FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

	Contact: Leisa Goodman
	(323) 960-3500

March 25, 1999

—Human Rights Director criticizes security agency for abusing resources while neo-Nazism increases – The Human Rights Director for the Church of Scientology International, Ms. Leisa Goodman, said today that resources presently spent by Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC) on investigating innocent groups should be reallocated towards human rights programs to combat extremism.

Ms. Goodman was commenting on the 1998 report by the internal security agency which translates into an increase of 15 neo-Nazis a day—a trend that will continue, according to Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily who released the report today. She said that the OPC is no longer effective in combatting fascism, and that the German government has abused its functions by placing religious minorities such as Scientologists and Muslims under surveillance.

“The OPC is wasting millions of manhours and hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions— – of deutschmarks on harassing our members even though German authorities have repeatedly cleared our churches and officers of any wrongdoing,” she said. “That money should be spent instead on developing more effective programs in schools and colleges to combat extremism at its roots.”

This week Germany was again criticized for religious discrimination by an international human rights body. At a Vienna conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Helsinki Federation released a report accusing German officials of religious intolerance and of violating Germany’s international human rights commitments.

Ms. Goodman noted that the German government has not yet implemented the December 1997 recommendations of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance. The Rapporteur has said that the government, “beyond day-to-day management, must implement a strategy to prevent intolerance in the field of religion and belief... sustained efforts are required to promote and develop a culture of tolerance and human rights.” The Rapporteur reiterated these recommendations in his annual report for 1998, which was released to the United Nations Human Rights Commission this month.

Recent scandals in Germany have revealed that the OPC hires agents from the notorious Stasi, the former East German secret police. Last April, an OPC official was arrested by Swiss authorities after he was caught illegally spying on Scientologists in Swiss territory. He faces trial in Bern. In January, ~Focus~ magazine alleged that the head of the OPC’s counter-espionage department had anonymously complained that OPC staff were appropriating taxpayer funds for their personal use.

Hundreds of thousands of German citizens have their names and details recorded in the OPC’s files, yet there have been deplorable lapses in security. In November 1997, several computers were stolen from the Ministry of Interior of Thueringen during an office move. The computers contained about 1,600 files of vital data belonging to the Parliamentary Control Commission over the OPC as well as other information that the OPC had collected. A research commission established later that the company organizing the move had recruited three criminals who were on the run from the police.

Legal experts in Germany have publicly condemned the surveillance of Scientologists as unconstitutional and that investigations by German authorities have repeatedly cleared the Church of Scientology and its officers of any wrongdoing.

“The real reason for the surveillance of our members is to enable the German government to coat human rights abuses against Scientologists with a veneer of legitimacy,” said Ms. Goodman. .