=== Aum Shinrikyo / Aleph
1. Japan Software Suppliers Linked to Sect
2. Provider ordered Aum software
3. Cultist designed banks' computer programs
4. Aum kids OK'd to attend public school

=== Life Space
5. Ex-Life Spacers fear for members' kids

=== Waco / Branch Davidians
6. Waco inquiry appears to be focusing on top official on scene
7. FBI didn't plan to fight Waco fire
8. Ex-agent: Tanks misused in Waco
9. Waco tester is tied to feds
10. Two Branch Davidians withdraw from lawsuit
11. U.S. Agencies Said Shy of New Oklahoma Building

=== Falun Gong
12. Reporters asked to certify no sect links

=== Scientology
13. Church wants judge removed in McPherson case
14. A cry for justice
15. Scientology wants access to government files
16. U.S. Human Rights report sees positive trends worldwide

» Part 2

=== Jehovah's Witnesses
17. Top court backs right to refuse blood

=== Wicca
18. Niles teacher disciplined for book
19. Book on witchcraft leads to suspension of Niles teacher

=== Attleboro Cult
20. DSS takes steps toward cult kids' custody
21. State seeks custody of children in sect under investigation

=== UFOs
22. Flying visits to world of UFOs
23. Operation St-Bartholomew - Collective Request from Members Of Religious
Minorities In France For Political Asylum In The United States (Raelians)

=== Hate Groups
24. 'Mockery' of Nazi victims by Irving
25. Judge: Threats violated Fair Housing Act
26. University Takes Out Full Page Ads (Bob Jones University)

=== Other News
27. Church provokes unholy row
28. Blood traces match O'Hair family members, authorities say
29. Court document reveals O'Hair blood evidence
30. Sect creates religious crisis in Thailand (Dhammakaya)

=== Noted
31. Experts differ over future of New Thought religious movement
32. Hmong keeping new faith -- Christianity
33. Frocks cost vicars image battle

=== Books
34. Spellbound Harry Potter fans are given a temporary fix
35. Providing a new faith for business
36. Navigating spirituality sprawl

=== The Copyist Around The Corner
37. [He copied it, but hasn't read it]


=== Aum Shinrikyo / Aleph

1. Japan Software Suppliers Linked to Sect
New York Times, Mar. 1, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030200japan-sect.html
Computer companies affiliated with the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday sect developed
software programs for at least 10 government agencies, including the Defense
Ministry, and more than 80 major Japanese companies in recent years, police
officials said today after a surprise raid on the group's sites on Tuesday.

The discovery has raised widespread fears in Japan that Aum, which killed 12
people five years ago in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subways, has access
to sensitive government and corporate computer systems and could engage in
acts of ''cyberterrorism,'' the officials said.

Underscoring the immense fear that the sect provokes in Japan, the Defense
Ministry and the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, the country's
main provider of telephone and Internet service, immediately suspended the
use of all computer software developed by companies linked to Aum.

The government said it was considering doing the same at all its agencies.
(...)

Many of the companies and agencies said they had not known they were ordering
software from Aum-related concerns because their main suppliers had
subcontracted work to businesses affiliated with the sect.

Even though some of the orders were placed under the current government,
officials did not come under immediate criticism, in part because the many of
the computer companies had concealed their relationship to Aum.
(...)

The authorities said Aum-related companies had developed about 100 types of
software, including systems for customer management, airline route management
and mainframe computer operations.

Government security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they
were extremely concerned that Aum could use information gained in developing
the programs to cripple vital computer and communications networks at public
agencies and corporations.

The officials said they suspected that during the development process, the
Aum-related companies could have written features into the software that
would allow them to breach so-called fire walls, which serve to prevent
invasion of a computer system by outsiders. They said they also feared that
the sect could have planted viruses that could shut down these government or
corporate computer systems or send recruitment messages.
(...)

Government officials and corporate executives said that they would take pains
in the future to avoid using Aum companies as subcontractors, but that doing
so was likely to increase the costs of procuring some software.

Aum officials declined to comment on the development, which could severely
hurt its computer operations, a major source of revenue for the sect and the
cornerstone of what its leaders say are plans for the sect to reform itself.
The sect has set as a major priority providing compensation for victims of
crimes committed by former members.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. Provider ordered Aum software
Asahi News (Japan), Mar. 2, 2000
http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/0302/asahi030204.html
A major Internet service provider placed an order to develop software
involving confidential client information with a company linked to Aum
Shinrikyo, police officials said Wednesday.

