======== Subject: Protest report Copenhagen, July 10 & 11, 1999 From: "Catarina Pamnell" Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 00:12:05 +0200 Message-ID: The regular brown paper parcel arrived in the mail Thursday. Apart from the usual stuff – the travel tickets, the D-mark cheque, the Prozac prescription and the detailed picket schedule – it also contained three of the latest ARSCC(wdne) t-shirts. As the ARSCC Scandinavia will know a bribe when we see one, we went into action without further delay. Me and Ake Wiman arrived in Copenhagen Friday night for preparations. The weather was absolutely lovely. Thousands of people were milling through the streets, heading for a rock concert at the Tivoli. - Saturday Early in the morning, I went to meet a new picketer trainee. He’s a Swedish university student, Valfrid Lindeman. Nice guy. We all had breakfast before heading for central Copenhagen at noon. First we went to the Scala for a coffee, while we waited for Ole Bjoern to turn up. He had some trouble finding a parking space – Copenhagen can be a pretty lively city in summertime. Within a minute of sitting down at our table, Valfrid spotted the first Sea Orger – not bad for someone who has not encountered them before. (Usual charachteristics: skinny, no sun tan, a shirt that used to be white) After maybe half an hour we went outside. We mainly stayed on the sidewalk just opposite of the AOSHEU. Ake first went into the org to ask for Danish Freedom magazines, ”Frihed”, and got some. A familiar security guard in his smashing new uniform went to stay in front of their door, and at times there were two other of the security out as well. After a while we got company by some scientologists distributing their fliers (free personality test, film, What is Scientology book) and some Frihed mags. We also had a number of ”handlers” throughout the day, like Erik who was doing the video filming, Julia, BlondLady, PurpleHairedLady, BagLady, and CurlyHead (very sorry, but unlike us they were not wearing any name tags). There were others coming and going – the current exchange rate seems to be minimum 5 scientologists to the SP. Valfrid went off to a local ”one dollar store”, and returned with two inflatable 1ft space rockets. I simply could not resist the temptation and had to go get some myself – one gold and one silver. They match my purple inflatable Xenu excellently. A bargain. A Swedish man in a blue t-shirt came up and started to speak to Ake. He said he used to be involved in the late 60’s, and now he had an appointment to see someone at the org about maybe going back. He seemed a nice enough guy. He got a Xenu flier and one on Lisa. There were a crowd of Taiwanese tourists outside a nearby Indian restaurant, waiting for their bus. Ake went over and explained to them what was going on. Otherwise, it was pretty much as usual. Young people will often take the flier. There are quite a few tourists passing by, so English fliers also come in handy. Several people said ”I don’t need a flier, I already know about Scientology” – and many would not take one until you had explained that even though we were outside the org, we were leafleting against the CoS. All in all, we distributed 298 Danish Xenu fliers, and over 100 English Lisa/Xenu (this stat report is dedicated to the scieno who said when we left ”But you still have fliers left!” Surprise kid – the ARSCC always has fliers left :-)) After an hour or so we felt that it was time for refreshments – it was getting hot. We went in the direction of a nearby square with restaurants, but then saw that a police car had pulled up outside the org. We started to walk back, but they left before we got back there. It seems that a restaurant owner had called, because in their attempt to surround us, the scienos insisted in standing in front of his restaurant with their fliers. So we returned to our original mission of cold drinks and a chat in the shade. I noticed a woman dressed in Sea Org uniform walking by with a kid that was definitely much younger than ten. I wonder if the order that SO can ’t have young children with them is still in force? From where we were sitting, we could see the corner of Jernbanegade (opposite Circus). There’s a waste basket in that corner, and suddenly BagLady went there and picked up lots of papers from it. Why? Was it their own fliers, or ours? This incident is still shrouded in mystery. Eventually we got moving again, this time going over to the DK org at Gammel Kongevej. It was very quiet. Ake still wanted a copy of the latest edition of Frihed which they didn’t have at the AOSHEU, so he rang the door bell of the org and asked for it. We were let inside the stairs, but with our t-shirts not allowed into the actual org upstairs. The scieno staffer did however come out with five copies of Frihed, which was nice of him. We stayed only a short while outside that org, as there wasn’t too much foot traffic. Instead, we headed back for the AOSHEU, with a little detour to the Nordland Hotel for a quick photo session. Back at Jernbanegade, they had put out an e-meter test table! Ole and Ake went up to have a look. I was a bit anxious for a while that the discussions were getting too heated – being a non-confrontative person myself. But the boys cooled off and there were no incidents. Both Ole and Ake have suffered when family members have gotten involved with the cult, and I actually think it’s amazing that they can manage to keep their composure. Erik was really obnoxious for a while putting his video cam up into their faces, but when Ake started reciting OT3 he stopped that, and they had a long talk instead. I’m also very happy to say that the Scientologists did not try to push us around physically, the way they did on a couple of previous protests. One woman did try to provoke me. I was refusing to go into any long conversations with the handlers, as Ake and Ole were doing the talking this day, while I and Valfrid concentrated on flier distribution. Obviously, my silence disturbed them somewhat, as they sent out one person after the other to try to contact me with different strategies. One of them went up to me and said, in an aggressive tone, ”Do you know what you’re doing?”