraft
16. Boys denied school enrollment because of long hair

=== Hate Groups
17. Aryan Nations members regrouping
18. Many Nazi items will come with Aryan Nations compound
19. City bills KKK for cross security
20. KKK will reapply after permit request is rejected
21. Who'll Watch the Haters Now?

&> Part 3

=== Other News
22. Nepal: Jailed missionary before the court end of January
23. Natural Law party gives up fight for floating Irish voter
24. Temple tells militia to stay away
25. Priest arrested over chicken carcasses
26. Ritual Offering vs. Litter
27. Thou shall not ...: WVU spared 'religious explosion'
28. Aunt and 3 nieces fasted to death
29. The lives and slow deaths of four women who fasted for God
30. Sects may soon own TV licences
31. Religious group claims victory as judge grants injunction against school
32. Religious group, board dispute over fine print
33. Jacko to be Uri Geller's 'best man'
34. Mystery cross appears in bathroom window

=== Science
35. Stephen Hawking debunks astrology

> Part 4

=== Death Penalty and other Human Rights Violations
36. A Race to the Death
37. It's Hard To Justify Cuban Embargo

=== Noted
38. The exorcists (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God)
39. Missionaries flock to Britain to revive passion for Church
40. ''Biblically illiterate'flock to classes (Alpha Course)
41. Pastors with a past

=== Internet
42. Paternity test (Chopra)

=== The Y-ners around the corner
43. Fox aims to shut down university's science Web site


=== Scientology

11. Scientology critic is cited for contempt
Marin News, Jan. 18, 2001
http://www.marinij.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A Marin judge yesterday found former San Anselmo resident Gerald Armstrong in contempt for his long-standing war of words against the Church of Scientology.

Marin Superior Court Judge Vernon Smith ruled that Armstrong, a former Scientology archivist, violated an earlier settlement agreement that he stop criticizing the church and discussing the experiences he had within the organization.

Smith also issued an arrest warrant for Armstrong, who did not attend yesterday's court hearing.

Reached at his home in British Columbia, Armstrong said he intentionally stayed away from court for fear he would be thrown in jail. ''It would have been stupid for me to come down there,'' he said.

Armstrong said he also has no intention of curbing his criticism, which most often takes the form of writings he posts in Internet discussion groups.

''I'm absolutely disappointed, but then again nothing has changed,'' said Armstrong, noting that three warrants have been issued for his arrest since Marin Judge Gary Thomas ordered him in 1995 to halt his barbed criticisms of Scientology.

''This is about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the whole gamut. I will fight this to the ends of the Earth.''

A spokesman for Scientology said yesterday that Armstrong's proclamations about personal freedoms are a smokescreen.
(...)

The feud between Armstrong and the church is in its third decade. Armstrong split with Scientology in 1981 after more than 12 years as a researcher and archivist for Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

In 1986, the church paid $800,000 to settle a civil suit filed by Armstrong, who claimed he was being harassed by church leaders. The settlement required Armstrong to stop divulging information he gained as a high-placed church insider.

In 1992, the church sued Armstrong over his remarks in a CNN interview and a sworn statement he gave to another group suing the church.

In 1995, Judge Thomas ordered Armstrong to pay $100,000 to Scientology for violating the settlement. The judge also issued a permanent injunction ordering Armstrong to honor the settlement and quiet the criticism.

Armstrong said he never paid the money. He also said he believes Thomas' order was moot, because church officials made statements critical of him to newspapers and court filings.

''The minute they spoke out about me, they waived any right to enforce their settlement agreement,'' he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The Scientology organization, which increasingly acts like a hate group, is known for its harassment of critics - especially those who expose the cult's true nature. Domentation of Scientology's hate crimes

For Gary Armstrong's comments on this case

12. Shock and Disbelief
Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 2001
http://www.theatlantic.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Electroconvulsive therapy was once psychiatry's most terrifying tool-blunt, painful, and widely abused. It is a now a safe and effective treatment for a wide range of mental illnesses. But an unlikely trio of activist groups stands against it

In the cover of a pamphlet I was sent recently appears a photograph of an elderly man with bright bolts of electricity shooting outward from his temples. His teeth are clenched. His eyes are squeezed shut. His hair is standing on end. Holding the man's head secure is a leather strap that resembles the restraint on a prisoner in the electric chair.

