On November 23, 2015, a Moscow court ordered the dissolution of that city’s Church of Scientology on the grounds that it did not qualify as a religious organization due to a US trademark of the word Scientology. For a typical news story, Scientology Banned in Russia.
A number of people sent us links to stories like this and asked us to comment on them. They were particularly interested in the ramifications of the ruling on Scientology worldwide. Some also wondered whether the trademark angle was a potential threat to the religiosity of Scientology in America.
Here is our take on the court ruling, from which we have only seen isolated quotes and summaries, by the way; we have not seen the full decision.
Backdrop: Religious Bigotry
Russian culture and government do not favor the free expression of religion. In perfect doublespeak, Russian law declares all religions equal and prohibits government interference in religion. The same law, however, acknowledges specific traditional, long-established religions, e.g., Christianity and Judaism, and gives a special shout-out to the Russion Orthodox Church for its role in the history and development of the country’s spirituality and culture.
Additionally, religious entities must register with and be approved by the government.
In practice, religious minorities are barely tolerated and applications for religious status are often treated arbitrarily. Support for the right bureaucrat can make the difference between acceptance and denial. So, too, can a dissolution process be influenced. Given Scientology’s unpopular, minority status and its American origin – Russian culture remains largely anti-all things American – and these sentiments have been inflamed by recent global events – the prosecution is inherently suspect as an act of persecution.
Some examples of Russian religious intolerance against minority Western religions:
●In 2007, a St. Petersburg Court ordered that city’s Scientology center to close because it had refused to allow government officials to sit in on confidential “auditing” sessions and did not hand over confidential documents from those sessions when requested. (The center continued to operate despite the order, and the government did not force the closure, but imagine a US agency requesting to sit in on auditing sessions!)
●In 2004, after a 6-year trial, Jehovah’s Witnesses activities were banned in Moscow.
●in 1999, Russia refused to register the Society of Jesus, one of the Catholic Church’s most prestigious orders of priests.
Of course, for 70 years following WWI, the official state religion in Russia was atheism. The cultural and governmental context of the court action, therefore, is hostile to the core concepts of the religion of Scientology, i.e., that a person is a spirit, not the body, and the goal of Scientology is the full restoration of one’s spiritual awareness and self-determinism. Freaky stuff to many atheists.
Hat Hung on the Moscow Court’s Hatrack: US Trademark of “Scientology”
Given this context, the court’s findings are almost beside the point; someone with some political clout who wants to be done with Scientology in Moscow is all it takes.
But every dissolution order can be challenged in the Russian appellate courts and the European Court of Human Rights, so take a sniff of the prosecution’s case to see if it passes the smell test.
Remember that religious entities must be registered in Russia. A 1997 law creates three categories of religious “communities”: (1) religious groups; (2) local religious organizations; and (3) centralized religious organizations, with different levels of legal status and privileges.
The Moscow Scientology church was an approved local branch. The government argued that the term “Scientology” is a US trademark registered in the name of Religious Technology Center (RTC). And therefore, the prosecutor boldly asserted and plausibly maintained – we presume, based on the outcome – the Scientology religion is being spread in Russia not by a registered and approved religious organization, but by a commercial enterprise.
By American and international human rights standards, that argument reeks of Russian Bear doodoo. For one thing, a trademark does not equal commercial enterprise.
Look around.
See a Red Cross? Both the name and the logo are trademarks held by the iconic charitable organization. Churches can also obtain US trademarks. “Seventh-Day Adventist,” for example, is a trademarked name.
While trademarks are often associated with commercial enterprises, the legal purpose of trademark law is to enable an entity to prove the distinctiveness of its name so that it cannot be used by any other organization in a situation where there would be a “likelihood of confusion.”
It is also quite a stretch to claim that the non-registered RTC is spreading the religion of Scientology in Moscow, as the ruling entails, by virtue of its ownership of the trademark.
But this is what can happen in a religiously intolerant, corrupt bureaucratic environment.
Ramifications of Ruling
The Moscow court’s finding has no legal precedential value outside Russia, particularly in the United States. The ruling may not even survive an appeal in the Russian courts. It shouldn’t.
