Anonymous, the group of unknown hackers who declared war on scientology recently, showed up at Scientology establishments across the world this past March 15th to protest. Wearing Guy Fawkes masks made popular by the movie V for Vendetta, they picketed outside Scientology self improvement centers spreading the “truth” about scientology.
Anonymous declared war against Scientology over YouTube on January 21. Their motivation derived from the fact that the church was attempting to censor the internet.
An internal church video of Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology surfaced a few months ago on the popular website Gawker. After everybody and their mom clicked in to view it, the church went nuts and started sending out litigation letters to the websites circulating the video, demanding they take it down. Some complied (Google- well duh, Google even complies with Chinese censorship policy, why wouldn’t they cooperate with scientology), and some didn’t (Gawker).
This censorship attempt was essentially the straw that broke the camels back for Anonymous. After going public with their declaration of war, they began committing multiple acts of online and offline terrorism aimed at the church. Their terrorist tactics include bomb threats, mailing fake anthrax, black faxing and flooding the church’s voice mails with death threats.
While all of these attacks were underway, the group began organizing protests. The second of these protests was the one I attended on March 15th, which incidentally happens to be just two days after the birthday of scientology’s creator: L. Ron Hubbard. The protest was held despite scientology’s efforts within the legal system to prevent it. The reason the legal system failed scientology? They couldn’t identify any of the individuals in Anonymous, go figure.
I attended the March 15th protest in San Francisco and was met by police officers and more than a few Guy Fawkes’s. After being given multiple handouts, I started taking pictures. I noticed the entrance to the ‘church’ had an enormous gate in front of it that seemed less ornamental then it did secure; this was where the police were doing their best to look important. I found it odd a religion would gate their entrances in such an up front, hostile fashion. I mean they are a religion, right?
One of the more sonorous “Anons” was speaking through a loudspeaker reading off information regarding the documented deaths and names of the alleged victims of the church. Despite his apparent dominance within the group, he was not wearing any sort of disguise or mask at all. He had his entire head shaven except for a small crop on the back that spelled out “SP”.
An SP or Suppressive Person is a label applied by the church to its greatest enemies according to their “Fair Game Policy”. This would be anybody who speaks out against the church, including government organizations.
The protesters were very organized. They kept one another in check only referring to eachother as “Anon” and “Anonymous”. They made damn sure they didn’t even J-walk as to avoid any run ins with the coppers standing nearby.
The given handouts weren’t so much outlining claims and allegations against the church as stating policies and facts within and surrounding scientology. They encourage the reader to inquire as to why everyone is wearing masks and why the protest is being held. They guide you to informative websites or at times simply tell you to Google the following terms if you are at all skeptical.
The church has not been ignoring these SP groups either. They’ve launched a completely redesigned website, rife with boatloads of brand new propaganda videos about the “Youth for Human Rights” campaign. This campaign is basically the means through which scientology is actively slithering their way into our children’s classrooms all the while fronting as a human rights organization.
Is it not strange that all of a sudden scientology feels the need to distribute videos stating how fair and supportive they are of human rights? It is not coincidental this is happening right around the time Anonymous is publishing information completely contradicting their bullshit. If the church is innocent then why go on the defensive?
To become a “member” of this “human rights” group, you have to pay $40 a month. What exactly does the organization do you may ask? They release ‘‘information’’ about human rights and make emotional porn videos that seem oddly similar to political ads. They do nothing to actually help human rights across the world, they but only preach. Thanks for the offer, but I will save my $40. Besides since when was there such a thing as a “non-profit corporation”? Can you say oxymoron? Damn, I need call my broker before they go public.
There is another Anonymous protest being held in April and if the turnouts continue to increase at the rates they have been, expect gridlocked traffic through 701 Montgomery St.
You can check out all of the pictures I took at the protest here.
My previous article introducing this topic can be found here.
A previous blog post containing information about the war.
interesting article porter.
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