This is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)-the psychiatric use of an electric current to stimulate a grand mal seizure-as seen through the eyes of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (http://www.cchr.org/lndex.htm), a lobbying group founded by the Church of Scientology (http://www.scientology.org/home.html) and the most active and well-organized anti-ECT group in existence. It is a grim view, invoking coercion, barbarity, anguish-everything negative that has ever been associated with psychiatry. It is also the common view.

Last fall I saw a patient receive ECT at McLean Hospital (http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/), a private psychiatric facility in Belmont, Massachusetts. There, in a well-lit treatment room, attended by a nurse, a psychiatrist, and an anesthesiologist, a middle-aged man suffering from hallucinations and depression lay unconscious on his back while two electrode paddles were placed on his head. A button was pressed, and the patient's right foot twitched lightly. Shortly afterward the patient awoke and was given a snack before being escorted back to his room.

The contrast between image and reality is surprising. The procedure I saw at McLean reflects the way ECT has been administered for years, as cautiously and as formally as any other medical procedure-perhaps even more so, because of the awareness psychiatrists have of ECT's reputation as savage. Yet the popular image of ECT has persisted, sustained almost single-handedly, it sometimes seems, by the 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, (http://www.filmsite.org/onef.html) the release of which coincided with a decline in the use of ECT. In 1980 less than three percent of all psychiatric inpatients were being treated with the procedure, and by 1983, thirty-three states were in some way regulating it.

Although the public seemed willing to let ECT fall into obsolescence, many psychiatrists felt that they were losing a valuable and irreplaceable treatment.
(...)

ECT was a great step up. Patients did not vomit, as they did in the course of Metrazol shock, and they did not experience as much psychological trauma. But they did still have to suffer the effects of muscular convulsions, which were frequently excruciating, and which have contributed to the persistent image of ECT as a brutal form of treatment. Thrashing around on the treatment table, many patients bit their tongues and cheeks. Many suffered broken bones or serious spinal injuries. Sometimes a gang of orderlies and nurses was needed to prevent the patient from tossing himself off the table altogether. In addition, patients suffered memory loss. They would awake confused, unsure of where they were or what had happened, often forgetting events of the preceding weeks or months.

ECT was also drastically overused. Doctors in some hospitals would treat dozens of patients in one giant room, wheeling the device on a cart from bed to bed; patients were forced to watch the ordeal of those who came before them. One doctor in England treated some of his patients more than a thousand times each. In the 1950s Ewen Cameron, a psychiatrist at McGill University, in Montreal, ''depatterned'' his patients by giving them twelve treatments daily. Milledgeville State Hospital (http://centralstatehospital.org/), in Georgia, for a time the largest asylum in the United States, had perhaps the worst history of abuse: it used what was known as the Georgia Power Cocktail to punish uncooperative patients.
(...)

ECT all but disappeared in the 1970s, eclipsed by psychiatric drugs, which brought about, as Shorter called it, the ''triumph of the biological.'' More and more drugs came on the market, offering a sophisticated biochemical arsenal for treating mental illness. In the 1980s, owing to more-advanced neuro-imaging techniques, physiological sources were found for schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. As is by now well known, psychiatry and neurology edged toward a permanent intimacy. Electroconvulsive therapy seemed more than a little outmoded.

But drugs have not been the complete answer to mental illness. They were and still are a frustratingly inexact method of treatment-with a long wait between the first pill and any sign of relief. Often they don't work at all. This can be fatal for a patient who is suicidally depressed. Moreover, some patients prove resistant to medication.