But there’s a saying in the legal profession, “Bad facts, make bad law.” A lot of angry sentiment exists against Scientology, and it continues to build. Some of it is due to religious prejudice and intolerance, but much of it is caused by failures of good technical results and the arrogant, abusive policies and practices of the Miscavige administration, such as, front and center, the oppressive policy of disconnection.
The church can remedy this. David Miscavige can show true leadership by following the example of LRH who, when faced with adverse governmental actions by the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, commissioned broad public surveys to determine what about Scientology, if anything, people disliked. The results revealed a disdain for the policies of disconnection, Fair Game and security checks. So LRH cancelled them, and relations with the UK improved. New Zealand, for example, called off an investigation into Scientology in response to a personal letter from Hubbard notifying it of the reform measures undertaken.
We have written about this before on this and our sister-site, SaveScientology.com. See, for example, our article entitled David Miscavige’s Day of Reckoning, in which we link to LRH’s 1968 announcement to Scientologists of the Reform Code of Scientology.
In our most recent article posted on this website, we quoted L. Ron Hubbard:
“[W]hen an organization gets into the fantastic levels of being above reproach, or when an individual sets himself up as so infinitely superior to his fellow man that he cannot be touched, chaos no matter at what distant date is bound to ensue. Do you see that?”[1]
We see some of that chaos in the Moscow court ruling.
Rather than throw millions more at Russian and European Human Rights lawyers to claim persecution, we urge the church to take a new approach.
________________________
END NOTE:
[1] The Anatomy of the Spirit of Man Congress tape lecture #15, What Scientology Is Doing – Organizations, The Control & Division of Man, given on 6 June ‘55.
Pardon me if I don’t see this day of reckoning coming but as the Russian’s along with a few of us labeled “conspiracy theorists” suspect the Church of Scientology under Miscavige has become a tool of the USG like other “N”GOs.
From what I understand what is called the Freezone seems to have no problem operating in the FSU and has been given a free pass by the FSB while the Church of Scientology has been under constant surveillance and now is being kicked out as tensions rise once again between the US and Russia which is looking like a sequel to the Cold War.
That’s my view.
Merrell, please remove the nazi symbol from the Russian flag NOW! That is Not OK!
Once again you are very astute, Robin as I agree that CoS is very thoroughly a PR flap to end all PR flaps and as you say, it has become a tool of some very unsavory characters. This is in fact a PR flap of universal proportion and the sooner we confront the whole scene the sooner we will gain cause over it as we are here getting very close to a huge, fourth dynamic major, stable win on Earth.
As I have read LRH’s fiction as well as monitoring the current scene, may I suggest watching the Youtube video; “Dr. Steven Greer – Nov. 21, 2015 – How the Secret Government Works: The Most Explosive Expose – HD” and reports from a high confront, Canadian freelance jounalist living in Japan, Benjamin Fulford; “Weekly geo-political news and analysis”. (Its well worrth the $8.00 / mo) These OTs are willy nilly, freedom fighters of the highest order with reports that may well help provide you with lets say, a universal, exterior view of the current scene on Blito P 3.
Keep going, Robin you super thetan. And, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.
Love,
LL
Thanx LL.
A belated Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours as well.
I am somewhat familiar Dr Steven Greer’s work as part of the Disclosure Project.
Thanks for the heads up on the video. I’ll check it out.
BTW this leaning toward fascism is what Ron foresaw in his GO’s A Working Theory and Notes on SMERSH which can be found here respectively:
http://www.freezone.de/english/timetrack/data/policies/1971-05-06.htm
http://www.freezone.de/english/timetrack/data/policies/1971-05-07_SMERSH.htm
Personally I don’t think Merrell meant any harm by superimposing the old Nazi and Soviet flags which was used to represent the old Soviet/Nazi pact which in fact was a delaying tactic that Hitler used to hide his original intention of Invading Russia which had already been explicitly explained in his book Mien Kampt.
Anyway as Ron explains in the above GOs the Nazis and later the Neo-Nazis have been the third parties involved in this conflict between the US and Russia.
We see this in the current situation in Ukraine where the CIA is supporting former Nazi collaborators.
