For more information: 17 November 2009

Vicki Dunstan
(02) 9638 5200
(02) 9638 4588

STATEMENT FROM CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY

REGARDING SENATOR XENOPHON’S “XENOPHOBIA”

This is an outrageous abuse of Parliamentary privilege from a Senator would

not even meet with Church representatives several months ago to discuss his
concerns.

Senator Xenophon is obviously being pressured by disgruntled former

members who use hate speech and distorted accounts of their experiences in
the Church. They are about as reliable as former spouses are when talking
about their ex-partner.

Senator Xenophon’s attempt to marginalize Scientologists by saying that they

should not be believed, is fascistic and violates freedom of speech and the
right to religious beliefs. It is former members or apostates that are
notoriously unreliable as witnesses.

The late Bryan Wilson, Ph.D. of Oxford University, one of the most renowned
sociologists of modern times, put it this way:

"The disaffected and the apostate are in particular informants whose evidence
has to be used with circumspection. The apostate is generally in need of self-
justification. He seeks to reconstruct his own past, to excuse his former
affiliations, and to blame those who were formerly his closest associates. . . .
Apostates, sensationalized by the press, have sometimes sought to make a
profit from accounts of their experiences in stories sold to newspapers...."

"As various instances have indicated, he is likely to be suggestible and ready

to enlarge or embellish his grievances to satisfy that species of journalist
whose interest is more in sensational copy than in an objective statement of
the truth."
This is a propaganda campaign that would suit a totalitarian regime not
Australia, a country that recognises freedom of religion.

Scientology has fought for and upheld religious freedom around the world
and is accepted as a religion throughout the world. In a few countries, the
Church has been forced to litigate the issue of its religiosity, either
affirmatively or in response to outrageous unfounded charges. Inevitably, the
Church has prevailed in these cases and its religious bona fides have been
unequivocally recognized. Some of these decisions, including decisions by the
Cassation Court in Italy and the 1983 decision by the High Court in Australia,
are now considered by leading scholars and judicial authorities to have
established the standards regarding religious recognition that all religions
must meet.

The High Court of 1983 that decided the case that declared Scientology was a
bona fide religion in Australia was one of the most venerated benches in the
history of the High Court. Moreover the decision was a unanimous decision of
the full bench.

The decision has stood the test of time and has proven an authority on issues
related to religions and tax status in Australia and throughout the
Commonwealth.

The Church of Scientology internationally has grown from one Church in 1954
to more than 8,000 Churches, Missions and groups in 165 countries today. The
Church sponsors an international human rights education initiative as well as
the world’s largest non-governmental drug education program. Four new
Churches have opened in 2009, most recently the Church of Scientology of
Rome on October 24, with a new Church opening in Washington, DC, on
October 31. In April, three new Churches were dedicated: in Malmo, Sweden;
Dallas, Texas; and Nashville, Tennessee. The Scientology religion has
expanded more in the past year than in the past five years combined and more
in the past five years than in the past five decades combined.

oOOo