======== Subject: Protest Copenhagen, Aug 14, 1999 From: "Catarina Pamnell" Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 11:53:47 +0200 Message-ID: <7eRt3.3058$7d.6488@nntpserver.swip.net> Summary: Date: Saturday, August 14, 1999 Start and End Times: 12.30 - 18.50 Location: Copenhagen, Denmark Picketers: Val Harris, Per Lundquist, Catarina Pamnell, Ake Wiman Handlers: Erik, BlondLady, Julia, FrenchLady, Luca, NiceMrSecurity and others. Number of Handouts given away: 900 Comments: Nice day leafleting in central Copenhagen. Lots of CoS people but no problems. ----- The moment we have all been waiting for - the last step of the Bridge has been completed. You will now finally be able to walk unscathed across the dark, storm-ridden abyss that separates Denmark from Sweden. And may you never be the same... What better way to celebrate this glorious moment in time, than by a friendly brotherhood protest of the EvilEmpire European HQ. - Friday, Aug 13th - An evening of Danish weirdness. A strange wind stirring the trees of a mysterious garden. A spooky voice suddenly calling Per from the computer. And then the pink and blue FluffyStuff materialized... - Saturday, Aug 14th - Bright sunlight was chasing away any lingering shadows from the night before. Warm, but a fresh breeze keeping the temperature at a pleasant level. Excellent conditions for a day out - especially since we had been expecting rains. At about 12.00 me, Ake and Per got together with Val (who will file his own report later, when it has recieved final approval from ARSCC(wdne)MEOW I/C) We chose our usual hangout, the Scala opposite the AOSH EU in central Copenhagen. After some small talk over coffee, we went outside. But not to the org. Our main objective this time was to get more fliers out to the general public, so we headed for Axeltorv, a square with restaurants and cinemas just around the corner from the org. We had brought 300 Danish Xenu fliers, and 600 copies of a flier in English ("In this city area, you may encounter a sales person from the Church of Scientology", mentioning the free personality test, free film, e-meter demonstration, and then describing a few of the things the CoS will not tell a prospective customer.). We hardly thought we'd be able to give all the fliers out in one day. Turned out we were wrong. Per and Ake wore "Scientology kills" t-shirts. I preferred one saying "$cientology sucks", as that expresses my sentiments better. Val's shirt was plain white, but I suspect it had UV messages invisible to ordinary humans. It did have a small print on the left sleeve that revealed his connections to the pharmaceutical industry, as could be expected. Public reception was fine on the whole, though occasionally we got mistaken for scientologists and had to stress that we were protesting them. So far, the only people I have met in Copenhagen who have objected to the content of our fliers have been scientologists themselves. The CoS are again running an ad campaign on the buses, but I think they need a lot more than that to change their public image. Despite the location of the AOSH EU, they don't seem to have all that many Danish customers. Most seem to come from Italy and eastern Europe. Quite a few Sea Org staff had been passing us, as the square is on their route from staff berthing at Nordland to the AOSH. But it took some time before we got company by handlers. First out was the winner of the Hungarian Mark Bunker look-alike contest, presumably on a job for OSA TV. He stayed at a distance with his video cam though, no camera-up-your-nose this time. It made a nice change. Later Erik got out, along with a Don Corleone wannabe. There were also some people sent out to distribute tickets for "open house" with free personality test, film, etc. Kind of neat, as that was exactly what our fliers said they were doing in the area. After half an hour or so in the square, and a short stint outside the Tivoli (the Tivoli staff politely asked us to move when our handlers got there), we went on with the next part of our plan. We walked up to the AOSH, but passed the org and contined up to Stroeget, the major pedestrian shopping street running through central Copenhagen. As we passed the AOSH, a lady on a bike came up alongside me, and started to ask "what is this about? what is this Scientology thing?". But something about her attitude immediately made me think she was a scientologist playing dumb, and soon she was excitedly telling me how destructive I am, how I know that distributing these things (Xenu story) is hurting people, etc. There wasn't much point in continuing the conversation. As parting words she called me an SP! ;-) I try to stay civil during protests, and to the best of my recollection I have never called people names, but when CoS members try these silly games I don't feel obliged to play along. Want to talk to me, talk to me. My friends know I like talking with people (and my phone bill is the physical proof :-/ ). "Clever" probing questions about personal details that the CoS already knows about me, tends to bring the devil out in me though. It both scares and fascinates me to see how simple it can be to direct some scientologists, just through knowing a little bit about what they have been taught regarding communication. It makes me more aware of how easily controlled I must have been myself when I was still a member. Not that I'm manipulation-proof today - the comments from CoS handlers do get to me at times, not to mention the heavily advertised consumer products you may find on my fridge shelves... ;-) But *they* are the ones claiming superior knowledge and abilities, not I. Sometimes I just can't resists the temptation to play my own little games. One of our handlers from last time turned up, a Danish woman I still don't know the name of, so I call her BlondLady. She asked me lots of questions, friendly (she's not a nasty type), but typical handler questions. When she asked if I was auditor trained, I just clammed up and stared into space, no matter how many times she repeated the question. Not that I minded the question in itself, I just got so fed up with the procedure. I knew that not answering would make her think that it was a loaded question, and she would not be able to drop it. She left eventually, but I bumped into her the following