Religious Apartheid 1997 – Continuing Official Repression of Minority Religious Rights in Germany
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, an independent agency of the United States Government mandated with monitoring compliance with human rights commitments in the Helsinki Final Act, issued a report in September of 1993 which referred to the policy of religious discrimination in Germany against Scientologists and stated:
It seems clear that Germany’s course of action reflects the determination to marginalize or eradicate groups perceived as extremist or threatening to the established order. While understandable, especially given Germany’s past, this determination can lead the government to engage in discriminatory policy. Members of the Church of Scientology, for example, protested harassment in the form of firings, discriminatory treatment from local and state authorities, solely based on their affiliation with Scientology. Indeed, in one recently publicized case in which the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg broke off contract negotiations with jazz musician Chick Corea upon learning that Mr. Corea was a Scientologist, state officials explained quite unapologetically to the Helsinki Commission that “The position that Baden-Wuerttemberg takes toward Scientology is shared by all other German States ... We judge the practices of Scientology in a very critical manner,” and “Neither would we engage in a contractual agreement with an artist who is either radically to the left or radically to the right because we feel that it would be bad advertising for the State of BadenWuerttemberg.”95
United States Members of Congress and Congressional Caucuses have continued to express their concern regarding discrimination against Scientologists in Germany.
In July of 1996, United States Senators Olympia Snowe, Christopher Dodd and Carol Moseley-Braun expressed their concern about the practices of the German government that discriminate against individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs contrary to Germany’s international obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.96
(Click on each document above to see a magnified view.)
Letter from The United States Senate
to the Honorable Warren Christopher, July 31, 1996 (87KB)Letter from The United State Department of States, July, 29 1996 (70KB)
Letter from The Congress of the United States to
Ambassador Chrobog, August, 22 1996 (70KB)
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