The newsgroup alt.religion.scientology was created in 1991. I got on the Internet in 1994 (joining less than 16 million users worldwide at the time) and immediately found my way to a.r.s. It was a reasonably quiet place at first, with freezoners, critics, and even a few Scientologists chatting. Then in December someone anonymously posted the church's secret OT levels. Immediately Scientology began an attempt to close down a.r.s. They sent out an rmgroup command, which is designed to eliminate the newsgroup. They threatened newsgroup providers. They raided the homes of ex-Scientologists who were online, claiming copyright violations. They succeeded in closing down anon.penet.fi, the most popular site that allowed people to post to newsgroups anonymously.
Critics decided to fight back with protests. Free speech advocates, angered at Scientology's blunt-force attempts to close free speech on a.r.s., joined in. In September 1995 we held perhaps the first international protest organized on the Internet, with about 150 participants in about 10 cities around the world. In March of 1996, 18 of us from around the U.S. and other countries protested in Clearwater, Florida, while others protested in a few cities around the world. This was the first of our annual protests in Clearwater. From then up through 2000 we held annual protests in Clearwater, switching to December in honor of Lisa McPherson after we learned of her death. Unbeknown to us, she was being held at the Ft. Harrison Hotel as we were planning our first Clearwater protest. Our protests peaked at 46 or so protesters, with about 150 people coming to the candlelight vigil in memory of Lisa.
I mention this mostly to explain a little history, and to point out how we seem to have been, like John the Baptist, the precursor of something bigger. You can see why us Old Guard were so stunned in 2008 when over 7000 people suddenly showed up out of nowhere protesting Scientology! We were thrilled to get 40 people at our annual protests in Clearwater. Then Anonymous shows up in 2008 there with hundreds!
We were more serious than Anonymous. But then, they were serious times where people we were protesting with had their homes raided by federal marshals and Scientology goons. We still managed to have fun, though. For instance, when we were looking around the night before a Clearwater protest, we saw that Scientology had rented about 11 U-haul vans that they had parked along the sidewalks in front of the Sandcastle Hotel. This was to block any Scientologists from seeing us. There was, however, one very tight parking space right across the street from the entrance. Two enterprising guys begged a fellow protester to let them park her car there to save the space. In the morning they rented a pickup truck and swapped out vehicles. They spent the day there with a huge sign leaning against the truck saying "WHY ARE YOU HIDING?" We'd go there once in a while and take a break from picketing in the back of the pickup where plenty of drinks were available. It was grand.
We were pretty much completely Internet-based for organizing. The rest was done on cell phones, which were still not ubiquitous. I rented one for the occasion.
Some of us worked at hiding our identities. I still don't know who "Rogue Agent" was, for instance. But mostly we didn't care about that. Many of us had already self-identified online, so it was a moot issue anyway.
We didn't have youtube then, so after the protest I made copies of a slightly edited compilation VHS tape and mailed one to all the protesters.
We had very little problem with the police. One time in Clearwater they asked me if we would protest across the street from the Ft. Harrison in front of this Presbyterian Church. I forget why they wanted us to do that, but it's the only time I ever yelled at cops. Why, I asked, would people come here from Germany, Sweden, Canada, and all over the U.S., and then protest in front of a Presbyterian Church? Why not stay home and picket in front of your local Kmart and say you protested Scientology? They never brought that up again.
So at the time, we were the hottest anti-Scientology thing going. Then along came Project Chanology. But I warn you. Some time in the future, some Anon will be writing "we seem to have been the precursors..."
* * * *
WIR [alt.religion.scientology Week In Review, by Rod Keller] Vol. 0 #4, May 1995
A.r.s Protests
A.r.s contributors held protests outside cos org buildings in Houston, Boston, Mesa, AZ and Denver. They were protesting attacks by the church on the newsgroup and individuals such as Dennis Erlich.
Highlights from Houston:
"We were explaining our purposes when some 50ish guy in a shirt and tie comes out and tells us we have to leave. We kind of ignore him and I run through the reasons for our being there once again. He demands to know who our organization is. "The internet community" we answer. He did not understand this and repeated this question several times. There is a certain amount of misunderstanding here. He and the others simply could not understand the concept of spontaneously organized action not organized by a hierarchal organization with leaders to give orders. But they had fun using their ridiculous tone 40 voices of command."
