Please sign and share my Change.Org Petition: We Demand the IRS Commissioner Begin an Investigation into Scientology’s Tax Exempt Status.

IRS Commissioner Mr. John Koskinen has the legal and statutory authority to open an investigation into the Church of Scientology’s 501(c)3 tax exemption. We demand Commissioner Koskinen open an investigation for the following reasons:

1. Scientology’s lack of corporate governance as it represented to the IRS in its 1023 application for tax exemption. David Miscavige is the managing agent of Scientology and has pierced all corporate veils. Scientology is the alter ego of David Miscavige and he wields unchallenged and dictatorial control.

2. Scientology’s refusal to grant refunds or repayments to dissatisfied members as it represented to the IRS in its 1023 application for tax exemption.

3. Scientology use of tax-exempt dollars to engage in harassing former members, critics, and journalists. One example is the use of tax-exempt dollars to create slanderous hate websites and videos against former members, critics, and journalists who speak out and expose Scientology’s inhumane practices.

4. Scientology’s internal cover-ups of child sexual abuse and rape as described by the very victims of the sexual abuse and rape.

5. Scientology use of tax-exempt dollars to hire private investigators to spy on, stalk, and harass former members, critics, and journalists who speak out and expose Scientology’s inhumane practices. This is Scientology’s malicious policy of Fair Game and it is funded by tax-exempt dollars.

6. Scientology’s abuse of US religious worker visas to recruit non-US citizens to work in the Sea Org. Once in the US, these non-Americans have their passports confiscated and are forced to work 100 hour work weeks for wages far below the poverty level. Sometimes these workers receive no pay at all for weeks or months on end.

7. Scientology’s use of onerous contracts of adhesion to strip Scientologists of their legal and civil rights.

8. Scientology’s use of child labor.

9. Scientology’s predatory fundraising practices and use of commission salespeople to raise money.

10. Scientology’s use of a system of brutal and inhumane gulags known as the RPF (Rehabilitation Project Force). The RPF is a thought reform camp used to crush dissent. People in the RPF are often imprisoned for years and are stripped of their civil and legal rights.

11. The forced breaking up of families by Scientology’s inhumane practice of Disconnection.

&

Janis Grady was born into the Church of Scientology. She joined the Sea Org at age 11 and was one of the first four original messengers in L. Ron Hubbard's Commodore's Messenger's Organization (CMO). Janis' mother was Yvonne Gillham Jentzsch who founded the Scientology Celebrity Centre.

&

Description: Aaron Smith-Levin and Jeffrey Augustine discuss Marty Rathbun's video series in which he uses lies, distortions, and falsehoods to attack those who speak out against Scientology. Marty has no credibility according to the Church of Scientology itself. So why are Marty's videos on Scientology's website?

From Tony's Ortega blog of May 29, 2017:

We’ve seen tonight’s 2-hour A&E special episode of Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, and we can tell you that it accomplishes much more than simply tiding fans over as they await the start of season two.

When Aftermath premiered last November, it was the network’s most-watched first episode in a couple of years. It went on to average about 1.6 million viewers per episode as A&E scrambled to take advantage of its popularity by shooting a couple of special hour-long extra episodes for a season total of nine.

The second of those two special episodes featured author Lawrence Wright, attorney Ray Jeffrey, and cult expert Steve Hassan answering questions in a group setting. Tonight’s new 2-hour special follows that format as well, this time with six special guests.

But what really impressed us was the opening segment of tonight’s show, when Remini and her sidekick, former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder, once again took the time to educate viewers about Scientology concepts, in this case the iron-clad L. Ron Hubbard policies that have produced such a toxic, unrelenting organization that tries to hunt down and destroy its critics.

This is perhaps what impresses us the most about Remini’s series, that time and again she and Rinder have taken the time to explain Scientology’s history and structure and controversies in ways that really respect the viewer — which is often missing from cable TV “reality” programming. In this case, Remini knows that much of the criticism aimed at Scientology is for its outlandish beliefs about past lives and space opera nuttiness. That’s a mistake, she believes. She wants viewers to understand that what really matters is that Hubbard left behind piles of books that contain thousands of policies that Scientology’s executives must follow to the letter even today. And those policies demand that critics — whether former members or simply curious reporters — must be dealt with brutally.

And for the doubters in the audience, Remini shows the policies on the screen, which we found really effective.

“It was important to remind people that ridiculing people for their beliefs actually gets Scientology excited, because you’re not actually focusing on the damaging policies that make up the religion,” Leah told us after we had seen the episode and asked her about the approach she was taking. “Scientology dictates how to react to people who are speaking out about it. And that’s an important message that people need to focus on instead of the Xenu stories.”

We told her it was a powerful opening segment that should be a real education for people unsure about Scientology’s motives.

“I’m glad you said that as someone who covers Scientology. That’s what journalists should be focusing on,” she says.