Thus it is easy to see why the Russians would be suspicious of the Church of Scientology which they have every reason to suspect is being used as a tool like other NGOs of Foreign Policy.
Ironically this suspicion also applies to the Germans as well. In particular the OPC or Office for the Protection of the Constitution which was formed from the old Gehlen Org.
Harm? What harm? I don’t understand Lou’s comment and asked him by email for clarification but received no reply.
I wanted an image that represented intolerance and arbitrary restraint by totalitarian governments to fit the theme of the article. Seems one or more may be viewing the image in some other context. Don’t see how Greer’s Disclosure Project relates to the article, either and I tried; I watched the entire almost 4 hour video. At least your linked materials, Robin, are short. 🙂 My take on those is, first of all, they’re merely intelligence estimates (working hypothesis), which are dynamic and change with new data and insights. They are dated 1971, almost forty-five years ago. Tons more information is known from released intelligence documents and other sources, and more and more is coming out today, especially of late, that is much more relevant to Russian-American relations. For example, the powerful, potential game-changing revelations by Seymour Hersh in his bombshell report, Military to Military, recently published in the London Review of Books.
Basically, in what some are calling a “soft coup,” US Military officers are working directly with Russia and other nation’s military to undermine the Obama Administration’s covert support for ISIS and for the overthrow of Syria’s Assad. I listened to an interview of one intelligence analyst today who corroborated Hersh’s report and stated further that military officers in both Russia and the US see that their interests are similar and that their conflict is being instigated by corrupt elements, the so-called Neo-Cons, or War Party. Putin, supposedly, is enlightened as far as the same forces having created the Cold War and, before that, the Communist USSR. If true, this news is very encouraging. And the “dark forces” on this planet, however you label them (Nazis, SMERSH, Cobra, Globalists, World Bankers), are being exposed.
I’m always struck by the parallels between the 4th and (our) 3rd Dynamic situations, and here’s another one. As Miscavige is more and more exposed as a Third Party to many, many conflicts among Scientologists, including the schisms of the early 1980s through to the present, so, too, are the 4th Dynamic instigators of perpetual war, conflict and chaos being exposed. We live in interesting times. May both situations resolve favorably and lead to a new renaissance!
Actually the latter article posted “Notes on SMERSH” is not hypothetical and is based on actual intel obtained through Branch 5 and in my opinion is as relevant now as it was over forty years ago especially with the rise of someone like Trump who happens to be supported by Storm Front and the NeoNazi fringe.
Another writing very perceptive of the current scene was written almost four decades before that and was Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html
As I wrote Lou I am familiar with Greer’s work in fact he wrote an interesting article on a technique that was and is currently used by Intelligence Agencies known as Decoy, Distract and Trash that was and is being used against UFO researchers and is quite possibly as in more then likely against Scientology:
http://www.siriusdisclosure.com/ddt/
As far as Miscavige being a “third party” of any kind. He’d have to be a “unknown” according to the HCOB which says:
The law would seem to be:
A THIRD PARTY MUST BE PRESENT AND UNKNOWN IN EVERY QUARREL FOR A CONFLICT TO EXIST.
or
FOR A QUARREL TO OCCUR, AN UNKNOWN THIRD PARTY MUST BE ACTIVE IN PRODUCING IT BETWEEN TWO POTENTIAL OPPONENTS.
or
WHILE IT IS COMMONLY BELIEVED TO TAKE TWO TO MAKE A FIGHT, A THIRD PARTY MUST EXIST AND MUST DEVELOP IT FOR ACTUAL CONFLICT TO OCCUR.
He is definitely not an unknown factor.
BTW as always Seymour Hersh is a national treasure a real investigative journalist. Personally I think Obama himself is undermining the policy that has been assigned to him by the neocons and the MIC.
Since he wants to survive his final days in office he isn’t going to take any overt action like JFK did in past when the coup in this regard wasn’t all that “soft”.
He’s already gotten away with signing a treaty with Iran and reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.
I’m sure he’s happy to leave the thorny issue of Syria to the next administration to sort out.
That’s my own view but it seems to align with the actions or more accurately the inaction he’s taken covered by obvious rhetoric.
Miscavige is a known person, and his role micro-managing everything is now known, but his compartmentalized comm behind the scenes is/was/often is unknown.