From Boston:
"Another CoS member we enjoyed meeting was a very attractive, dark-haired woman named Mary, who confessed that she knew little about computers or the Internet but was quite interested in learning more. One of us protesters was wearing a button reading "Have You Hugged A Marcabian Today?"; Mary immediately gave her a warm hug, which endeared Mary to all of us."
From Mesa:
"A few Scientologists stood in the doorway of the center and watched us for a while. They then decided to put a boombox in front of the door and play us a few Scientology songs by the Golden Musicians. ... I believe one of the songs may have featured some singing by Hubbard himself. They later told us this was to let us know they weren't angry with us.
"A blue car with two passengers pulled into the parking lot across the street and drove slowly past our cars, then shortly thereafter turned around and parked. The passenger, who Jeff recognized as one of the PIs who had been near his house earlier this week, videotaped the rest of the protest (probably the last 1.5-2 hours of it)."
From Denver:
"Darlene wrote down both sides of my sign (being relatively friendly about it) and went back inside to report to the higher ups. She came back out and was walking up and down with me (making it look like there were *two* of us) asking me questions about what the heck motivates net.people to come out into the real world. About 20 minutes after I started, a local print reporter who just happened to be out that morning spotted me and sign and came to a rapid stop, grabbed his camera and came back. This induced Darlene to give up and go back inside. He was amazed to come across a story like this, and sopped up a tape and a half of a recorder about what has been going on in a.r.s and other places with respect to CoS."
* * *
WIR Volume 0, Issue 21 vom 10. 09. 1995
Protests were held at cos org buildings around the world on Saturday to
protest their opposition to free speech, and their treatment of critics,
Arnie Lerma, Larry Wollersheim, Bob Penny and Dennis Erlich. I don't have
descriptions of the protests, but I've pieced together a list of how many
people attended each protest. Even this list is incomplete, but it's the
best I have.
Adelaide - 2; Boston - 25; Boulder - 30; Brisbane - 2; Chicago - 4; DC -
11; Helsinki - 1; Houston - 7; Las Vegas - 1; London - 20; Melbourne -
13; NY - 5; Ottawa - 3; Scottsdale - 9; Sydney - 7; San Francisco - 12
"Sunny Pearl Street Mall was the scene of the picketing against CoS, whose
Dianetics Foundation is thematically across the lawn from the Boulder
County Courthouse. About 15 - 20 demonstrators picketed in front of the
center against about 10 pro-Scientology counter-picketers including Deb
Danos, the OSA director for the Denver Org and Robert Anderson, the
director of the Dianetics Foundation.
"The demonstration seemed to achieve its desired results: numerous
citizens began questioning Danos on the church and its beliefs and
handouts containing various web sites and FTP locations were distributed
to an altogether interested crowd of passers-by. KUSA-TV Denver, who has
covered the breaking story in Boulder from the start had a camera present
and there were several representatives of the print and radio media, as
well.
Taneli Huuskonen picketed alone in Helsinki.
"I ended up standing alone in front of the Dianetic Centre with my signs.
They said:
"'The Bridge to Debt Slavery', 'Why is the reputation of Scientology bad?'
(literally 'black'; that's not English, is it?), 'Is the Church of
Scientology suppressing you?', and 'War on the Internet'. The first three
were mainly aimed at Scientologists, the last was there to arouse the
interest of the general public. I'd also written hurriedly a pamphlet
highlighting some incidents of Fair Gaming, and included an account of the
OT levels I-III I'd written earlier.
"One person, apparently a Scientologist, came and looked at my signs quite
closely before disappearing into the building. A bit later I noticed a
window open and someone lean out and look at me. I looked and smiled at
him; I don't think he smiled back. Anyway, nobody came to handle me, and
it surely didn't look like a busy day in the Org.
From a description of the London demonstration.
"Protesters picketed outside the Cult of Scientology's shopfront just
along Tottenham Court Road from Goodge St underground station at lunchtime
today, Saturday, as part of a worldwide protest by users of the Internet
against the Cult's activities time to co-incide with the 'auditors day'
activities in the Cult.
"The picket lasted from 1 to 4pm. Most people with a high-street shopfront
would regard such a one-day picket as beneath their dignity and likely to
be forgotten on the morrow. Not $cientology, which believe in aggressive
fight-back against any criticism. Once protesters arrived, and absurd
scene ensued with 15 to 20 protesters on the roadway side of the pavement,
facing 15 to 20 cult members with their own placards on the inner side,
each group handing out their rival leaflets. Public sympathy seemed more
with the protesters, though. One passer, handed a Cult leaflet to go with
the antiCult one he was reading, tore it up and called them 'bastards'."