The psychiatric community set out to modernize ECT and improve its image. Researchers worked with manufacturers to modernize ECT devices, outfitting them with equipment to monitor heart rate and brain activity and upgrading the electricity used. The 1985 NIH conference was followed by a 1990 report by the American Psychiatric Association committee charged with introducing better standards for treatment. The problem of physical injuries had been solved by the administration of fast-acting anesthesia and muscle relaxants, which confine the effects of a seizure to the brain. Clinicians implemented an informed-consent procedure that detailed every aspect of ECT along with its benefits and risks-including the (slim) possibility of death. (According to the most recent report of the APA Committee on ECT, published this year, one death occurs for every 80,000 treatments.) ECT became safer and more exact, and psychiatrists used it more selectively. Today ECT is frequently used to treat the elderly, a population highly susceptible to mental illness and sensitive to the side effects of medication. Because drugs can cause birth defects, ECT is also often the preferred psychiatric treatment for women during the early stages of pregnancy.

Some side effects do remain. Memory loss is the most prevalent and is the primary reason that ECT is not used more often.
(...)

If practitioners of ECT tolerate ''survivor'' groups and disdain dissenting psychiatrists, they actively loathe the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. The inside of the pamphlet I have-one of many published and disseminated by CCHR-is an indication of why. A quick sampling of chapter headings: ''Perpetuating Cruelty,'' ''Therapy or Torture?,'' ''The Nazi Heritage'' (''electroshock's development ... traces back to a dark alliance between psychiatry and the Nazi concentration camps''), ''Apartheid and ECT,'' ''ECT Promotes Breast Cancer,'' ''Shock From Birth to Grave.'' Bolts of electricity in vivid neon colors provide visual unity here, emanating from the heads of pregnant women, fetuses, piglets. CCHR does not believe in subtlety.

The commission maintains offices in forty states and chapters in thirty other countries. It has used its branches in part to lobby for legislation against ECT. In 1974 it worked to get the California legislature to prohibit ECT for patients under the age of twelve. It has several times been instrumental in introducing legislation in Texas to ban ECT altogether. Although the legislation has failed, Texas is now, owing in large part to CCHR's efforts, the state in which it is the most difficult to get the treatment. Recently CCHR supported a bill in the Italian region of Piedmont which succeeded in banning ECT for children, the elderly, and, in most cases, pregnant women. That CCHR has effectively and perhaps permanently damaged the public image of ECT is one of the few things about which the commission and psychiatrists agree.

CCHR was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology, which by now has a fashionable Hollywood aura- John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Nicole Kidman are all members. Scientology, ''an applied religious philosophy,'' seeks to change the world through a system known as Dianetics, a term made familiar by a series of TV commercials for a book of the same name by the late L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology's founder and a science-fiction writer. Through Dianetics, Scientologists hope, according to the church's Web site, to create a utopia ''without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights.'' In CCHR's view, one of the greatest threats to this vision is abuses inherent in psychiatry, which damages the mind instead of soothing the soul. ''For more than 115 years, psychiatrists have treated man as an animal,'' CCHR's Web site states. ''They have assaulted, sexually abused, irreversibly damaged, drugged or killed, all under the guise of 'mental healing.'''

CCHR was co-founded by Thomas Szasz, and its members take pains to emphasize this fact. Their connection to ''the Church,'' as they call it, is spoken of less frequently. CCHR is separately incorporated, and although virtually every CCHR member worldwide also happens to be a member of the Church of Scientology, this is by choice, the organization says, not by compulsion. Rather than promote Scientology, CCHR seeks to lay out the evidence of psychiatry's misdeeds through the use of statistics, anecdotes, journal articles, news accounts, and hospital records.

