Berliners active against scientologists in real estate biz

A few weeks ago, there was a notice in "bln.misc" about a meeting with discussion about the activities of scientologists' companies in the real estate business. I went there today. The meeting was in the community house of a church (a "real" church). It was attended by about 100 people, a camera man of a local TV station was there. On the panel were activists of tenants organisations, two journalists and two district officials. A Berlin member of parliament was in the public.

The discussion was not interrupted by scientologists. Either there were not there, or they had orders to remain quiet. But it was of course *assumed* that "they" were somewhere.

The panel explained the tactics of scientologists and what they try to do against them. The main point: what the scientologists do is legal (sometimes on the edge of illegality), but the tenants can resist the tactics of scientologists legally too.

Here a short description of the tactic they use: They are nice, friendly, polite and caring. The word is "love bombing" (I have heard that word in connection with other cults). They meet the tenants. They invite them to lunch. They talk with them about their life. They are always "there", and they are soooo nice. They explain to the tenants that they should buy or leave their apartment, because they could be kicked out (a lie, because tenants may stay 10 years after a conversion), or the rent would rise (a lie, because the rent cannot rise at will).

A woman of a tenants association was present at such a talk. She had introduced herself as "auntie Ursula". She wittnessed the person from the real estate company praise her apartment "looks nice, very beautiful". In fact, nothing had been done in the apartment for 10 years, it looked pretty crappy! At the end, the tenant thought "that person is really nice", although "that person" had just explained that the tenant had to move out (which is a bluff). My dictionary says "toady" about that tactic.

Turkish families are a good target for those companies. Those families are often poor, sometimes live overcrowed in those apartments, do not know everything about the law, and seldom see 10,000 DM or more at once. They move out and then find out that the rent in the new apartment is much higher, and that the money they got will be gone shortly.

The discussion was then mainly about legal matters. In fact, scientology beliefs were not even discussed ! I highly enjoyed this: it is not a matter of beliefs, only of money, money, money. Scientologists heavily borrow money from other scientologists. It seems that those companies are very close to total collapse. They use always the same two notars in Berlin. A complaint was filed to the notar association, sadly without success.

A lady was there whose brother works for such a company. It wasn't clear if he was a scieno or not, be she said that it was terrible. He works and works and works and earns nearly nothing. He's normally a nice person, but when talked about scientology, he gets really weird (so she said).

Why "scientology-near" companies ? There is not proof that Scientology itself is involved. Scientologists are involved, LRH tech is involved, and even non-scientologists do business with them, because "they work like ants".

Somehow, I managed to be the *last* person asking a question, which I used instead to talk shortly about a.r.s., two persons were interested (I expected this low number).

The main point about the meeting is that Berliners are prepared, and are very informed. They are ready to give the scientologists what they deserve: no money.

I had a personal "win". The two journalists were Liane von Billerbeck and Frank Nordhausen, hero-authors of "Der Sektenkonzern", the best book in german language available. They said "We have been sued and harassed, and guess what: we are here speaking to you". (They did not even try to sell it at the meeting !!!) Those two still write about scientology in newspapers, and are very well informed. Liane had previously shown a paper from 1992 that explained that the "non-able" people should all be brought to "institutions". Germans can smell fascism, because they've been thru it.

The "win" was that I talked with Frank shortly after the meeting (Liane seemed to be gone to the restroom ?!). This is like you talking to Jon Atack or Russell Miller or Paulette Cooper face-to-face ! I told him more about a.r.s. and why it is such a cool place, and why scientologists are scared like hell about it. He promised to look into it, after buying a new computer (a Mac). I promised to send him affidavits, and "electronic" newspaper articles and fun stuff from a.r.s..

I went home, I was not followed or photographed (at least I hope so, and a picture of me is at my web page anyway <g>), and I did not meet Linda Willard in a bar.

Tilman

P.S.: My check has been cashed ! Cool. Go Dennis go ! (and Marcia too) --- Tilman Hausherr [KoX, 1.9, DB] biz: tilman@sietec.de <a href="http://www.sietec.de/">http://www.sietec.de/</a>(company page) home: tilman@berlin.snafu.de <a href="http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/">http://www.snafu.de/~tilman/</a> Praise Xenu, Mozilla and "Bob"! (and say "Hi" to Warren McShane !)

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