One of the London protesters returned home to find her children had been
victims of cos harassment.
"Bonnie returned home tonight after the London demo to discover that a
gang of Scientologists had been demonstrating outside her HOME, causing
her 11 and 17 year old children considerable distress as they had to pass
by the picketers to get into their house."
And an excerpt from the report on Australia:
"Sydney
a) Seven people arrived at 10am and departed at 1pm.
b) Approximately 600 leaflets were distributed.
c) Say 80% of the public were very supportive, 19% nonchalant and 1%
negative towards us.
d) About 1.5 Scienos were allocated to shadow each demonstrator and to
distribute Scientology leaflets.
e) We repeated the mistake from the last demonstration and used the word
Scientology in large type at the top of our body boards A number of
supporters thought we were Scientologists. We found it useful to use the word
'against' or 'anti' Scientology and the people supported us immediately.
f) I was embarrassed for the Scienos when a number of occasions a member
of the public made extremely unkind remarks about the CofS.
g) The tone was pleasant nearly all the time, and a pleasant attitude was
encouraged by both sides.
"Brisbane
Two people demonstrated outside the ORG in Brisbane. Similar result to
Sydney except the 2 demonstrators had 4 Scieno shadows.
"Adelaide.
Two demonstrators handed leaflets at a location some distance from the ORG."
And from San Francisco:
"About a dozen people were there at any one time during my stint (~12:00
to ~1:45 pm). Same number of clams, who were videotaping us like mad. They
handed out their usual badly-worded propaganda, and we handed out ours.
"A couple of passers-by joined in on the fun. Took them an hour and a half
to come up with a sign to join our protest. About 200 or so leaflets were
passed out to interested parties."
* * * *
WIR Volume 0, Issue 22 vom 17. 09. 1995
In the aftermath of the protests last week, individual accounts and
stories were shared on a.r.s this week. Here are some excerpts. Dean
O'Donnell described the protest in Boston.
"So some scieno got a Great Idea and brought out a bunch of signs for the
scienos milling about. These said: Scientology is the Road to Total
Freedom! The Internet is a Haven for Criminals! and a couple of others
that I don't remember.
"At this point some enterprising person unveiled a great sign that said:
They're not with Us! (with arrows pointing to either side)
1. From Ron Newman, Boston:
2. From Robert S. Minton, Boston:
3. From Keith Cochran, Boulder:
4. From Michael Reuss, Boulder:
5. From Mark Allen, Chicago:
6. From Damon Chetson, DC:
7. From Ted Mayett, lone Las Vegas protester:
8. From Martin Poulter, London:
9. From Keith Spurgeon, New York:
10. From "Jack Hoff", San Francisco:
From Ron Newman, Boston:
"The Boston protest ended around 16:00 EDT, but I returned to the scene
around 21:30 to have a look around. I had some leaflets left over, so I
began leaving them on cars along Back Street, Hereford Street, and Beacon
Street.
"As I was doing this, someone came out of the org and told me that I
shouldn't leaflet cars on private property (apparently Back Street is a
'private way' rather than a public street); I basically ignored him.
"A few minutes later, two people from the Boston org approached me a half
block away on Beacon Street and yelled at me about invading their private
property. They grabbed all the leaflets from my hand (about 150 I'd guess)
and started asking me if I put pornography on the Internet, or some such
thing. They then demanded that I 'leave' and 'depart now'.
From Robert S. Minton, Boston:
"When I first walked by this 46 yr old South African lady now living in
the woods of the state of New Hampshire, she said that both sides of my
sign were lies. About six steps later she approached from behind and asked
'what organization do you represent here? Psychiatry?' I was a bit rude in
explaining that I had learned from reading the truth about Co$ to expect
such an attack from a clam.
From Keith Cochran, Boulder:
"Deb Danos made a comment along the lines of 'Somebody else wrote up the
fair game policy; Hubbard rescinded it'. I wanted to ask her why the
Copyright Office listed Hubbard as the author, but didn't have the
copyright numbers, etc handy.
"Is Boulder/Boston the only sites that had implants? Our implant had a
sign that read something like 'We support lawlessness and terrorism on the
Internet'. Now this is a gentleman (He introduced himself as 'Bob') I
pity. I walked up to him and asked 'Do you really think you're fooling
anybody?' I figured he would smile, laugh, make a small joke, or
something. He just said 'No, I'm playing the cynical picket.'"
