We We Fight

Anonymous explains

(Large parts of this article originally taken from http://partyvan.info and then stolen from anonymous toronto by kitchener)
"A very large group of people has declared a "war" on the Church of Scientology. They call themselves Anonymous. Many feel this group is a bunch of hackers. While this is partially true, they are much more. Their manifesto is evidence that they are a large group of people from all walks of life. Some happen to be very computer literate. They have decided to fight for the freedom of knowledge and information. Many other people have tried to reveal the truth about the Church of Scientology. Unfortunately these attempts have ended in failure. The Church sends out cease and desist orders to anyone who tries to speak out against them. They have a history of violating people’s right to privacy by revealing secrets to the public. They intimidate their critics, and even resort to stalking their perceived enemies. The Church originally instituted a "fair game" policy on all critics. "Enemies of the church could be injured, tricked, sued, lied to or destroyed. Fair game." - L. Ron Hubbard (Creator of the Church and the religion). This is a threat to the freedom of information and knowledge that Anonymous is fighting for.

The "Church" of Scientology (CoS) is an organization that has turned a belief system into a money oriented control-cult.
All members are made to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for courses, books and auditing. When they "donate" all this money, they rise upon a chart called "The Bridge to Total Freedom". The higher up the bridge one is, the more he/she learns about the secrets of the religion. (For example, The Xenu and Exploding Volcano story is on a level called OTIII).
The CoS brainwashes and mistreats its non-celebrity members. Sometimes going as far as killing them as consequence of certain grossly misused 'rundowns'. (Click to learn more)
Scientology attacks ex-members and critical family members. When somebody decides to leave the cult, their scientology friends and even family are forced to "disconnect" from them. Critical family members are "disconnected" by scientologists, this breaks apart families. They can never have contact again.
The cult suppresses free speech, online and offline. Tactics incude libel/slander and harassment of ex-members and critics. This includes Scientologists who practice outside of the Church. (Freezone)

Anonymous has nothing against religion, although they may poke fun at some of the more interesting concepts. They believe in freedoms and they are not trying to fight the Freedom of Religion. Their fight is strictly against the Church of Scientology. The websites associated with Anonymous have been attacked frequently, ordered to be silenced by the church's lawyers. The Church has some of the best lawyers possible. They also have members in many government agencies. They are currently tax exempt in the US (VAT exempt in the UK) under the claim that they are a non-profit organization, but how can a Church that charges its members for sermons/sessions/audits claim to be non-profit? It can cost up to $300 per session, and over $300,000 for their complete series of sessions and audits. This is not a religion folks. They are not being religiously persecuted. The Church of Scientology is a cult. They prey on peoples emotions.

Scientologists don't practice modern medicine; they believe psychiatry is a false science that kills. Scientology ignores the fact that psychiatry is based on the scientific method requiring objective experimentation and peer review. They have had cases where they take followers off their needed modern psychiatric medication and instead they give them vitamins and auditing sessions. The result, depending on the ailment, could be fatal. Documents of these deaths can be found at http://whyaretheydead.net

How did this get started?

On January 16, 2008 a video of Tom Cruise, intended only for internal use by the Church of Scientology (CoS), was leaked on the Internet. When the Church of Scientology tried to take it down, they drew the attention of Anonymous. At first we were in it just for fun, and members of Anonymous attacked various CoS websites and prank called their phones and faxes. However, when we started reading about the CoS, we were horrified that such a dangerous and cruel organization is allowed to continue their illegal practices. Soon, we started releasing information about the CoS on the Internet and we leaked their secret documents that describe the central parts of Scientology that most members are not allowed to see. This includes the story of Xenu, the alien overlord that blew up aliens in volcanoes, causing all our problems today. At this time Anonymous got reinforced by other people on the Internet who had also had enough of Scientology smearing critics and ex-members, and trying to suppress free speech. As our numbers grew, we decided to organize street protests outside all Scientology centers around the world. The date chosen for the main protests was February 10, 2008.

What happened on February 10, 2008?

On February 10th, 2008, there were worldwide protests against the Church of Scientology. We held peaceful protests outside Church of Scientology buildings, informing the public and CoS members about the secrets and deeply immoral practices of the Church.

Due to our decentralized nature, nobody knows in exactly how many places protests were held. We have confirmations from the following cities:

USA: Albany, Albuquerque, Buffalo, Anchorage, Phoenix, Tucson, Huntington Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Boulder, Denver, New Haven, Clearwater, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, Honolulu, Boise, Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas, Louisville, Boston, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, St.Louis, Nashville, Las Vegas, New York, New York, Long Island, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Portland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Richmond, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Memphis, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Milwaukee, Washington D.C., Denver

Canada: Kitchener, Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Halifax, Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton

Europe: London, Brighton, Leeds, York, Birmingham, Manchester, Plymouth, Edinburgh, Dublin, Hamburg, Berlin, Duesseldorf, Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Amsterdam, Vienna, Basel, Zuerich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Brussels, Rome

Oceania: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelade, Perth, Auckland
South America: Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sao Paulo
We estimate that around 8000 people attended protests in over 150 locations world wide.

How has the Church of Scientology responded to Anonymous' attacks?

The Church of Scientology has not responded to any of our criticism against their illegal and deeply immoral practices. Instead they have said that Anonymous are cyberterrorists, religious bigots, communists, nazis, weapon smugglers and anti-American. This is in line with their long-standing policy of "never defend - always attack", or "attack the attacker". We can not even feel insulted by such ridiculous lies. Their resistance only makes our resolve harder.

The Future

The next wave of this war is peaceful protest. On February 10th, 2008 there were protests around the globe at Churches of Scientology. February 10th was chosen because it was the birth date of the woman who suffered one of the most controversial deaths caused by the Church of Scientology, Lisa McPherson.

On the 15th of March (two days after the birthday of Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard) there will be another worldwide protest, the theme will be that of a party, for more information see our planning page.

Forward this as an e-mail to your contact list.
Spread the word.
Attend a protest.
Do some research.
Read the article printed in Time magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972865,00.html
Read about Operation Snow White and Operation Freakout.
Arm yourself with knowledge."

http://xenu.net - Operation ClamBake, pragmatic CoS investigation
http://partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology - A wiki used to co-ordinate the actions of Anonymous
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPol_m8wm8Y - an encounter with scientology

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