An employee at Internet Initiative Japan Inc. (IIJ) said the company has not
confirmed whether the cult has finished developing the software. He said IIJ
will look into the case.
(...)

The documents were found during an investigation into a cult-related computer
company that has been accused of registering a false address for its main
office.

Police also revealed Tuesday that Aum-linked companies have received similar
orders from NTT group companies.

Investigators are now focusing on Aum's interest in the field of
telecommunication and information technology, and the possible threat of
cyber-terrorism.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. Cultist designed banks' computer programs
Japan Times, Mar. 3, 2000
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/news3-2000/news.html#story3
An Aum Shinrikyo follower in her 30s was involved in the development of
computer systems for Wakayama-based Kiyo Bank and several other financial
institutions, it was learned Friday.

The Metropolitan Police Department said it is the first time an Aum follower
has been definitely linked to the production of computer software programs
for banks.

Police are investigating other reports of Aum members being involved in
similar deals. Security authorities said earlier they suspect that the cult
attempted to steal important data from the ministries and major companies,
and that the computer business of the five Aum companies was an important
source of funds for the cult.
(...)

Police also discovered Thursday that the cult had obtained a list of some
3,000 senior officials of Honda Motor Co. through a computer software company
linked to the cult.

The MPD said it suspects the firm obtained the list showing the officials'
full names, ages and titles when the company received orders for personnel
management systems from the automaker in 1997.
(...)

Senior Aum member Fumihiro Joyu denied allegations Thursday that computer
software companies affiliated to the cult accepted orders from government
bodies and major companies to develop systems in order to obtain important
data about them.

Joyu said that Aum followers are individually engaged in such computer
businesses to raise funds to compensate victims of crimes committed by Aum. ,
adding that the group transferred 10 million yen Thursday to a bank account
of Aum's administrator as compensation money.

He denied that the cult is directly involved in the management of five
software firms, which have about 20 full-time staffers, and said the
companies' monthly net profits, totaling some 5 million yen, are used to
compensate the victims.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Aum kids OK'd to attend public school
Daily Yomiuri (Japan), Mar. 3, 2000
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/0303so06.htm
The education boards of Tokigawamura, Saitama Prefecture, and Otawara,
Tochigi Prefecture, which have been discussing whether to allow the children
of the leader and other members of the Aum Supreme Truth cult to attend
public schools in the prefectures, have decided to accept them on certain
conditions, municipal officials said Thursday.
(...)

The board, which previously had opposed accepting the girls in public
schools, plans to hold further talks with the cult on the specifics of their
education.

The board plans to suggest that a teacher be sent to a cult facility to tutor
the girls, or that private classes be held for them in a separate room at
school.

The representative explained that the board reversed its original opposition
because local opinion grew more vociferous that public schools had no choice
but to accept the girls in the wake of recent changing circumstances,
including December's enactment of new laws regulating the activities of
dangerous organizations such as the cult.

Meanwhile, the Otawara education board also has decided to conditionally
accept two cult children--the 5-year-old second son and the 10-year-old
fourth daughter of Chizuo Matsumoto, the founder of Aum who is currently on
trial.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Life Space

5. Ex-Life Spacers fear for members' kids
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Mar. 3, 2000
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/news/news07.html
A group of people who have quit the Life Space cult requested on Thursday
that the Japan Federation of Bar Associations investigate how children of the
cult's members are treated.

The group of former Life Space members said that the rights of cult members'
children may be violated because they are often not allowed to attend school.
They added that many families belonging to Life Space may be in financial
trouble because they spend so much money at the cult's seminars.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Waco / Branch Davidians

6. Waco inquiry appears to be focusing on top official on scene
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mar. 3, 2000
http://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/
ByDocID/4B637F1E13F67A6E8625689700378AF1
John C. Danforth's investigation of Waco appears to be focusing on Richard
Rogers, the former head of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.

That is the conclusion that some former FBI commanders at Waco have reached
based on the questions that Danforth's investigators asked them during recent
interviews. Other sources knowledgeable about the special counsel's
investigation also believe Danforth's focus is on Rogers.

Rogers is the former Army tank officer in Vietnam who directed the Waco
operation at the scene.

He is giving a deposition today in Washington in the wrongful death suit that
the Branch Davidians have filed against the government. The Branch Davidians
claim that the government -- and Rogers in particular -- was responsible for
the deaths of approximately 80 Branch Davidians who died at the standoff in
Texas in 1993.
(...)