From Michael Reuss, Boulder:
"Deb [Danos] admitted that the church was behind the Cancelpoodle, much to
my surprise! She said that this fact had come out in District Court the
day before (CoS vs. Wollersheim & Penny). She and other Scientologists
said that the OT materials posted on the net were not accurate, and had
been altered by critics.
"When I told her that I had been threatened by Kobrin for posting the Dr.
Doolittle text, she replied with the standard 'copyright criminals' party
line. I began to tell the reporter what the six lines were and Jan reacted
very suddenly by throwing her open hand up in front of my face, as if she
were going to clamp her hand over my mouth, then just as suddenly pulled
it away. She said to the reporter 'See, he's breaking the law right now!'"
From Mark Allen, Chicago:
"His sign read 'Scientology customer' [picture of Manson] 'Curious? Read
alt.religion.scientology'
"The OT-7 guy and the OT-5 guy both asked if I was working for CAN. The
OT-5 guy went into a spiel about pysch drugs and asked if I was a
psychiatrist or a psychologist."
From Damon Chetson, DC:
"Minutes after I got there, the police did too. Apparently someone in the
cult building had called them with a complaint of 'disturbing the peace'.
The cops came by, explained that it was a free speech issue, and we were
entitled to protest, and left.
"One thing that amused me was that if *we* gave someone a flyer they would
fall all over themselves to do as well. I got into the habit of giving out
flyers as far away as possible from the clams so I could watch them go
scurrying down the street to catch up and deliver their stuff."
From Ted Mayett, lone Las Vegas protester:
"I had one threat from some kid, about 20, that he knows detectives and in
one hour he can find what I'm guilty of and have me arrested. I told him
to go for it, they have my name in the building. The brat would not give
me his name.
"Then one of them comes out to talk to me. Wants to know if I'll be
mentioning the OT material. I assured her I would not and that I had no
copies of it. She said she did up to OT3. Xenu, I said, You did Xenu?
"Her face changed. I got through to one of them. A successful day."
From Martin Poulter, London:
"For the most part, the conversations between scientologists and
protesters were amicable: the scientologists seemed to know very little
about the tactics of the 'church' management. They seemed resolutely
confident that *we* had incomplete information: one even told me that I
had been 'brainwashed' by the Internet and that I had lost the ability to
listen to opposing views. We were all asked what organisation we were
working for
"Margaret Reese, the church PR rep who talked to all the demonstrators at
the last protest in July, was not in attendance this time. She has been
replaced for failing to 'handle' the hard-hitting 'Big Story' documentary
that went out on national TV. Her present activities are not known but if
I had to guess I would say that rice and beans figure prominently in her
life at the moment."
From Keith Spurgeon, New York:
"Scientologists publicly called picketers by many clever names and
phrases, such as: scumbag, asshole, full of shit, geeks, people who don't
read books, and people just on the Internet going 'type, type, type.' In
all likelihood, even more colorful phrases echoed inside the walls of the
org. OSA ops also ridiculed the dress of picketers, who were dressed
casually but respectably.
"Because scientologists had picket signs with metal handles (in violation
of NYC laws), and after the picketer had his feet stepped on by the OT8,
protesters called the police. One picketer videotaped the police officer
telling scientologists 'You are acting like babies.'"
From "Jack Hoff", San Francisco:
"Then started a very bizarre game. As soon as I passed out a circular to a
passer-by -- the majority of whom seemed sympathetic or even happy that I
was picketing the criminal cult -- an orger in his twenties would run
after the person and tell them "you don't want to read that, it's an
attack on our religion!" and pull the circular out from the confused
fingers of the recipient. In at least one case, the orders said "can I
have that back?" before pulling back the circular and throwing it away,
implying that he was affiliated with me and that he had made some kind of
mistake. This was not the last unethical act of the scientologists that
day.
"The first few circulars were put into a large manila folder marked
prominently 'EVIDENCE' that held by one of the bullet-heads."
* * * *
WIR Volume 0, Issue 38 vom 14. 1. 1996
Clearwater Protest
Jeff Jacobsen announced a protest against the harassment of cult critics, to be held March 9th in Clearwater, FL.
"This demonstration will be a peaceful public protest against Scientology's written and practiced policy of harassment of critics, and those it judges internally to be 'suppressive persons,' whether they are members or not.
