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AU Senator Calls Scientology a "Criminal Organization"

Posted by kdawson on from the can't-do-that-here-either dept.

An anonymous reader passes along news that an Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, has denounced the Church of Scientology as "a criminal organization" from the floor of Parliament. "Senator Xenophon used a speech in Parliament last night to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment, and forced abortion. He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status." It wasn't that long ago that the CoS was calling for Net censorship in Australia; a month later the organization was convicted of fraud in France.

17 of 511 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting name. by palegray.net · · Score: 5, Funny

    Senator Xenophon? He must be in the clutches of Xenu! Someone get me an e-meter, quick!

    --
    512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    1. Re:Interesting name. by Mikkeles · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nah, he just rode in with his 10,000 followers and is trying to crush the opposition ;^)

      --
      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
    2. Re:Interesting name. by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 5, Funny

      Here's one!

    3. Re:Interesting name. by CodeBuster · · Score: 2, Funny

      Only Tom Cruise, with his awesome mental powers, can free Senator Xenophon from the clutches of the evil psychiatrists and their terrible leader, Lord Xenu himself! (To hear the exiting conclusion of Incident II: suggested donation of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00)

  2. Cause and effect? by T+Murphy · · Score: 3, Funny

    It wasn't that long ago that the CoS was calling for Net censorship in Australia; a month later the organization was convicted of fraud in France.

    So does the CoS have to call for Net censorship in Belgium before Australia can convict them of fraud?

    --
    My webcomic
  3. So ... by msp0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Would that make Xenophon a Xenuphobe? ... to be fair, I got that line from Dominic Knight's Twitter feed :)

  4. we are anonymous by TakeoffZebra · · Score: 2, Funny

    An "anonymous" reader. Hm, ironic?

  5. Celebrity backlash, awesome! by Lord_of_the_nerf · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can only hope this means no more promotional tours from John Travolta and Tom Cruise. That's a protest I can live with and love. Also, Jenna Elfman.

  6. On wikipedia right now... by Zarniwoop · · Score: 5, Funny

    "In November 2009, Xenophon labelled the Church of Scientology as a criminal organisation in a speech to the Senate. [42] This is clear evidence that he has very large testicles."

    I'm not in favor of vandalism, but LOL!

    --
    Still not dead.
  7. Xenophon? Sounds Foreign by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Xenophon? Sounds Foreign

  8. Re:A word on Xenophon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Cyrus the younger" you say. This morning the spokesman and vice president of COS Australia was defending his religious organisation on the radio and other media. His name was... Cyrus, Cyrus Brooks. One day Senator Xenophon may give an account of the "trials and adventures of The Ten Thousand"s of scientologists in Australia. :)

  9. Nooooo! by martin-boundary · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nooooo! Somebody please stop the Australians before the Americans wake up, or else Tom Cruise is going to jump up and down on the sofa again!

  10. Re:Should they get off tax-free? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Funny

    Er, yeah

    I meant to say

    Religions that are not not unwilling to publish their teachings on the web and give away free books are not not not non profit

    When writing sentences like this, this script might come in handy

    cat con | sed "s/not not//g" | sed "s/not non profit/for profit/g" | sed "s/not unwilling/willing/g"

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  11. Re:Read The Full Article by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well as usual we hope that the police police police are effective in policing the police police's policing of the police.

    --
    I don't therefore I'm not.
  12. Re:Xenophon? Sounds Foreign by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Greece isn't foreign?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  13. Re:Should they get off tax-free? by AlamedaStone · · Score: 2, Funny

    Scientology is no more a religeon than "Jedi"

    I find your lack of faith... disturbing.

    --
    "All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
  14. Re:Should they get off tax-free? by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ooh, I wish I could smell religion...

    Just find the closest farm, and go for a walk through the fields ...