She and Rinder talk about how obsessed Hubbard was with reporters and the press, and how his policies give precise instructions for how to undercut reporters and feed them distracting information.

Leah says her husband, Angelo, after he viewed the episode, reminded her that she had been handled with the same policies when she confronted Scientology leader David Miscavige in late 2012, before her final exit from the organization after more than 30 years.

“When I went in to meet David Miscavige and Laurisse, his assistant, I asked him why he was attacking former Sea Org members [such as Rinder]. I have OT 8s from Israel telling me an entire mission was declared,” she says, referring to the mission in Haifa that broke away from the church in 2012. “He brought me into another room and showed me all the buildings that were coming out, and all of the renovations that were going to cost hundreds of millions. I told him, ‘I don’t give a shit about buildings. Why are you showing me buildings? These are good people being attacked by their church — why are you showing me buildings?’ He referred to a Hubbard policy, ‘Signs of Success,’ that said the only reason the church is being attacked is that it’s growing.”

Even then, she knew it was a dodge. “They’re not growing. They’re just buying buildings. They were trying to do to me what they do to journalists. But I wasn’t buying it anymore. Why was he trying to sell me on that? Because it’s all he knows. Why? Because that’s what LRH [Hubbard] says.”

Although Leah left that personal anecdote out of the episode, its message still comes through: Scientology continues to do what Hubbard established in the 1950s and 1960s — always to attack, never to defend. And to help bolster that message, Remini and Rinder bring on six special guests that our readers should be pretty familiar with.

Australian television journalist Bryan Seymour has been pounding away at Scientology stories for about a decade now, and when he was starting out he got better access than just about anyone has in recent years. We especially enjoy his celebrity interviews, including Nancy Cartwright, who admitted to Bryan that she was in Scientology to become a god.

Janet Reitman’s book, Inside Scientology, came out in 2011, and we especially praised its chapters on the Lisa McPherson saga. The book grew out of an earlier story Reitman had written for Rolling Stone, where she’s a staff writer. When she was researching that story, Mike Rinder was still running the church’s intelligence wing, which handles reporters, and he lets Janet in on a few fun secrets about how they tried to derail her.

We’ve mentioned our old pal and colleague Mark Ebner here often. Not only for his terrific 1996 Spy magazine feature about Scientology (which is discussed on tonight’s program) but also his great examination of the death of Philip Gale, as well as his habit of randomly finding Scientology treasures.

Ford Greene found out the hard way why most attorneys won’t go near Scientology litigation. While he successfully sued the church in the Lawrence Wollersheim saga, he was the subject of numerous bar complaints and Scientology dirty tricks.

Stephen Kent, of the University of Alberta, is the real deal. Not only has he been investigating and exposing Scientology’s harsh policies — in particular its prison program, the Rehabilitation Project Force — but he also has one of the largest collections of Scientology materials in the world.

And we’re especially happy to see Len Zinberg take part. We revealed in our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, that Len had been a volunteer for the Guardian’s Office who had taken part in operations against Paulette. Some 40 years later, his conscience eating away at him, he messaged Paulette, telling her what he had done and asking for her forgiveness. It was a very rare gesture, and one we’re glad to see recognized on this compelling broadcast.

Please join us in the comments section tonight as we live-blog the program. We’re looking forward to your reactions to the show!

UPDATE: Because our readers are spread around the world, and everyone loves to take part in a live-blog, here’s when to expect the action. This episode airs on the A&E network at 9 pm in New York. That translates to the following times in other places in the world — although we don’t know you’ll actually be seeing the broadcast then. (We think the US west coast broadcast may show up three hours later, for example)….

Monday Night
3 pm: Honolulu
5 pm: Anchorage
6 pm: Los Angeles
7 pm: Denver
8 pm: Chicago, Mexico City
10 pm: Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro

Tuesday Morning
2 am: London, Dublin, Lisbon
3 am: Paris, Rome, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Johannesburg
4 am: Helsinki, Athens, Moscow, Jerusalem
6:30 am: New Delhi
9 am: Perth, Beijing, Singapore
10 am: Tokyo
11 am: Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne

 

{youtube}&

Brandon Reisdorf, a third generation, Scientologist talks about his experiences growing up in a Scientology family and his time on Staff at the San Diego Org. He also discusses the Church's ludicrous claims about the wild success Scientology Media Productions will achieve by bringing millions of people into Scientology. The interview ends with a great description of what Brandon can now do in life now that he is free of the 24/7/365 slavery of Scientology.

(Note: This is copied from Tony Ortega's article of May 4, 2017 and is posted here due to the importance of this story)

Yesterday, we heard from several of the former Scientologists who spoke to the FBI for its 2009/2010 human trafficking investigation of the Church of Scientology. The probe was stopped in 2010 without charges being filed, but now, some seven years later, the FBI has released a 300-page file of documents describing the investigation to Melissa Cronin of RadarOnline.