"Many internet users know about the church's attacks on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.) and against church critics there, such as attempting to rmgroup (close down) a.r.s., church attorneys sending threatening mail after critics post fair use quotes from Scientology scripture, private investigators being sent out to harass and 'dead agent' (smear the reputation of) critics, and many other actions.
"The demonstration is not attacking the religion of Scientology, but rather it is to protest and expose the church's consistent and harmful use of harassment as a tool to silence its critics."
* * * *
Volume 0, Issue 43 vom 18. 02. 1996
Grady Ward posted this week that he will be picketing in San Francisco on the same day as the planned protest in Clearwater, Florida.
"I'm planning to be at the San Francisco Org with video camera and with a long-playing tape of pure Hubbard to confront the scientology criminals. For radio amateurs I will be monitoring a simplex frequency in both VHF/UHF to be announced later (do bring your portables since they would have been useful at the SF Org last time to report on what the criminal cult of scientology was doing on the other side of the building in a 'counter picket'. Radios also help to reinforce the criminal cult belief that they are at the center of a coordinated global conspiracy of alien implants.)
"There is plenty of room for leafleteers, pickets, refreshment support, video and sound documentary, chatting up Quiros and the buxom Sea Org matrons, and general lurking."
* * * *
Protesting Flag
The planned protest against the cult at their Flag Land Base in Clearwater was accomplished on March 9th to considerable media attention. Despite Andrew Milne and Woody's descriptions of the even as a failure, one radio station, four TV stations and two newspapers provided advance coverage, footage of the picket itself, and some the subsequent press conference.
"Thursday, 7 March 1996: Radio show on WMNF. Jeff Jacobsen, Dennis Erlich (by phone), Jeff Lee spoke about Dennis' experiences and the reasons for the picket. When the host took calls, the person on the line was Brian Anderson, the DSA for the area. Notable occurrences: Anderson claimed that the 'The law may be used very easily to harass...' had never been a part of church policy, and when the host started questioning him about Dennis being locked in the basement of the Fort Harrison Hotel, he even claimed that there *was* no basement in the hotel."
Jeff Lee's comments in response to Andy and Woody spoke loudest for the protesters. Snips from his response to Andy:
"> After months of boasting about the big international demo they were > going to hold against the Church of Scientology, the 'demonstrations' > organized by the anti-Scientology ringleaders on this newsgroup turned > out to be another monumental flop.
"Hmmm... The Clearwater demonstration got coverage on all four network affiliates and in both major newspapers. OSA had to fly in at least a half a dozen of its top brass because the DSA Flag, Brian 'there is no basement in the Fort Harrison' Anderson, was apparently unable to handle a 'tiny number' of protesters.
And to Woody:
"> The one TV station which > reported on the picket on Friday night
"Why not mention that the demonstration was shown on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates on Saturday evening? Hmmm? Because, it doesn't fit with your intent to show that the picket was a failure.
"All four networks' affiliates ran news stories on the picket -- not to mention the radio stations and newspapers who had media there. You don't often see that much coverage on a picket of -- how many people did you say were there? Ten? Well, that was a lie, but it was a remarkable amount of media attention for such a small picket.
"> Jeff Lee was so paranoid of being recognized (as what?) that he shaved > his beard
"Are you actually attempting to dead-agent me with the fact that I *shaved*?!?! Bwahahahahaha! That is, without a doubt, the second most ludicrous thing I've ever heard in my life!
"> Fishman told his fish stories about his hallucinatory experiences in > the Church but did admit at one point that he had never really had any > auditing and had only read about it.
"The fact that Hubbard was a fugitive from justice for years before his death was a 'hallucinatory experience'? Asking about the whereabouts of Pat and Annie Broeker was a 'hallucinatory experience'? He didn't speak about any of his experiences in the cult -- unlike the _Freedom_ reporters at the press conference, he stuck to the issues relative to the protest."
Dennis Erlich was served with a Temporary Restraining Order, preventing him from coming within 50 yards of a cult owned property. This distance placed Dennis in the middle of the next block from the protest, still within visual range.
"The bogus TRO was requested by Mary Story, the lying b*tch who is the scieno's PR mouthpiece down in CW. She said she had known me since 1991. I have never met the skank.
