Well, this is a good start:
PARIS (AP) — A Paris court convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud and fined it more than euro600,000 ($900,000) on Tuesday but stopped short of banning the group as prosecutors had demanded.
The group’s French branch immediately announced it would appeal the verdict.
The court convicted the Church of Scientology’s French office, its library and six of its leaders of organized fraud. Investigators said the group pressured members into paying large sums of money for questionable financial gain and used ”commercial harassment” against recruits.
The group was fined euro400,000 ($600,000) and the library euro200,000. Four of the leaders were given suspended sentences of between 10 months and two years. The other two were given fines of euro1,000 and euro2,000.
However, the court did not order the Church of Scientology to shut down, ruling that it would be likely to continue its activities anyway ”outside any legal framework.”
Prosecutors had urged that the group be dissolved in France and fined euro2 million ($3 million).
The verdict is ”an Inquisition of modern times,” said Scientology spokeswoman Agnes Bron, referring to efforts to rout out heretics of the Roman Catholic Church in centuries past.
If you’re referring to the part about believing in imaginary beings and taking people’s money, you may have a point.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I wonder what, in the French’s view, is the difference between the fraud of Scientology and the fraud of every other religion?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Robes and golden chalices ?
October 27th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I often wonder if L. Ron Hubbard laughs from the grave. Folks didn’t really buy his sci-fi books, but damn he got a bunch to buy into his religion.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
If there’s an afterlife — and I don’t think there is — I would think that L. Ron Hubbard and P.T. Barnum are sitting somewhere, smoking cigars, and just laughing like hell about how stupid and gullible human being are.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Wouldn’t it be funny if someone found an unpublished Hubbard book somewhere in which he admits that he setup Scientology as a practical joke.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Of course, the court didn’t “declare[] Scientology a Fraud”; it convicted the church and/or its officers OF fraud. There is a distinction, and one that those who aren’t anti-religious bigots — or, at least, revere the First Amendment — would respect.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
James, some of us who are religious, and love the first amendment still find Scientology to be a rather good joke played by Mr. Hubbard on a lot of folks.
Seriously, if it weren’t for Scientology do you think Travolta would have played in Battlefield Earth? Please, the book was unreadable and the movie worse.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
The reason they didn’t ban the Church of $cientology is that people could then demand the same for all other churches.
Slipperly slope here for Our Father in Heaven, Harold be Thy Name. You know, Jesus Harold Christ. His friends call him Harry.