The government has maintained that Rogers and Jamar had the discretion to
make decisions at the scene.

But a split in the ranks of the FBI's top command has emerged in recent
weeks. Lawyers for the Branch Davidians have released memos and testimony in
which Danny O. Coulson criticizes Rogers and Jamar. Coulson was the first
commander of the Hostage Rescue Team and was at FBI headquarters in
Washington during the Waco siege.

Other FBI agents have generally supported Rogers and Jamar. Several say
privately that Coulson never thought anyone ran the Hostage Rescue Team as
well as he had.

In one recently released memo from March 23, 1993 - three weeks before the
assault - Coulson criticized a plan submitted by Jamar for tear-gassing the
complex. Coulson wrote that ''a lot of pressure is coming from Rogers.''

The memo recalled Rogers' role in 1992 at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where an FBI
sniper killed the wife of Randy Weaver. ''We had similar problems in Idaho
with him,'' Coulson wrote, ''and he argued and convinced the (special agents
in charge) that Weaver would not come out. That proved to be wrong.''

In 1995 testimony to Congress about the Ruby Ridge incident, Coulson
testified that FBI officials had not approved the key language of the rules
of engagement at Ruby Ridge - that agents ''can and should'' fire. Rogers
added the words ''and should'' to the orders. Coulson said he had rejected
Rogers' plan to use an armored vehicle to knock into Weaver's cabin. In a
deposition last month, Coulson said the decision by Rogers and Jamar to knock
into the Branch Davidians' gym with a converted tank during the last hour of
the siege was a ''deviation'' from the plan he helped to compose.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. FBI didn't plan to fight Waco fire
Dallas Morning News, Mar. 2, 2000
http://dallasnews.com/waco/42359_WACO02.html
Hours after a federal prosecutor cautioned the FBI about the need for
firetrucks at the Branch Davidian compound, the bureau's Waco commanders sent
a message to Washington saying they wouldn't even try to fight any blaze that
might break out.

FBI records show that the two exchanges occurred on April 9, 1993, as FBI
leaders were finalizing plans to assault the sect's compound with tanks and
tear gas.

Lawyers for the sect included the documents in a Wednesday motion aimed at
convincing a federal judge that the FBI's two Waco commanders, Jeffrey Jamar
and Richard Rogers, should remain defendants in the Branch Davidians'
wrongful death lawsuit.

Justice Department attorneys maintain that federal law protects the Waco
commanders from a civil lawsuit arising from their actions in the 1993 siege.

Lawyers for the Branch Davidians on Wednesday also released their own arson
experts' report on the fire that consumed the Branch Davidian compound within
hours after the FBI tear gas assault began on April 19, 1993. That report, by
Chicago-based fire investigator Patrick Kennedy, stated that adequate
firefighting equipment could have been obtained for the siege and would have
saved many lives.

More than 80 Branch Davidians died in the fire that ended the 51-day
standoff.

''If the fire had been extinguished in its early stages, there probably would
have been little, if any, loss of life,'' Mr. Kennedy's report stated.
(...)

Mr. Kennedy's report concluded that the government's investigation, which
ruled that Branch Davidians set the compound fire, was ''fatally flawed.'' He
noted it failed to follow national standards, overlooked the government's
possible role in the blaze and hinged on evidence ''that has never been used
in such fire investigations before or since.''
(...)

Mr. Kennedy, whose past cases include the Las Vegas MGM Hotel fire, the
DuPont Plaza Hotel fire in Puerto Rico and the Philadelphia MOVE standoff
fire, wrote that the government's bulldozing of the crime scene ''made it
impossible to answer the questions left open by the government's inadequate
fire investigation.''

''When analyzed according to accepted industry standards of fire
investigation, the origin of this fire must be listed as 'undetermined,' and
the responsibility for this fire must be listed as 'undetermined,' '' Mr.
Kennedy stated.
(...)

A former Secret Service forensic recording specialist hired by the sect to
analyze FBI audio and videotapes said he had found broad evidence of
tampering and erasures in crucial government recordings.
(...)

He said those April 19 recordings, which included what prosecutors said was
the sect's fire preparations, included instances were two tapes labeled as
simultaneous recordings contained noticeably different ''speech content.''
(...)

Mr. Cain said the government's April 19 infrared recordings appear to have
been altered, and the videos from the six hours before the fire contained
evidence ''that they have been probably edited and possibly tampered with.''