Marc Headley, Lori Hodgson, Mat Pesch, and Jefferson Hawkins told us what it was like to speak to the FBI in 2009, and what it felt like now to finally speak about it openly. Headley told us he’s still uncomfortable talking about it on the record.

But Cronin is releasing more allegations from the documents today, and she’s been sharing them with us as we also make our way through the file. As we pointed out yesterday, the FBI classified this as a Sensitive Investigative Matter, and took pains to protect the identities of the people they were talking to.

In the initial pages of the file, the FBI explains which laws justified their investigation. They said they would be examining Scientology for violations of “Peonage, Slavery, and Trafficking in Persons.” In other words, they were looking at the conditions of forced labor which existed in the Sea Org, particularly at two locations: Scientology’s secretive Int Base near Hemet, California, and at PAC Base, the “Big Blue” complex in Los Angeles off Sunset Boulevard.

The file specified that the investigation’s focus on forced labor “is not an attempt to discredit the religious belief held by Scientologists.”

What the agents were looking for was evidence that the Sea Org convinced its workers they couldn’t rebel without suffering serious harm. The Sea Org managed this in a number of ways —

— Paying less than $50 a week so its workers couldn’t live on the outside. “Sometimes workers were not paid for months or even years.”
— Monitoring phone calls and mail.
— Limiting access to medical and dental care, and forcing women to have abortions. “CSI viewed young children as having no work value and believed children would only interfere with the employment of their mothers.”
— 16-hour work days, seven days a week, with no time off.
— Confining workers and controlling their movement with the use of fences, cameras, and guards.
— Strict daily rules.
— Inhumane punishments.
— The confiscation of passports.
— The threat of disconnection. If a member rebelled, he or she might lose contact with family members and other loved ones.
— The threat of Freeloader’s Bill. If a member left, they were saddled with bills for huge amounts, supposedly what they had received in classes.

The FBI estimated that there might 1,000 victims of human trafficking in Scientology’s Sea Org.

After introducing the scope of the investigation, agents got down to conducting interviews with individual former Sea Org workers. Among some of the allegations made by those witnesses that Cronin found after looking through the file…

— So many forced abortions were occurring, a local clinic became “alarmed.”
— One of the inhumane punishments was forcing members to jump into ponds of human excrement without protective gear.
— Beatings were common, as were verbal assaults.
— Other punishments were meant to humiliate. “Some people had to stand in the middle of the room with signs around their necks that said things like… ‘I’m a whore.'”
— The most sleep a Sea Org member would get was four hours a night, and often they would go without sleep altogether.
— Members were constantly aware that their movements were being watched, and escape was considered nearly impossible. “Members were so brainwashed into thinking that leaving was not an option, and they were too afraid that the COS would come after them if they tried to leave,” said a witness. “If a Sea Org member escaped … a ‘blow drill’ would be conducted in an effort to find that member.”

So with testimony like this that Int Base was such a hellhole of manipulation and degrading treatment, why didn’t the FBI do something about it? We were asked that question a lot yesterday as we began to reveal what was in the FBI file.

Why the probe ended is apparently not included in the file, according to Cronin. In the movie Going Clear, Lawrence Wright and Alex Gibney promoted the theory that when Marc and Claire Headley lost their civil lawsuit against the church for labor trafficking, it put a chilling effect on the government investigation. “The church is protected,” Wright said in the film, referring to the vast protections of the First Amendment.

But Marc Headley, Mike Rinder, and Marty Rathbun told us that they believed the FBI backed off for other reasons. It’s a complex story that we’ve told at length before, about an FBI agent who had tried to help the Headleys in their lawsuit by giving their attorneys a law enforcement document that was not public. They believe that Scientology would have seized on this and used its connections in Washington — at this time, Gerald Feffer was still alive and was Scientology’s heavyweight lawyer in DC.

Scientology managed somehow to shut down the probe. But even though charges weren’t filed, it’s still powerful to see the records of FBI agents who were obviously very deeply immersed in the subject.

&

Mike Rinder: David Miscavige’s Office At Gold -- Click link to see the pictures.

&

Ron Miscavige is the father of the Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige and former member for over 40 years. His book Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me is available now.

&

The "Church" of Scientology has always considered itself above the law. It treats it's own workers with callous disregard. It is a matter of world wide interest that horrible living conditions, beatings, assault and battery go unreported to law enforcement.
Child molestation through the years has been covered up. My own son Alexander Jentzsch had sex with 40 year old 2x and this was unreported to Clearwater PD. Other crimes are continuously hidden for sake of "Good Public Relations".
I will be uncovering these crimes and exposing them on this YouTube Channel. The start of this series depicts putting staff and public at risk while the money flows up the command lines to "senior management".