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Tenants fight Scientologists
SOURCE: The Guardian DATE: 20 May 1995 CIT PAGE: 35
FREDERICK STUDEMANN IN BERLIN TENANTS in a block of flats in the Berlin district of Neukolln recently received a nasty letter from lawyers representing their landlord asking them to remove banners they had hung from their windows and balconies. While each banner carried a different message, the essence was the same: the tenants were not going to give in to Scientologists. According to the tenants, the Scientology Church, the California-based cult established by the science fiction writer and vitriolic communist-hater L. Ron Hubbard, is now their landlord; and, as such, it has been waging a systematic campaign of intimidation and harassment in a bid to get people to leave their flats which can then be sold for substantial profit. Neukolln is just one of numerous cases of alleged heavy-handed business practices by Scientologists in Germany. In Berlin tenants' rights groups claim there are 30 properties now owned by the cult. The figure is much higher in Hamburg, where Scientologists are believed to be behind half of all the conversions of tenement blocks into individual freeholds over recent years. As well as being active in the Berlin and Hamburg property markets, the cult is also known to be involved in information technology, business consultancy and public relations. The cult is alleged to use apparently innocuous management consultancy courses aimed at the German Mittelstand to attract new followers who are then signed up for costly ''Dianetics'' courses aimed at delivering spiritual perfection. (The cult's critics call this brain-washing.) Businessmen or companies run by Scientologists are then expected to pass up to 15 per cent of their turnover to the cult. According to Ursula Caberta, of the Hamburg city government's Scientology Working Group - set up to monitor the cult's activities - Germany now accounts for around a third of the group's official global income of some $300 million. Concern over the commercial activities of Scientologists in Germany, where the cult controls an estimated 150 firms, has risen to the point that business organisations are now warning members from doing business with companies known to be run by the cult. German estate agents have expelled members who are Scientologists, while in banking there is a blacklist of firms with known cult links In response to its critics, the Scientology Church earlier this year took out full-page advertisements in American newspapers warning about a resurgence of Nazism in Germany. These appear to have had little effect. In February, a Berlin court ruled that Scientology was a commercial, not a religious, organisation and liable for taxes. This, coupled with the unwillingness of others to do business with it, may halt the spread of the cult's commercial activities. Whether it will help the tenants in Neukolln remains to be seen.
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