Religious Apartheid: 1996 – Official Repression of Minority Religious Rights in Germany
Since its inception, the “Working Group Scientology” office has been active in first identifying businesses run by Scientologists and then urging the public to boycott businesses which are owned by or hire Scientologists. In a Die Woche article in May of 1995, the Chief of the “Working Group” provided information to urge businesses to boycott a leading software company around the world, Executive Software, because it was run by a Scientologist.118
In September 1995, the Hamburg Senate issued a press release concerning measures it had adopted to “fight” Scientology based upon recommendations submitted in a report by the “Working Group Scientology.” These measures included a determination to explore legislative means to identify Scientologists who own businesses and to prohibit these businesses under commercial law by classifying such businesses as “unreliable.”119
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
On the 12th of January 1994, a discriminatory measure entitled “Fight against the Scientology-Organization” was enacted by the Parliament of the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern which included an unsupported parliamentary “evaluation” that Scientology is not a religion despite authority to the contrary and a demand that the government:
investigate Scientology due to its danger to democracy;
Creation of a Document Center on Members of Minority Religions in Schleswig-Holstein
In light of the nationwide government policy to ostracize and stigmatize any individual associated with the religion, recent legislation in one state to circumvent data protection restrictions on the collection and use of information on individuals who are members of minority religions is especially ominous.
The State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein amended its data protection law in September 1994 to create a document center concerning individuals connected to “sects.”121 This law strips away the fundamental privacy rights of Scientologists and members of other groups labeled as “sects” by excluding them from data protection safeguards enjoyed by all other German citizens.
In March of 1995, the State Parliament published a report entitled “Activities of Sects in Schleswig-Holstein”. This report provides information on Scientology and seven other minority religions targeted by the government and details the ominous purpose of the document center. The Report states that information collected by the document center on individuals who are members of the targeted religions will be shared with federal, state and municipal government offices, social organizations, unions, trade and chamber associations, churches, private groups, educational institutions and the Parliament. Ominously, the Report also calls for the “education and advanced training” of prosecutors and judges regarding targeted religious groups -- actions clearly designed to strip away neutral enforcement and application of the law.122
This data protection center law gives the government the license to collect and disseminate sensitive personal information and expose the identities of individuals associated with minority religions to all strata of society in order to ensure that the government policy to blacklist and ostracize members of minority religions is effectively implemented. This tactic violates core data protection principles and fundamental human rights by creating a substructure of second class citizens classified by their philosophy or religious beliefs.
Government Measures Denying Scientologists Fundamental Rights Continued