Attempted Boycott of Windows 2000

In its Annual Human Rights Report on Germany for 2000, the State Department noted that German officials, specifically the Hamburg “sect commissioner” Ursula Caberta, had attempted to bring about a boycott of Windows 2000 because one of its components is produced by the American company Executive Software, whose founder and CEO is Scientologist Craig Jensen. Craig Jensen testified about this discrimination before the International House Relations Committee of the U.S. Congress on June 14, 2000. During this hearing, Robert Seiple, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom at the U.S. State Department, described the German reaction to Mr. Jensen’s company as “outrageous” and “the ultimate in paranoia.”

Mr. Jensen testified that, “Through hard work and ingenuity, my company has grown to be one of the top 200 software companies in the world, earning a great deal of success in the marketplace and numerous awards for the finest products and services in the computer software industry. Our products have been extremely thoroughly tested for safety and effectiveness by the National Software Testing Laboratories and by Veritest, the independent testing company responsible for granting certification of compatibility with Microsoft’s Windows operating system... these insinuations are completely false and easily shown to be so. It is patently incredible that even a semi-competent software engineer could believe such things. But, of course, the software itself was not the real reason for the attack. It was being targeted solely because of my religious affiliation.”

Champion Bike Racing Trainer Boycotted

In October 2001, a motorbike racing circuit venue in Satany-Anhalt, MOTOPARK Oschersleben, refused to rent space to the California Super bike School, solely because its founder, Mr. Keith Code, is a Scientologist.

With more than 60,000 students worldwide and upwards of 50,000 in the USA alone, Mr. Code has piloted the Superbike School to the position of number one motorcycle training school in the world. Fifteen out of the last twenty U.S. Superbike Champions have been students of Keith Code. Other students include 3 time World Champion Wayne Rainey, Doug Chandler, John Kosinski, Bubba Shobert, Rickey Graham, Dale Quarterly, Steve Wise, Wes Cooley Jr., Scott Russell, Eric Bostrom, Ben Bostrom and Tommy Hayden.

Two of Mr. Code’s books and one video have been translated into German and have been bestsellers in Germany for more than 16 years.

In September 2001, the Director of the School’s British offices, Mr. Andy Ibbott, was in contact with MOTOPARK in connection with hiring its facilities in September 2002. On October 8, 2001, Thomas Voss from MOTOPARK replied, stating that the company had learned that Mr. Code is a Scientologist. He stated in his letter, “we have a little problem with the California Racing School... In Germany the Scientology group is under permanent surveillance...” Mr. Ibbot immediately responded, pointing to Mr. Code’s excellent record in training Motorcycle World Champions. MOTOPARK has not responded and the projected September 2002 events by the California Superbike School remain cancelled.

Due to the very large motorcycle enthusiast community in Germany, the refusal to permit the School to hold its courses on German soil could mean $500,000 in lost revenue.

Musical Performance Cancelled

Another American citizen recently targeted for discriminatory treatment in Germany is American singer and performer M., who has lived in Switzerland and Austria for the last 10 years. Mr. M. used to perform regularly in Germany, but his career in that country was cut short in 1999 after Ariola Music Production, owned by the major German publishing firm Bertelsmann, cancelled a contract to produce CDs of his music because of his Scientology membership.

In November 2001, Mr. M. was in the process of arranging his return to Germany to perform in a musical tragedy that he had written, parts of which had already been performed successfully at AIDS conventions. His manager had booked the Vollmer-Haus in Munich, a building in part rented by the Bavarian Social Democrat Party (SPD), for a series of performances starting March 6, 2002.

The tenants who had sublet to Mr. M. started receiving several letters from unidentified “private persons” threatening adverse consequences if they allowed the musical to be shown at the venue, and giving as the sole reason that Mr. M. was a Scientologist. The national German daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, learned of the “controversy” and ran an article containing inflammatory and false quotes from the so-called Munich city’s “sect commissioner"—a person appointed to spread mostly false and negative propaganda about religions other than the predominant ones.

The news report was critical of local officials for not taking forceful measures to cancel the concert, noting that elections were scheduled in the city only three days before the first performance. Following this article, the tenants and the president of the local Social Democrat Party told Mr. M. that they could not go ahead, and Mr. M. had no choice but to cancel his planned appearances and the showings of the musical.

Great Artist Boycotted

In 1993, the state government, as sponsor, abruptly canceled a concert that the world famous, multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz composer and pianist Chick Corea was to perform in the State of Baden Württemberg. In the next years this led to a series of further cancellations, all solely because Mr. Corea is a Scientologist. By 1997 the number of concerts performed by Mr. Corea in Germany had reduced to one. Previously he had been performing up to 30 per year.

Mr. Corea had planned to perform a piano concerto with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie in the state of Bremen in October 2000. However, the German organizer of the concert informed him by email that a coalition of the Christian Democratic and Social Democratic parties in Bremen [the two major parties in Germany] had threatened the organizer of the Music Festival that they would lose all public subsidies and the artistic director would lose his job if the concert with Mr. Corea went ahead. Although both the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the Music Festival wanted the performance to go ahead, the weight of government pressure in the end forced the Music Festival to cancel. Mr. Corea testified in writing about this incident before the House International Relations Committee on June 14, 2000.