day. Quite predictably, she almost immediately started to ask the same question again. It was a surreal moment, I just couldn't help bursting into laughter. Not very nice of me, I know. OK, OK, I'm digressing. So we passed the AOSH, picking up a trail of handlers. The Don Corleone wannabe was there, black oil-slick hair, black jacket, royal blue shirt, yellow tie and a mean expression. When Ake just looked at him he hissed "Don't talk to me!". Jeez, who let that guy out? Had a brief conversation with some tourists who had read a bit about the CoS, and congratulated me on having left. Strolling up the Stroeget on a sunny Saturday isn't bad. Lots of people, street performers, etc. Our fliers were going quickly. Ake would stop and wave to our stalkers now and then, so they wouldn't lose us in the crowds. We made a stop for fluid intake at a square. Hare Krishna appeared, and another cult-looking group (Family Foundation something, several Asian people), who BTW gave us inspiration for flier design improvement, will try it out next time. I went around offering our fliers to people sitting on benches and stone ledges around the square. Two girls in their late teens refused fliers, but a few minutes later one of them came up to me and said "Hey, do you really mean what it says on your belly?" gesturing at my shirt ("$cientology sucks"). When I said yes, she said it was great, she had been afraid that I was a scieno. I pointed out our CoS stalkers, and Erik video taping us, and they were fascinated. There were CoS people following us all the time, in various numbers and constellations. There were also some people distributing invitation tickets. I think Ake, Val and Per talked with Erik for a while. A Swedish woman whom I have not seen before exchanged a few words with me, and later BlondLady appeared. BlondLady asked where we got the fliers from, and looked sceptical when I said I had made them. She asked where I had gotten the material from, and I explained the basis of the flier point by point (such as information on Lisa McPherson coming from their own notes on her treatment). Then she asked about the t-shirts, where did we get them from. She didn't seem familiar with the idea of running off a design on transfer paper on your home computer, and then simply iron it onto the shirt. Done in a few minutes. I said it's a good idea to learn the basics of how to use a computer, you can do a lot of fun things with it. "I'm not interested!" she snapped. Oh well, can't win them all. At another square further up the Stroeget, we sat down to have our picketnick, with sandwiches, beer for the boys and ice tea for me (I do drink other stuff beside margueritas, Tilman ;-) ). Our handlers stayed to the side, too bad, they could have joined us. But at least they got a day out in the lovely sunshine. The Golden Man was performing, a guy covered in gold paint looking like a statue. Cool. The childish spy game spirit of being followed around town was catchy, and Ake suggested we'd lose our stalkers. In through a McDonald's, out by another exit, through a department store - a classic move! :-) We then peacefully strolled up to the Copenhagen org/New Era Pubs/CLO building at Store Kongensgade. No stalkers in sight. Ake tried asking for Freedom mags at the org, but no luck. They also wouldn't sell Val a poster of the tone scale, which had caught his eye. They did call OSA though, and our old friend "Julia" came out. We were running low on fliers, and spent most of the time chatting with her, FrenchLady, Luca, NiceMrSecurity and BlondLady (who eventually turned up again). I asked why the subtitle of Dianetics had been changed in some translations, from "Science of mental health" to "How thought affects the body", but they had no explanation. Several translations of the book were on display in the New Era Pubs window, and out of those I could decipher (I can't read Chinese, Thai, Kazac, etc...) at least the Swedish, French, Italian and Spanish had been changed. Ake said he had read in the Dianetics book that it was OK for an auditor to use drugs on pcs. This was of course heavily protested by the scienos, and a book was brought outside. Ake could not remeber exactly where he had seen the quote, and I was a bit skeptic about it, as I could not offhand remember having read that. It turned into a friendly game with Luca, a cute young Italian, who had to go inside the org for something. If Ake had not located the quote before he returned, we'd buy Luca a cup of coffee. Ake didn't succeed, so we took Luca and FrenchLady into a nearby restaurant. Had a nice chat, mostly about coffee, food, midnight sun and only touching on Scn now and then. (As Luca showed the courtesy of some "normal" conversation instead of just "handling", I told him my posts while on staff in Stockholm org which I had previously refused to tell BlondLady, so he would have something to show for his efforts.) BTW, I have now checked in Ake's copy of Dianetics what quote he was thinking about. Want to compare editions before delivering my final verdict. ;-) At about 18.00 we headed back through town. Had almost no fliers left, but we saved a few so we could end off where we had begun, in Axeltorv. At 18.50 Per gave out the last one, as it happened to a public scientologist... We went off for dinner. And what a perfect way to end the day: "Phenomenon" with our darling Travolta was shown on Danish tv. (I liked the rabbit. I'm *not* going to quote the boys' comments.) - Sunday, Aug 15th - No more fliers, heavy rain and other things to do - we did not plan another protest. But Ake still wanted a word with the editor of the Danish Freedom magazine, "Frihed", PR officer for Denmark Anette Refstrup. In their last two issues, they have been printing slanderous statements about him. We got to see her briefly at DK org, and this is also where I ran into BlondLady again. Anette said she didn't have the papers at hand which the statements were based on, so the matter is not yet settled. Ake didn't really have the time to wait around. He, Per and I just had a quick snack at the Scala (followed by you know who) before heading back to Sweden. Sorry you had to put your rain gear on for nothing, Erik. All in all a nice trip. Our rookie, Val, was a great aquaintance. Pics will follow. Catarina -- http://xenu.just.nu