The most voluminous resource for anti-ECT information within CCHR is Jerry Boswell, the director of the commission's Texas branch and the man most responsible for the state's stringent ECT laws. Boswell is patient and even-tempered, and his voice-soft and deep, with a heavy drawl-conjures the image of a large man in boots and a cowboy hat. At one point in a recent phone conversation with him I mentioned the TV personality Dick Cavett, who has very publicly and very positively spoken about how ECT helped him out of a terrible depression. ''With ECT you have to ask the question of how much electricity was used,'' Boswell said. ''Let's say you have Dick Cavett on your couch. Are you going to shock him at three hundred percent above the seizure threshold, or are you going to give him less electricity? You're going to give him less, because he's a public figure.''

CCHR continually alleges that ECT uses ''too high'' a level of electricity. This has been difficult for psychiatrists to counter, because the very concept of ''too high'' leads immediately into contentious terrain. Dozens of studies have been done to determine how much electricity produces the most-therapeutic seizures. On the basis of these studies some researchers have recommended that ECT devices be equipped to deliver more electricity. A 1991 paper by Harold Sackeim, ''Are ECT Devices Underpowered?,'' published in The Journal of ECT (then called Convulsive Therapy), questioned the ability of contemporary devices to stimulate an ideally therapeutic seizure.

Whatever damage CCHR may have done to ECT, the organization has unquestionably improved the gathering of statistics regarding the treatment. The results, however, have not been advantageous to CCHR's cause. Several years ago CCHR lobbied successfully for compulsory reporting of ECT cases in Texas. William Reid, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center, in San Antonio, and three other authors recently published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry all of the center's available data from September of 1993 to April of 1995. The article reported that 97.5 percent of all admissions were wholly voluntary; that the percentage of patients exhibiting ''severe'' symptoms was reduced from 70.7 prior to ECT to 2.4 afterward; that the percentage of patients with ''moderate,'' ''severe,'' or ''extreme'' memory dysfunction decreased after ECT; and that no bone fractures, heart attacks, or deaths occurred during treatment. Of the 2,583 patients described by the data, eight died within two weeks of their last treatment, but only two of these deaths may have been related in any way to ECT. The authors write,

We are aware that anti-ECT groups have used the publicly available ... data to support their contentions that ECT is dangerous and unnecessary and to campaign in the Texas legislature to ban the treatment altogether. We believe that those groups have often misinterpreted and/or misused the ... data. We hope that this paper promotes objective discussion among clinicians, patients, families, and those who influence patients' access to this important treatment modality.
(...)

A number of ECT's most dedicated practitioners express a distaste for engaging in public efforts to bolster its reputation. One reason they give is that such undertakings would require pressing patients into service as witnesses. ''We are here to do good by patients,'' Henry told me, ''not to create poster children.''
(...)

A skeptical press is symptomatic of a larger phenomenon. Psychiatrists assume that anti-ECT activists represent a fringe viewpoint on mental illness, whereas the evidence suggests that the anti-ECT outlook is actually close to the public's.
(...)

ECT doctors often draw a parallel with cancer: the treatments for cancer can be as damaging as the disease itself, they point out, yet there are no anti-chemotherapy lobbyists.

More important than questioning why anti-ECT lobbyists persist is asking what psychiatrists might do to counter the criticism. The answer from some is that they are already doing all they need to do. ECT use seems to be on the rise, even if slowly, and psychiatry's professional organizations are continually refining treatment guidelines. Greater advocacy efforts seem not to be on anyone's agenda, perhaps for fear of luring ECT's detractors into even louder denunciations.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* Despite the legal song and dance, CCHR clearly is considered one of Scientology's many front groups. And like the Scientology organization itself, it engages in disinformation, hate speech, and other unethical behavior. This includes off-topic spamming of anti-psychiatry information to the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup. For more information about the CCHR hate group


Scientology: Trademark Information
http://www.scientology.org/tmnotice.htm (Caution: this is the cult's own
site. See below.)
(...)
''The following are trademarks and service marks owned by Citizens Commission
on Human Rights Los Angeles, California, USA:

CCHR, Citizens Commission on Human Rights and CCHR Logo.''
[...more...]

