As expected, New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright‘s massive profile of ex-Scientologist writer-director Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) in this week’s New Yorker contains many interesting revelations about the Church of Scientology and the life of a prominent member.
Chief among these is the existence of an ongoing FBI investigation into allegations of abuse by Scientology’s leader David Miscavige, and the enslavement of members of Scientology’s religious order, “Sea Org”. (Recently, former Sea Org members claimed to have been forced to have abortions.)
According to the article, agents from an FBI task force on human trafficking have been interviewing former members of Scientology about abuse in the church since at least December, 2009, and the case remains open. Why human trafficking?
Lawrence writes:
The laws regarding trafficking were built largely around forced prostitution, but they also pertain to slave labor. Under federal law, slavery is defined, in part, by the use of coercion, torture, starvation, imprisonment, threats, and psychological abuse. The California penal code lists several indicators that someone may be a victim of human trafficking: signs of trauma or fatigue; being afraid or unable to talk, because of censorship by others or security measures that prevent communication with others; working in one place without the freedom to move about; owing a debt to one’s employer; and not having control over identification documents. Those conditions echo the testimony of many former Sea Org members…
Scientology’s financial exploitation of its members and brutal, stalkery retention practices always seemed to barely skirt the edges of legality. Looks like they might have crossed over into outright slavery.
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Award winning Writer and Director, Paul Haggis, has walked away from the Church of Scientology, after being a devout follower for 35 years.
Haggis left the cult-like religion after he wrote a letter to its spokesman, Tommy Davis, for its support of Proposition 8. The letter asked Davis to denounce the religion’s support of the anti-gay marriage legislation. To which, Haggis said that Davis said he would, but never lived up to his promise.
When Davis declined to publish a letter to that effect, Haggis said, “Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.”
He fired off a letter to Davis that said he could no longer sit back and watch as the religion supported the abuse of any group’s civil rights.
He said:
But I reached a point several weeks ago where I no longer knew what to think. You had allowed our name to be allied with the worst elements of the Christian Right. In order to contain a potential “PR flap†you allowed our sponsorship of Proposition 8 to stand. Despite all the church’s words about promoting freedom and human rights, its name is now in the public record alongside those who promote bigotry and intolerance, homophobia and fear.
He also touched on the religion’s use of their policy of disconnect, when a person leaves their group. He said that even though Davis said that no such policy existed, it happened to his wife, recently. She was told that once her parents left the religion, that she should disconnect contact from them, to which she did.
He added, “For a year and a half, despite her protestations, my wife did not speak to her parents and they had limited access to their grandchild. It was a terrible time. That’s not ancient history, Tommy. It was a year ago.”
Read the entire letter here.
source: Exclusive: “Crash†Director Paul Haggis Breaks With Scientology – [showbiz411]
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