That evidence includes the erasure of the audio track from the infrared tape
shot in the crucial hour before the fire, he said.
(...)

Although government lawyers told Judge Smith that tape was an original, Mr.
Cain wrote, it appears to be a copy, ''and therefore does not constitute
reliable evidence.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Ex-agent: Tanks misused in Waco
San Antonio Express-News, Mar. 1, 2000
http://mysa.com/pantheon/homebase/hbm%26s/0201a-waco-0302.shtml
When FBI on-scene commanders Dick Rogers and Jeff Jamar ordered tanks to
drive through Mount Carmel's walls, they violated orders calling for a
gradual operation to oust Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and his
followers, says a motion attorneys drafted for a case in Waco federal
district court.

The motion, filed by plaintiff's attorneys in a wrongful death suit against
the federal government set for trial in May, cites a deposition given last
week by former Deputy Assistant FBI Director Danny Coulson.

During that deposition, taken Feb. 22 in Washington, Coulson testified that
Attorney General Janet Reno's plan for the assault called for the insertion
of booms mounted on military vehicles, in order to deliver tear gas inside
the building.

But the entry of the tanks themselves, he said, was ''inconsistent'' with the
plan as he understood it at the time.
(...)

FBI officials, in the 1994 San Antonio trial of 11 Davidian survivors, and in
testimony before Congress in 1995, have maintained they sent tanks into the
building to create escape routes and to reach areas of the building where
tear gas had not penetrated.

Testimony in both proceedings indicated the intrusions instead flattened
stairways and blocked passages.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. Waco tester is tied to feds
San Antonio Express-News, Feb. 28, 2000
http://www.mysa.com/pantheon/homebase/hbm
&&s/2901b-waco-0229.shtml
A technology firm hired to re-create scenes from the 1993 FBI assault on the
Branch Davidian compound in Waco has links to the federal government, critics
of the government's role in the siege say.

The British firm, Vector Data Systems, was selected to oversee the
re-enactment, which will seek to determine whether federal agents fired on
Davidians on April 19, 1993. Survivors of those who died in the fire that
ended the siege have filed a wrongful death suit against the federal
government, slated for a May trial in Waco.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the government agreed to Vector's
appointment to the case, at the suggestion of former U.S. Sen. John Danforth,
R-Mo., who is investigating the Mount Carmel events on behalf of the Justice
Department.
(...)

Roger Charles, a Washington intelligence affairs expert, and sierratimes.com,
a Webzine published by Nevada conspiracy buff J. J. Johnson, claimed last
weekend that Vector is too tied to government interests to be objective.

''These guys can show you video, FLIR or otherwise, of a cow jumping over the
moon and you'll swear it's what the camera is seeing,'' Charles said.

Vector is a subsidiary of the Anteon Corp., an American firm and a major
defense contractor, with more than $300 million in federal contracts, most of
them for military projects.
(...)

In 1998, the Washington Post reported a sister company of Vector ''performed
secret tasks for the CIA and the U.S. military.''
(...)

Vector's job in the Waco re-enactment, set for March 18, will be to see that
procedures for conducting the test fairly are carried out.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Two Branch Davidians withdraw from lawsuit
Waco Herald-Tribune, Feb. 28, 2000
http://www.accesswaco.com/auto/feed/news/local/2000/02/28/951798219.17471.2876.0048.html
Houston attorney Mike Caddell asked U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr.
of Waco Monday to dismiss two prominent Branch Davidians from the group's
wrongful-death lawsuit against the government.

Caddell, lead plaintiffs' attorney, filed a motion stating that Kathryn
Schroeder and Rita Riddle do not wish to pursue the lawsuit.

Also asking out were three of Schroeder's children: Scott and Christyn Mabb
and Bryan Michael Schroeder, her son by Michael Schroeder, who died in the
raid on Mount Carmel. He was shot by ATF agents while trying to get back to
his family inside the residence.

"He (Smith) has ruled that unless you have suffered significant physical
injury, you have no claim for simply being there," Caddell said. "I think the
other thing is that these are people who do not want to undergo the burden of
some of the pretrial discovery that they would have to go through:
depositions and making appearances at the trial."

Schroeder, who left Mount Carmel after the siege began to be with her
children, testified at the 1994 criminal trial against fellow Davidians.