To visit cult-operated sites without fear of invasion of privacy, visit the
above page through https://www.safeweb.com/

=== Hinduism

13. Hindus build monuments to their faith
Chicago Tribune, Jan. 19, 2001
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) Fueled by a growing and increasingly affluent Indian population, construction at Chicago-area Hindu temples is booming, with two established temples expanding and new ones in the works.

In Bartlett, crews recently finished an almost 100,000-square-foot Indian community center, the first phase of a three-part plan to build one of the largest Hindu facilities in the country.

In Aurora, just south of Interstate Highway 88, workers have painstakingly renovated the towers atop the crumbling Balaji Temple. Soon, they will knock down two walls and expand the facility by 10,000 square feet--an attempt to keep up with the demands of growing crowds.

A fundraiser has been scheduled for construction of another Hindu temple in DuPage County, and one observer says there is initial interest in six more.

The structures, elaborate and expensive, are perhaps the most visible symbol of the Indian-Americans' growing influence in the Chicago area. According to census figures, there were about 58,000 Indians living in the area in 1990. Experts now place the number as high as 150,000.

''If you look at the profile of the Indian community, they're one of the wealthiest, most educated immigrant groups,'' said Joseph Alter, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. ''They have been extremely successful in going the mainstream, integration route.
(...)

The growing temples have also been helped by the information technology revolution, which has boosted the number of wealthy Indians in the Chicago area.
Responding to pressure from high-tech companies, the federal government has increased the number of temporary work visas issued per year from 65,000 in 1997 to 195,000 in 2001.

Because India has been more successful in training computer experts, American companies have begun to recruit employees overseas, luring Indian workers with high-paying jobs.

According to Immigration and Naturalization Service figures, 40 percent of all temporary work visas are issued to Indians, who are flocking to the Silicon Valley and Seattle, New York and Chicago.
(...)

Rajinder Bedi, chief editor of the Indian Reporter and World News, a national Indian affairs newspaper based in Chicago, said the push for information technology workers has created a community of Hindus along the I-88 corridor in the western suburbs, where most of the temples have been built or are planned. Combined with the children of Indian immigrants from the late 1960s and early 1970s, the group has formed a strong base for growth.
(...)

While area temples generally include shrines to several deities, traditional Indian temples are usually devoted to just one. Part of the push to build new temples in the Chicago area, experts say, is driven by the desire to have separate facilities in which to worship individual deities.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Islam

14. Mosques are brimming
Detroit Free Press, Jan. 17, 2001
http://www.freep.com/news/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
When tardy worshipers arrive at the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit, they face a packed parking lot, a mosque literally overflowing with other supplicants and, sometimes, a locked door.

Friday prayer at this Rochester Hills mosque can be so crowded, the imam, or religious leader, must lock the doors to avoid exceeding the building's capacity of 500.
(...)

The capacity crowds are no fluke. About a third of the more than 30 mosques in metro Detroit -- from Salie's in Rochester Hills to Detroit's Muslim Center -- are constructing new buildings or additions to accommodate a rapidly growing Muslim community. And Dearborn, home to the highest concentration of Muslims in the Detroit area, will soon have what leaders believe will be one of the country's largest mosques.

''There's definitely an expansion due to increased immigration, higher birth rates, high conversion rates and upward mobility in some cases,'' said Kay Siblani, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan.

The community is also diversifying as it grows. Although Dearborn is an enclave for Arab-American Muslims, other groups including African Americans, Indo-Pakistanis, Yemenis and Lebanese are building or expanding mosques throughout southeastern Michigan.

The heart of Muslim worship is gathering for prayer. But most expansion projects are adding social halls, educational space and gymnasiums, designed to unite the community in other ways as well.

