Comments on: More $cientology cult trouble

By: Evangelists Threatened with Arrest in Birmingham « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:36:22 +0000

[...] MediaWatchWatchÂ reports that Birmingham police have threatened anti-Scientology protestorsÂ with arrest for using [...]

By: martyn

martyn — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:31:52 +0000

I’ll go to the next demo in my cult t-shirt then!

By: jr

jr — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:38:44 +0000

Scientologists appear to be more successful than other fairy-tale indoctrination cults in getting the police to do their dirty work. They need to be stopped.

By: marc draco

marc draco — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:07:41 +0000

@Chris. This is perfectly fair, but what about:

Islam is a Cu*t.

Christianity is a Cu*t.

Scientology is numb, sure, but it’s also new: and that’s the only thing that separates it from all the other established religions. It’s fashionable to take the piss out of scientologists, but when it comes down to figures MUSLIMS are killing a lot more people; as I suspect are Jews Christians right now.

We have to be careful where we direct our fire save for being hoisted by our own petard.

By: GagWatch » Scientology is a Cu*t

GagWatch » Scientology is a Cu*t — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:03:39 +0000

[...] of the information in this post came from MediaWatchWatch which carries a couple of interesting observations: n interesting aspect of the incidents in [...]

By: Chris Hall

Chris Hall — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:56:28 +0000

Far better, if you ask me, would be to just self-censor the offending word and have:

Scientology is a cu*t

on the banner.

By: James Hammerton

James Hammerton — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:34:45 +0000

An interesting aspect of the incidents in London, Glasgow and Birmingham is that different laws have been applied in each case. In London it was the Public Order Act 1986, in Glasgow it was the Scots common-law offence of “breach of the peace” (a similar offence exists in English law too) and in Birmingham it’s the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (in relation to leafleting) and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (in relation to the threat of arrest for using the word “cult”).

Note that the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 carries an explicit exemption for material distributed for a political purpose for a religion or a belief. ISTM the protesters’ leaflets should thus have been exempt according to the very law being cited against them. Note also that the Racial and Religous Hatred Act contains a clause explicitly protecting criticism and ridicule of religion. It thus seems to me there’s a prima facie case that the West Midlands Police are out of line on this.

By: marc draco

marc draco — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:14:19 +0000

Perhaps someone needs to get arrested (not that I’m about to stick my head up!) in order that this gets a proper judicial review.

I know I keep saying this, but why pick on $cientology? Aren’t the CofE and the Catholic church just as bad? Aren’t they also cults by the same definition? They have killed countless numbers of people over the years and the Catholics in particular are responsible indirectly for the deaths of countless thousands more thought HIV/AIDS and overpopulation.

Most organised religion are cults by any other measure. If you pick on one, you surely MUSt pick on them all.

By: Mark Hudson

Mark Hudson — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:14:03 +0000

Well, to be fair, if I may, in Birmingham City Centre one can be fined for handing out leaflets of *any* kind (e.g nightclub ads and other promotions) without having been given prior permission. So those fixed penalty notices may just be an instance of that. The fine in these cases can be up to Â£2500, so they might count themselves lucky.

Now, to stop being fair, it still does raise the question of who exactly encouraged people to hand out the fines, given that – as we all know – not everyone who drops litter is fined and not everyone handing out leaflets is fined. There is an element of discretion, and it could be tha discretion which needs looking into.