"Judge Smith already has dismissed the claims relating to the death of
Michael Schroeder," Caddell said. "And the bottom line is we advised them
that there would be little point in appealing that decision. We looked into
it. I wouldn't say that we agreed with the court, but I wouldn't say that the
judge didn't have a legitimate basis for the decision he made."

Riddle left about a month before the Mount Carmel fire. She lost a brother,
Jimmy, and her daughter, Misty Ferguson, was severely burned.
(...)

Ferguson remains in the lawsuit, along with more than 100 other plaintiffs.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


11. U.S. Agencies Said Shy of New Oklahoma Building
AOL/Reuters, Mar. 2, 2000
http://my.aol.com/news/story.tmpl?table=n&
&cat=01&id=2000030207324963
Plans for a new federal building to replace the one destroyed in the 1995
Oklahoma City bombing have hit a snag -- not enough federal agencies want to
move in, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

Matthew Madison, regional director of the General Services Administration
(GSA), the U.S. agency in charge of the project, said plans for construction
were on hold for the moment because work cannot proceed without having
tenants signed up for the space.

Madison said some survivors of the April 19, 1995, blast that killed 168
people were reluctant to move back to the vicinity of the leveled Alfred P.
Murrah federal building, whose site is now a memorial park.
(...)

The Murrah building was reduced to rubble by a truck bomb in what
investigators called an act of retaliation for a 1993 raid by federal agents
on a cult compound in Waco, Texas, that left 80 sect members dead.

Timothy McVeigh was convicted in 1997 of planting the bomb and was sentenced
to death. His former Army buddy Terry Nichols was sentenced in a federal
trial to life in prison for helping plan the bombing and now faces state
charges of first-degree murder that carry a maximum penalty of death.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

12. Reporters asked to certify no sect links
South China Morning Post, Mar. 2, 2000
http://www.scmp.com/News/China/Article/
FullText_asp_ArticleID-20000302032343099.asp
Authorities have asked mainland journalists covering the NPC to issue a
letter of guarantee that they are not members of the banned Falun Gong group
as surveillance was tightened up in Tiananmen Square before the annual
meetings.
(...)

Some journalists had rejected the request, arguing that it was insulting to
them, but they were urged to comply since the order had come from Beijing's
leadership, he said.

Central authorities were worried that Falun Gong practitioners had
''infiltrated'' all areas of society, including the media.
(...)

Authorities also suspect some delegates to the two annual national meetings
may be Falun Gong members and have called for special security measures
around the Great Hall of the People and delegate hotels to prevent possible
''disturbances''.

Meanwhile, police are rounding up dissidents ahead of next week's
tightly-controlled parliament meeting, the New York-based Human Rights in
China said yesterday.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

13. Church wants judge removed in McPherson case
St. Petersburg Times, Mar. 3, 2000
http://www.sptimes.com/News/030300/TampaBay/Church_wants_judge_re.shtml
The Church of Scientology says it fears Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt
C. Downey III cannot be impartial and is asking that he remove himself from
presiding in the Lisa McPherson case.

In a motion filed late Thursday, Scientology asserts that several of Downey's
former law partners were active in anti-Scientology efforts in the late 1970s
and early 1980s, after the church's controversial arrival in Clearwater.

The motion also notes that Downey has been an officer in local mental health
groups involved in providing psychiatric and psychological services.
Scientology is staunchly opposed to psychiatry and psychology, calling its
practitioners ''psychs'' who are ''the sole cause of decline in this
universe.''

Scientology's Clearwater entity faces felony charges of practicing medicine
without a license and abuse of a disabled adult in the case of McPherson, a
Scientologist who died in 1995 while in the care of church staffers.

Downey was handed the case last month after the original judge, chief judge
Susan F. Schaeffer, became ill.
(...)

In its motion, the church says it recently discovered aspects of Downey's
background that ''reasonably cause it to fear that it will not receive fair
treatment before the judge . . . because of his prejudice or bias against the
Church of Scientology as well as its religious beliefs relating to mental
health treatment.''

The motion notes that those beliefs are central to the case. The church's
defense is based in large part on an argument that staffers who cared for
McPherson were engaged in religious practices rooted in the notion that
psychiatry and psychology are harmful.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


14. A cry for justicel
St. Petersburg Times, Mar. 3, 2000 (Editorial)
http://www.sptimes.com/News/030300/Opinion/A_cry_for_justice.shtml
Despite a reversal in the autopsy report of Lisa McPherson, the state
attorney still has an obligation to prosecute those his office believes to be
responsible in her death in a Scientology hotel room.