''People are coming back to spirituality in general and trying to get in touch with God,'' said Abdullah El-Amin, executive director of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan and the imam at Detroit's Muslim Center. ''The mosque plays an integral role in that.''

There is not an exact count of metro area Muslims, but community leaders put the figure at 100,000 or more. All agree the number is rising as immigrants, converts and young Muslims enter the fold.
(...)

El-Amin, the center's imam, knew the space was needed when he began to see 300 worshipers crowd into the sanctuary every Friday. The room is built for 200.
''We started off in 1985 with two people. Now we have 600 on our mailing list,''

El-Amin said. He attributed the growth at his mosque to converts from Christianity and younger Muslims reaching adolescence, when they are required to pray.

High birth rates are swelling congregations across the Muslim community.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Jehovah's Witnesses

15. The Venus Eye Trap Courting Attention,
Daily Mail (England), Jan. 17, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Maybe she settled for looks over practicality.
(...)

Whatever her reasons, Venus Williams found it a little difficult adjusting to her plunging tennis outfit at the Australian Open yesterday.
(...)

Elegant it was not, but the effect was to focus the eye of the spectator, like a camera zooming in for a close-up.

And what did the millions of eyes take in as they homed in on her muscular bosom?

The name Reebok, printed right in the centre.

And that, of course, was what it was all about. Miss Williams, the reigning Wimbledon and Olympic champion, recently signed a five-year 27million endorsement deal with the sportswear giant.
(...)

But how much further can it go? Tennis dresses held together with safety pins a la Elizabeth Hurley? G-string knickers emblazoned with the logo?

As it turned out, Miss Williams's new outfit was far from a good sport.

Those watching her erratic opening victory against Spain's Maria Jose Martinez thought it distracted her (she dropped the second set). She constantly fiddled with, hitched up and adjusted her straps.

However both Miss Williams and Reebok insisted yesterday that the outfit was a success.
(...)

Miss Williams's decision to take such a daring step was surprising on two counts.

Firstly, this six footer, now ranked number three in the world, is a hugely talented player, who has already won over 2million.
(...)

Second is Miss Williams's Jehovah's Witness family background and strict upbringing.

It is a matter of some pride in the Williams family that neither sister has had a boyfriend. Their mother Oracene forbade them to see boys until they were 18 and does not hold with frivolous dating.
(...)

When the contradiction between how the girls live and the provocative clothes they wear is challenged, Oracene counters with: 'These are their work outfits.'

In fact, the key is probably their father Richard who is not a religious man.
(...)

So if Reebok demands more exposure, it is apparently not against his religion to provide it.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Witchcraft

16. Boys denied school enrollment because of long hair
Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001
http://www.star-telegram.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
DALLAS -- Two East Texas boys whose religious beliefs forbid hair-cutting until age 13 have been barred from attending a public school because their hair is too long.

Parents David and Korey Tuttle of Spring Hill said their religion, called Stregheria, is a form of Italian witchcraft which prevents hair-cutting until the boys reach 13.

At that point, 8-year-old Justin and 10-year-old David can cut their hair as part of a belief that they put away childish pursuits and take on adult responsibilities. The boys have 4- and 5-inch long ponytails.

However, the policy at Spring Hill school district, which they tried to transfer to from Hallsville, forbids boys' hair from touching the collar.

The Tuttles could not prove their objection to the hair policy is based on a religious belief because the oath is recorded in a secret family diary that cannot be shown to outsiders, Korey Tuttle said Thursday.

''Written proof does not exist in our religion,'' she said, adding she has sent a letter about the school's policy to the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
(...)

Will Harrell, executive director of the state ACLU, said he did not know of the case but said the family could have grounds for a lawsuit.

''That is within their protected right to religious freedom,'' he said.

Two federal district courts in Texas have ruled against school systems in similar cases, Harrell said.
(...)

