06.03.10
Scientology article
Whistleblower: working for Scientology
Paul Sims speaks to Marc Headley, the Scientology escapee now revealing what life is really like on the inside
If David Miscavige, the head of the Church of Scientology, had delivered a Christmas Day speech he might have described 2009 as an annus horribilis for his organisation. In October, a French court convicted the Church of fraud, following a trial over allegations by two women that they were conned into paying tens of thousands of Euros for Scientology training materials; and a bookshop belonging to the organisation was fined 600,000 Euros. A month later in Sydney, an independent senator, Nick Xenophon, stood up in the Australian parliament and denounced Scientology as a criminal organisation that “coerces its followers into having abortions” and one “that defrauds, that blackmails, that falsely imprisons”. He then called for a parliamentary investigation into the tax-exempt status enjoyed by Scientology in Australia.