. Then she grabbed a flier from my hand and crumpled it up. It didn’t overly surprise me, as they have done similar things previously. I shouted, ”Leave my things alone! Are you a criminal?”, and then another scieno pulled her away. After that is was fairly peaceful. Our name tags with ARSCC logos attracted some attention. A scieno asked me why I was wearing a Scientology symbol. Valfrid and Ake were wearing space alien hologram stickers too, which confounded them even more (”who’s that supposed to be?”). The sun was now baking our side of the street, and we needed another break for fluid intake. We discussed walking up to New Era Publications, but none of us felt energetic enough in the sunshine, so we opted for a last stint at Jernbanegade. I noticed that even the people who did not want to take a flier often looked over at the org, probably wondering what was going on. Ake had to make an errand, and I joined him. Ole and Valfrid stayed for a while more, and say that some Mexican guy came over who was rather aggressive. But no real problem. Oh, and my favourite Italian from last year turned up just as I was leaving – he’s now wearing a beard. Around 19.00 it was time for a picketnick :-) We had a great time relaxing over pizzas and drinks in the grass of a park nearby. As we left the park, we were treated to a rare sight. A friend said ”Look, that must be a scientologist! (remember, skinny, pale, ex-white shirt) What are they doing?” One (Sea Org) was standing, facing another person at a distance. That person was yawning, with exaggerated movements. Yep, they were definitely doing 50(?) feet mood drills! (I don’t have my books here, does anyone have the Hubbard reference?) The idea is that the person being trained shall be able to demonstrate the different levels on the emotional tone scale of Scientology, to the supervisor standing quite far away. I’m not altogether convinced that these drills are good for you, but they can be fun to do. - Sunday I had fresh strawberries for breakfast! :-) The Swedish contingent had been requested to make a Sunday appearance, while the Danish weaklings got the day off. ;-) We got to Jernbanegade at about 12.50. They had all the different european etc. flags out on the facade, which looks quite festive. It took them a few minutes, but then we got flier distributors and handlers, just like the day before. The security guy also got to stand outside the door in the sunshine, so I think he did get a sun tan. :-) As we had recieved new orders the night before, I was doing more talking this time, while Ake took care of other things. There wasn’t much foot traffic, so conversing with handlers didn’t seem like a bad thing for passing time. Erik came out with the video cam and started filming. I’m very sorry that I couldn’t keep a straight face – I just had to point out the the others that he still had the lens protector on… The guy in a blue t-shirt reappeared. He had an appointment to come and talk to Erik at 13.00, but had to wait as Erik was busy filming us. BlueShirt said to Ake: “You must be a very important person to them!” He then asked how long we were staying, if he could go to McDonald’s meanwhile, and Ake said it was OK, he could. BlondLady wanted to know why I was there, so I went on for a while about how I object to an organization saying one thing and doing another – if the CoS honestly meant that they want a world without war and crime, then why act in ways that contradict that purpose? Why the need for lying to the public, and to their own members? I mentioned some of the lies in their own publications that are very obvious, such as the expansion claims. I also talked about that members are led to believe that they will have miraculous results from auditing and courses, especially the OT levels, but that the OT’s I’ve known simply did not exhibit this. Obviously, the OT org of Europé could not even make us three little protesters go away. This, and probably the Hubbard quote on my t-shirt: “The only way to control people is to lie to them", led BlondLady to the conclusion that I needed to handle my control button :-) (in non-scienospeak: I’m upset about controlling and being controlled, and ought deal with my problem. Mmmm, think I’ll keep that “problem”.) Valfrid got into word clearing “religion”. One woman went and got a dictionary out, but Valfrid thought that the definition given was far too brief and shallow, and asked for an Oxford dictionary. She never came back with one though, so that discussion wasn’t settled. By now, some of the handlers were catching on to our little trick of saying “it’s against Scientology” when offering the fliers. CurlyHead (I think) was pointing at one after the other of the people standing in the street, saying “that’s a scientologist”, “that’s a scientologist”, etc. When he pointed at Valfrid, another scieno said “no, he’s not a scientologist”, but CurlyHead said “yes, he’s a scientologist, everyone here is a scientologist”. And when somebody was reaching for our fliers, Julia said “that’s information about Scientology!” Clever! :-) Coffee break time. There wasn’t much people in the street anyway. Julia accepted our invitation, and soon YellowLady and BlondLady joined us. BlondLady was mainly observing (or taping – what do I know? ;-) ) YellowLady was repeatedly trying to audit Ake (“Is there an earlier similar incident”), while Julia conversed with me and Valfrid. Julia is quite pleasant and intelligent, though of course the way she changes the subject whenever the topic of the conversation isn’t to her taste is pretty transparent (but hey, that’s talking to OSA to you). She claims to have no knowledge about the ScienoSitter, and to not have read the McPherson logs. She also insists that every Scientologist is free to take part of any information they want to. Well, let’s see if she’s gotten herself better informed next time we meet… We then went off for lunch. Actually, we decided to have lunch on the ferry back to Sweden. We had after all not even planned to picket at all that Sunday… I must also admit to another moment of weakness: Julia asked whether I was still living in Sweden or had moved to Denmark. She had read in a newspaper that I was the girlfriend of Karsten Lorenzen. Maybe it was her superior communication skills – I just couldn’t help but to confess that I have never been Karsten’s girlfriend. Or in his own words: I’m just a friend who happens to be a girl. This of course blows the whole cover operation – I can only hope that Karsten and my ARSCC senior officers will forgive me. Quote of the day: Valfrid: What about what happened to Lisa McPherson? YellowLady: She’s not dead! Valfrid: Whaaat??? She’s not dead? YellowLady: Well, it wasn’t our fault. And they feel the need to ask why we’re there? Catarina [Note to OSA: Certain passages in the above narrative are jokes. They have no foundation in facts. If you encounter any difficulties in locating them, please contact me and I’ll see to it that you get enrolled on the ARSCC Certified Sense of Humor Course. Thank you.]