Stregheria information: www.stregheria.com
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hate Groups

17. Aryan Nations members regrouping
Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2001
http://www.oregonlive.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- Only weeks before the bankruptcy sale of the Aryan Nations compound in northern Idaho, many former members are flocking to a Montana church also rooted in white supremacy beliefs.

The Church of True Israel, based in Noxon, Mont., is holding services at various locations until a permanent home is found, its leaders say.

While the Hayden Lake-based Aryan Nations was headed by Richard Butler for a quarter-century, the new spinoff church has a five-member ''council of prelates'' making decisions. It appears to be set up to draw less media and police attention.

But Butler already condemns the emergence of this new Christian Identity church, apparently over power in the white supremacy movement.

Last year, he publicly chided some of his former top aides for defecting to the new church, saying they ''fled like capon chickens when the enemy attacked.''
(...)

Despite the defections, Butler said he is not going away and has Aryan Nations parades planned this summer in northern Idaho.

The Church of True Israel said it wants nothing to do with neo-Nazi skinheads, parades, swastikas or felons -- Aryan Nations trademarks.

The new church is aimed at ''working-class people, with white, Christian values,'' said John R. Burke of Coeur d'Alene, one of five founders. ''We don't want any of his squirrels.''

The new church still shares Butler's racist religious dogma that white people are the true Jews. Some of its members also have ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

Butler said he will keep using the names ''Church of Jesus Christ Christian'' and ''Aryan Nations'' even though they will be part of the ''intellectual properties'' sold at the bankruptcy sale.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Many Nazi items will come with Aryan Nations compound
AP, Jan. 19, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- The successful bidder for the Aryan Nations property next month will get more than the 20-acre neo-Nazi compound.

The deal will also include portraits of Adolf Hitler, swastikas of various colors, posters glorifying the Ku Klux Klan and others denouncing marriage between blacks and whites. There is a ''whites only'' sign and a bumper sticker reading ''I'd rather be killing Communists.''

The Nazi paraphernalia represents the life work of Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler, who lost a $6.3 million civil lawsuit last year and must sell the compound to pay part of his bankruptcy judgment. Victoria and Jason Keenan brought the lawsuit after they were chased and shot at by Aryan Nations security guards in 1998.

''The level of propaganda they pushed on themselves was enormous,'' said attorney Norm Gissel, who represented the Keenans. ''They were up there to start a revolution.''
(...)

The compound and all its contents will be sold to one bidder at the February 13 auction.

So far, the only people to meet the auction's $15,000 deposit and $300,000 credit requirements are the Keenans. Gissel said the Keenans do not want the property, appraised at about $240,000, and will immediately try to sell it.
(...)

The buyer will also get the rights to the names ''Aryan Nations'' and ''Church of Jesus Christ Christian.''

Butler, 82, filed for bankruptcy protection on October 30. He has vowed to keep preaching his philosophy, and is living in a house in nearby Hayden that was purchased by a wealthy supporter.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. City bills KKK for cross security
Cincinnati Post, Jan. 17, 2001
http://www.cincinnatipost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Cincinnati officials have sent a $17,000 bill to a Ku Klux Klan leader, seeking reimbursement for police and other city services needed to protect the group's cross and ensure safety during their annual Fountain Square displays.

City Council Member Alicia Reece said if the Indiana-based Klan chapter doesn't pay the bill, it could form the legal basis for denying a permit to use Fountain Square in the future.

Ms. Reece persuaded City Council last month to enforce the regulations for using the square, which allow the city to recoup any costs that displays incur.

But city attorneys are uncertain whether an unpaid bill is enough to block the Klan from using Fountain Square.
(...)

The bill for the Klan's display of a steel cross on Fountain Square plaza for 10 days in December totaled $17,580.52. Costs included about $10,300 on crowd control to keep Klan members and protestors apart when the Klan erected its display; and costs for an around-the-clock police detail for the cross.

The security detail lasted for two days, when City Council learned of it and ordered it canceled, saying the extra protection was inappropriate and officers were needed elsewhere.
(...)