"The filing contained about 3/4 of an inch of everything from pictures of CAN members (I am not one) to news clippings about deprogrammers. It included the last TRO they filed when I was going to go down to speak at the Baptist Church next to Flag, last year. It contained a bullsh*t affidavit from Robert Lippman about how I'd threatened his life (with hundreds of people around at the CAN conference in 1991, no one witnessed this non-event but Bob's still talking about it years later).
"Throughout the morning the sliemo-lawyer, Moxon and Lippman kept coming up to me, trying to provoke me into becoming violent with them. Finally one of the reporters asked Moxon on video why he was coming so close to me if I was dangerous enough to demand a restraining order. Moxon, with his patented, sh*t-eating smirk responded, 'You must be having a rough day.'"
Message-ID: <4hsuij$api@news.gate.net>
Message-ID: <4i1hrv$avv@crl11.crl.com>
Message-ID: <4i2q20$14ta@news.gate.net>
Message-ID: <4huv8l$69k@news.gate.net>
Message-ID: <4hu1e8$nbv@news.aimnet.com>
#####
Volume 0, Issue 46 vom 15. 03. 1996
Protests Worldwide
The main picket at Flag was joined by companion events around the world. Martin Poulter described the protest in London.
"At one o'clock on Saturday, twenty people picketed the Tottenham Court Road org in London without serious incident. This turned out to be the right number, as we had enough people to hand out leaflets, hold placards *and* video record the event. Roughly one thousand leaflets were handed out. For the record, the placards said: STOP THE HARASSMENT, SCIENTOLOGY, 'CULT OF GREED'- TIME Magazine, 1991. Judged NOT DEFAMATORY, INTIMIDATING OPPONENTS IN A 'MAFIA-LIKE MANNER'- TIME Mag, $380,000 FOR 'SPIRITUAL FREEDOM'? NO THANKS!, HANDS OFF FREE SPEECH, HANDS OFF THE INTERNET, SCIENTOLOGY HATES FREE SPEECH, WEALTH WARNING: SCIENTOLOGY IS A WEALTH HAZARD, SCIENTOLOGY PEDDLES MADNESS
"The Jive Aces, the scientologist jazz/blues band, were set up in front of the org with a PA system, an electronic piano, a double bass, a drum kit, a tenor sax and a trumpet. They were all wearing 'Say no to drugs' t-shirts and a 'No to Drugs' petition was on a table in front of the org for the public to sign.
"The loud music (you could hear the org well before you could see it) had the effect of making conversation with the public very difficult, but on the whole we coped. It also attracted a lot of *attention*. People came towards the org to see what the fuss was about, and of course the first thing they saw was our row of placards."
From Seattle:
"Including myself, three people were there initially, with another guy showing up a bit later. We had the usually Scientologist tricks, like getting our pictures taken, cars being parked between us and the street, Scientologists handing out their own leaflets, etc.
"The demonstration was quiet and peaceful, and the Scientologists really seemed inclined to talk with us, although they *did* walk between our signs and the street."
"I had made two signs, one stating 'Scientology stop the harassment', the other a shortened version of the fair game policy. We were asked lots of questions and when the rest showed up, we had 4 people walking up and down the road and were followed by our personal handler. This made the picket look at least twice at large. Since they had a lot of additional people hang out around the front, including a group of children who had just returned from cleaning the park across the street our protest looked 3 times larger than it actually was. We were close to a traffic light and every time a bus stopped we would walk to the bus and let the people read the signs."
From San Francisco:
"One of their signs said, 'Grady Ward is a copyright terrorist.' Another said, 'Grady Ward can't keep a secret.' I heard some pedestrians say how the $cientologists' signs seemed like propaganda to them and that it made them feel uneasy and distrustful. I'm thinking, 'Great, exactly the kind of comments I like to hear.' Some ability to communicate those signs turned out to be.
"Eventually about half a dozen protesters showed up and we all stayed until about 2:30. About the same number of $cientologists came out and counter-demonstrated so it made the whole demonstration look twice as large. Grady Ward took pictures of the festivities and posted them on his web site at: http://www.humboldt1.com/~gw/index.html"
From Tony McClelland in Australia:
"I handed out 450 brochures and yet again I was surprised at the anti Scientology feeling displayed by those passing by. On one occasion I found it necessary to reprimand a lady for using excessively bad language while expressing her disdain for Scientology to one of the 10 Scientologists placed around me.
"The sign on my sandwich board read 'SCIENTOLOGY IS A SCAM'"
home