State Department Comments on Scientology Ads

U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing #16 (30 January 1997)

Briefer: Nicholas Burns

The following portion of the Daily Press Briefing concerns the Church of Scientology in Germany and in particular, a condemnation of the Church's newspaper ads in which the current treatment of Scientologists in Germany is compared to the treatment of Jews in the Nazi era.

QUESTION:
This year's Human Rights Report on Germany documents far more extensively than in previous years German Government discrimination against members of the Church of Scientology. Is this expanded coverage an indication that the discrimination against both German and American Scientologists has in fact grown worse over the past year?

MR. BURNS:
The Human Rights Report on Germany for 1996 we think is a good and balanced report. There are some very positive trends in German society. These are not particularly the actions of the government but the actions of the German people. There's been a downward trend in violence against foreigners, and that's for the fourth year in a row — a 50 percent reduction compared with 1995.

There's a downward trend in anti-Semitic acts. That has been continued in 1996. The overwhelming majority of the perpetrators of both anti-foreigner and anti-Semitic acts are frustrated, disaffected youths. They're on the fringe of German society. They don't represent the bulk of the German people. There was a decrease in the numbers of allegations of police brutality.

I think we as Americans need to point out what is positive on the German human rights scene. On the Scientology question, I would urge you to read the report very carefully. There was some advance reporting in the press here in the United States about what would be in the Scientology report, and you will notice that some of the strongest language in the newspaper reports do not appear in the human rights reports issued by the Clinton Administration.

The report that we have issued today continues to express concern of the United States over the treatment of Scientologists in Germany, particularly American Scientologists. In this regard, we note the call by a youth wing of one of the major political parties for a boycott of the film "Mission Impossible," because its star, Tom Cruise, is a Scientologist. We here in the State Department gave that four stars, two thumbs up. We think it's a good movie. We would encourage Germans to watch it, and we don't believe it's proper to see that movie banned anywhere in the world. It's a good product of Hollywood — American cinema.

There was also a resolution by one of the German political parties that Scientologists be subjected to police surveillance. Fortunately, the German Ministry of Interior decided that that was not proper or permissible under German law, so we need to be balanced in our assessment of this question. We will continue to note our concern about the treatment of Scientologists in Germany. But I know I've said this before — but I feel compelled to repeat it again — the Scientologists in the United States, associated with some Hollywood moguls and Hollywood stars, have taken out full pages of advertisements in the International Herald Tribune, in The New York Times, asserting in The Washington Post, asserting that the German Government's treatment of the Scientologists in 1996 is comparable to Hitler's treatment of the Jews in the early period of Hitler's rule in 1933 and 1934.

This is an outrageous, inaccurate historical claim. The German people and the German Government deserve better than this. The German Government, of all the axis governments in the second World War, has done a very fine job, from Conrad Adenauer to Helmut Kohl, in educating the German people about the evils of Naziism, and Germany has overcome it, and Germany is a free and democratic country and does not deserve this kind of ahistorical, inaccurate criticism from Americans or from others.

QUESTION:
A follow-up on that. The human rights violations, as you document in your report, in Germany, would you consider those to be a violation of the international human rights accords to which Germany is a signatory?

MR. BURNS:
I don't believe we've said that, and, if we felt that, I think we would have said it. We have been concerned by the treatment of Scientologists. But, look, in the great scheme of things in the world — look at the rest of — many of the other reports that we've issued today. The problems in Germany are in no way comparable to problems in Iraq and in Sudan or in China or in Iran. You know, countries that have severe human rights problems. Let's put things in perspective here.