The city tried to block the cross in the early 1990s but lost a lawsuit.
City officials and residents debated for months last year whether to try to block the Klan's display.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


20. KKK will reapply after permit request is rejected
Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001
http://starnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
GARY, Ind. -- City officials on Wednesday rejected separate requests by the Ku Klux Klan and a KKK-opposition group to hold rallies on Saturday, citing errors in their permit applications.

Both the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the Partisan Defense Committee submitted permit applications to hold rallies at the Lake County Courthouse, but the city has no jurisdiction over the courthouse so the request was denied. The Partisan Defense Committee also requested a permit for a rally at City Hall, but the Board of Public Works and Safety instead approved a permit for the Baptist Ministers' Conference, which submitted an earlier request.
(...)

The KKK originally threatened to hold a rally anyway or go to court with the help of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union. But Ken Falk, legal director of the ICLU, said that because the city gave technical reasons for rejecting the permit, the Klan would reapply for a permit for Jan. 27.
(...)

The Partisan Defense Committee planned to file a lawsuit and said it planned to hold a rally Saturday anyway.

''We think opponents of the Klan should have this right to demonstrate, protest and stop the KKK,'' said Barry Janus, spokesman for the group.

But Mayor Scott King said anyone who holds a rally without a permit will be arrested and prosecuted.
(...)

''Of course it bothers me. They're hateful, I despise everything they stand for, everything they are,'' he said. ''It's Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame. That's what they're looking for.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


21. Who'll Watch the Haters Now?
Wired, Jan. 18, 2001
http://www.wired.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The founder of HateWatch.org, one of the Internet's premier hate-monitoring websites, is pulling the plug on his domain.

Founder David Goldman said Wednesday he had completed his mission of educating people about bigotry on the Web and providing them with the tools to combat it.

''HateWatch has served its purpose,'' Goldman said. ''We did a very good job over the past five or six years exposing online bigots.''

Not everybody agrees with that. But ironically, it is something that both the purveyors of the hate sites and other watchdog groups, such as the Simon Weisenthal Center and Anti-Defamation League, do agree on. Those at the hate sites say the publicity has helped their causes. Those on the other side say the fight is not close to being over.

Regardless, Goldman is moving on. He is now developing a website that focuses on gay, lesbian and transgender rights.
(...)

After years of studying groups that preach intolerance, Goldman said that the efforts of such groups to reach out to the public backfired. Most people, instead of becoming militant white supremacists, were repulsed by the racist vitriol spewed by such sites as White Survival (http://www.whitesurvival.com) or American Skinheads (http://www.americanskinheads.com/index.html), Goldman said.
(...)

But Don Black, whose Stormfront.org (http://www.stormfront.org) is considered the granddaddy of extremist sites, begged to differ.

''We get more traffic than he does, so I guess he's pretty depressed,'' said Black, who is a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. ''I suspect that's the real reason behind his quitting.''
(...)

The Simon Weisenthal Center (http://www.wiesenthal.com), a Jewish human rights organization based in Los Angeles, said he was sorry to see HateWatch fold.

''I cannot agree that the battle is already won,'' said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the center. ''We do see instances where individuals who are ready to cross the line see the Internet as a source of empowerment.''

Cooper said that 80 percent of the center's manpower was dedicated to researching online hate groups. The number of extremist organizations with a ''problematic'' Web presence has ballooned to over 2,500 in the past six years, he said.

Ken Jacobson, assistant national director of the Anti-Defamation League (http://www.adl.org), agreed that monitoring online extremists was necessary.
(...)

Goldman, 37, said he is donating the site's content to another civil rights website but is holding onto the domain name in case he decides to reopen it in the future.

In a goodbye letter to readers posted on the HateWatch website, Goldman said he is moving on to create a new site called Paragraph175.org, (http://www.paragraph175.org) which will emphasize gay, lesbian and transgender issues.
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> Part 3