Miscavige’s alleged “role micro-managing” has been known for almost two decades with the release of The Man Behind Scientology.
Also before that when he was assigned to head the “Special Project” allegedly by Ron but more likely by Pat Broeker who has been somewhat coy about his involvement ever since leaving the Church in the late ’80’s.
Besides the above HCOB says specifically “an unknown third party”. Miscavige is not an unknown.
Ron also goes on to say:
It is very easy to see that two in conflict are fighting. They are very visible. What is harder to see or suspect is that a third party existed and actively promoted the quarrel.
The usually unsuspected and “reasonable” third party, the bystander who denies any part of it is the one that brought the conflict into existence in the first place.
The hidden third party, seeming at times to be a supporter of only one side, is to be found as the instigator.
This would apply a terminals in the media with possibly a connection to some agency within the US Government more then it would Miscavige .
From the view of the Third Party being an actual terminal.
As far as I have seen Rinder and Rathbun in particular who have constantly “exposed” Miscavige’s crimes haven’t really produced any tangible results and have turned more people against the subject by pretty much siding with the enemy like for example Tony Ortega and Lawrence Wright who is basically carrying the torch for the late Russell Miller.
You like to argue, don’t you? Please don’t use the comments section to do that. I approved this comment, reluctantly, but I’m not going to take it up.
“may I suggest watching the Youtube video; “Dr. Steven Greer – Nov. 21, 2015 – How the Secret Government Works: The Most Explosive Expose –”
Thanks for the recommendation LL, it really is a fascinating video!
4a
Happy New Year, Merrell. I apologize for the comm lag and my comment. I returned home only yesterday from Calgary where I spent a week with family prior to and over Xmas.
I agree with your comment;
admin December 30, 2015 at 9:00 pm
“Miscavige is a known person, and his role micro-managing everything is now known, but his compartmentalized comm behind the scenes is/was/often is unknown.” (SOS – tone level 1.1)
The group known as ISIS is a large army of mercenaries hired to terrorize people on Earth.
Mercenary (plural mercenaries)
1. A person employed to fight in an armed conflict who is not a member of the state or military group for which they are fighting and whose prime or sole motivation is private gain. (Wiktionary definition)
In his 29 Dec., 2015 report, Benjamin Fulford writes;
“There is also a systematic attempt to cut off all funding for the Zionazi (neo-con) faction of the Khazarian mob. These are the people who wanted to start World War 3 in order to reduce the world population by 90% and enslave the surviving 10%. This faction, headed by George Bush Sr. and his fellow Zionazis, survives mainly on oil, drugs, slavery and arms dealing.” The plunge in oil prices from over $70 a barrel late last year to the $30 range recently will start hitting these gangsters in earnest in January as their one year price hedges begin to expire.”
If the above is correct then the ISIS army will no longer get paid and thus will no longer fight which will effectively end war on Earth! All that will remain will be to gather up the world’s SPs including DM and his goons, put them on an isolated island somewhere in the Pacific without ships or transport to get off where they can spend their lives squirreling each other with DM’s golden age of squirrel tech. This is indeed good news, is it not?
In your reply to Robin: admin December 29, 2015 at 11:56 pm, you stated;
“Putin, supposedly, is enlightened as far as the same forces having created the Cold War and, before that, the Communist USSR. If true, this news is very encouraging. And the “dark forces” on this planet, however you label them (Nazis, SMERSH, Cobra, Globalists, World Bankers), are being exposed.”
Putin and many others including Russians are involved in putting ethics in on the suppressives and “third parties” who have financed ISIS and created war on Earth for eons. My concern about the Nazi symbol on the Russian flag was simply that Putin and Russians might take offense to a Nazi symbol on their flag as Putin and his armed forces are certainly not Nazis. They are in fact helping to aggressively dismantle the very same SP group that has infiltrated and dismantled our Church of Scientology.
There are only two types of personalities. They are thoroughly described by LRH in “The Antisocial Personality, The Anti-Scientologist.” (ITSE)
Happy New Year you beautiful people. 2016 is here for you to flourish and prosper with Scientology!
As our best friend, Ron would say, I love you too,
Lou