The tragedy of Lisa McPherson's death in a Scientology hotel room has turned
into a sad, convoluted mess that cries out for justice.

An unexplained reversal by Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Joan Wood has
prosecutors reviewing their case and raises questions about Wood's
competence. Meanwhile, sworn statements by Scientologists paint a disturbing
picture of McPherson's final days and raise this question: Why was no
individual charged with a crime?

Under pressure from experts hired by the Church of Scientology, Wood quietly
amended her autopsy report on Feb. 16. The manner of McPherson's death was
changed from ''undetermined'' to ''accident.'' Wood also removed one cause of
death (''bed rest and severe dehydration'') and added a new significant
condition (''psychosis and history of auto accident'').

While Wood's final diagnosis that McPherson died in 1995 from a blood clot
that moved from her leg to her lung did not change, the new version was
gleefully embraced by Scientology officials.

Facing two felony charges -- abuse of a disabled adult and practicing
medicine without a license -- Scientology has spared no expense to cast doubt
on the facts in the case. Church officials contend that the blood clot was
caused by a bruise suffered in a minor automobile accident rather than
McPherson's treatment during 17 days of forced isolation at the church's
downtown Clearwater hotel. A Scientology press release called Wood's altered
opinion ''extremely significant and a huge development that dramatically
affects the state's case.''
(...)

Amid the doubt, this much is clear: Wood owes the residents of Pinellas
County an explanation; and State Attorney Bernie McCabe still needs to
prosecute those his office determines to be responsible in McPherson's
suffering and death.

The medical examiner's policy of considering new, credible evidence is valid.
But in the McPherson case, Wood either made a serious mistake on her original
autopsy report or she let Scientology's unrelenting pressure weaken her
resolve. Either choice raises doubts about Wood's competence, and because she
has not responded to questions about the amended report, we are left to
wonder.

No doubt remains that McPherson was ill served by her Scientology
''caretakers.''

Following a minor auto accident, McPherson acted strangely and was taken to a
nearby hospital emergency room. Other Scientology members quickly retrieved
her and placed her in a hotel room, where the psychotic woman was isolated,
held down while being force-fed homemade concoctions and given prescribed
medication without seeing a doctor. After 17 days, gaunt and unresponsive,
McPherson was delivered to a hospital an hour away. When a doctor saw her,
she was already dead.

McCabe chose to charge the Church of Scientology in Clearwater rather than
individual church members. That decision raises questions after reading
several Scientologists' sworn statements:
(...)

Changing a few words on the autopsy report does not change the tragic events
that unfolded in a darkened Scientology hotel room. Whatever caused the blood
clot that killed McPherson, timely medical care would have given her a chance
to survive.

No matter how many experts the Church of Scientology hires or how much
pressure they put on public officials, a jury should decide if someone
committed a crime in the death of Lisa McPherson.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


15. Scientology wants access to government files
Der Tagesspiegel (Germany), Feb. 25, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/000225a.htm
Calling upon Brandenburg Constitutional Basic rights, the Scientology sect
wants general file access to government documents. Vice-Administration
speaker Manfred Fueger verified that Scientology had filed applications at
the end of 1999 with three ministries - finance, interior and state
chancellory. The state administration see no method of basically refusing
such desires, but still has asked for clarification for the applications in a
letter of response. ''There has been no reaction to our letter yet,'' said
Fueger. The process has triggered a debate in the administration coalition as
to whether the document access law should be strengthened. The PDS, State
Data Security Commissioner Alexander Dix, and even SPD politicians, like SPD
legal expert Peter Muschalla, have opposed this move.

Constitutional Security chief Heiner Wegesin affirmed for the Tagesspiegel
newspaper that constitutional Security federal and state offices were already
familiar with the exploitation of the document access law by the Scientology
sect, which is under surveillance.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. U.S. Human Rights report sees positive trends worldwide
dpa (Germany), Feb. 25, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/000225b.htm
The USA has determined in its annual Human Rights report that, worldwide,
there is a positive trend.
(...)

In contrast to previous years, the attitude of the German authorities toward
the Scientology Organization was not criticized, but merely recorded. For
instance it was stated that the organization is not regarded as a church in
Germany, but as a commercial business. In addition, it was noted that civil
service applications in Bavaria include a mandatory, detailed questionnaire
in which contain questions about connections to Scientology.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The report can be found at:

» Part 2