Since the last thread is very long and wandered a bit from the original subject, I'm starting a new one specifically about the 'hopefully' worldwide protests against Scientology. They've already happened in Australia:
A GLOBAL day of protest against the Church of Scientology organised by internet group "Anonymous" began today with demonstrations outside the church's Australian offices.
About 150 people gathered at the Church of Scientology building in the Sydney CBD this morning, most of them carrying pickets and wearing costumes or masks.
At 11am, when the protest was scheduled to start, staff inside the building set up a video camera pointed at the street below and locked the front doors. Two security guards stood outside the building and were later joined by several police officers.
The protestors, who said they had worn masks to remain anonymous and prevent possible legal action or retribution from the church, chanted "Church on the right, cult on the left", "Religion is free" and "We want Xenu".
They also made a reference to Lisa McPherson, the US woman whose death in 1995 while under the care of a branch of the church led to a civil wrongful death lawsuit. Criminal charges filed against the church over Ms McPherson's death were dropped in 2000.
Members of the crowd said they had been told not to use "geek speek" during the protest and to put their message across as clearly as possible. They handed out flyers accusing the church of financially exploiting its followers and suppressing criticism.
NEWS.com.au is awaiting comment from the church's Sydney branch on the protest.
Anonymous, a notorious internet group whose membership includes hackers, last month declared "war" on the church and temporarily prevented access to at least one official Scientology website.
The group also organised worldwide protests through internet message forums and blogs scheduled for today.
Demonstrations in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide were promoted from a blog called "anonaustralia" which offered flyers people could download and print to hand out at the demonstration and suggested attendees wear masks.
Protests in Melbourne and Adelaide were scheduled to begin at 2pm local time.
More to come...
Similar, smaller demonstrations happened in other Australian cities. Interestingly, as soon as the protests started someone posted this article indicating the protest in Sydney turned violent. Unfortunately, the article used pictures from a 2005 protest against Haliburton in Texas.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
Superman wrote:What's with all the messages at the bottom saying they're fake?
The images are from a protest against Halliburton in Houston in 2005. Whoever faked the story of a violent clash with the police was pretty lazy. At least one Anonymous member recognized himself in a photograph and said 'WTF, I'm not in Australia!'
Not sure if its bad to link to another forum, but here's the 'postgame' threads for Sydney andBrisbane, both of which have lots of pictures. That forum also has threads for protests which occurred in Adelaide, Perth, and New Zealand, though there are few pics.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
Heck, I even got an email asking for people who had Guy Fawkes masks to show up for stuff like this, because a friend knows I rag on Scientology a lot.
Anons in the UK better wear those Guy Fawkes masks!
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They'll be a few blocks from me tomorrow in Philadelphia. I'm not sure if I want to venture over there or not.
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Just read an article in this week's "Economist" magazine about the Anonymous/Scientology situation. It took a mostly negative view on the cult as well. Seems that people are starting to pay attention.
They even had ONE GUY show up to protest in Tokyo, but nobody else showed and they had about ten guys outside the Scientology center waiting. West coast raids are just now starting, should be interesting to see how big a crowd shows up in LA.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
We all know how late the mainstream media catch up with internet stuff. I'm guessing we'll have to wait till tomorrow before any of them even realise it happened.
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Of all the religions...why are they picking Scientology? Why not one that is actually worthy of protests like Christianity or Islam? Y'know, cults that have been brainwashing and killing people for over 2000 years.
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I'd been hearing about the protesters in London being idiots and spouting internet memes non-stop, so the following reportis encouraging:
an0n348 wrote:Just got back. Went really, really well! Estimate easily 500 or 600 at the embankment protest and then somewhere a little over 300 for Tottenham Court road. Interestingly Co$ UK took down all website details of their London address at some point this morning but really why they bothered I have no idea because we just googled it in two seconds flat.
Crowd at both protests were great - second one possibly a little more lively but that probably has a lot to do that the main headquarters being in a part of the city that's pretty quiet over the weekend so we had no real pedestrian traffic and Co$ were nowhere to be seen. Very good natured and friendly protest though and everyone very keen to chat and share their snacks and fags and have a laugh. Great posters, signs and flyers abounded and a lot of interest particularly on Tottenham Court Road from passersby. Everyone we spoke to from people in the street, on the tube, in the pub, everywhere agreed that they don't trust Co$ and were only too happy to support us.
There was one slight incident at the first protest just outside the door and people were saying someone had been arrested but who and why we couldn't work out so can't say with certainty. Crowd were very coooperative with the police though who definitely seemed to be quietly supporting us - got a lot of thumbs up from them and a lot of friendly chat and interest. Not that big a presence which I thought there would be which can only mean they don't see us as a real security threat. That combined with everyone's efforts to be on their best behaviour and making it clear we weren't there to cause trouble is a great result for our future plans definitely.
Also , just to be clear, there was not a lot of 'chan chat' or anything like that. People were there for the lulz and that was clear but they worked damn hard on their posters and flyer distribution and I saw loads of people all the time talking to pedestrians and being very informative and helpful so while it might seem that way from the live feeds, that was certainly not the case from where we were standing on the ground. People made a lot of effort and we have definitely got results in terms of impression and purpose - both from the police and the public and that's a major win for us.
No infiltration that we could make out although we were definitely being photographed from the offices above the Tottenham Court road centre which was stupid as there are no doubt going to be about two hundred million of them floating around the internet very shortly. Other than that, no real problems.
The only thing I will say is that the protest seemed a little too much along the generic lines of 'we don't like Co$' at times which is fine but I think the public feel the same way so it would have been nice to see more UK information like their police infiltration plans and so on. That's a small thing but maybe something to work on for posters and banners for the next one. Did get a lot of hooting from passing traffic - pretty much all of it, actually - and a huge majority of it from black cabs which is ace. If you have London cabs on your side, you can't go wrong.
All in all, a great, great, great turnout - truly epic and alot of fantastic input and work from everyone so round of applause for London because I think we did brilliantly.
Photos and video coming shortly.
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havokeff wrote:Of all the religions...why are they picking Scientology? Why not one that is actually worthy of protests like Christianity or Islam? Y'know, cults that have been brainwashing and killing people for over 2000 years.
Yeah, that'll go down well in predominantly Christian/Muslim nations. Everyone hates Scientology. People get pissy when you start telling them baby Jesus was a sham and Mohammed was a pædophile.
Of course, if you read the original thread you'd know why they're doing this.
havokeff wrote:Of all the religions...why are they picking Scientology? Why not one that is actually worthy of protests like Christianity or Islam? Y'know, cults that have been brainwashing and killing people for over 2000 years.
Because it's such an easy thing to go after a religion with millions of followers worldwide that's been entrenched for centuries as opposed to a few thousand and is only a couple decades old. . . .
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