How *NOT* to Protest Scientology. Protesters Understandably Get Followed.

How NOT to Protest Scientology. Protesters Understandably Get Followed.

Posted by RB on March 29, 2008 · 2 Comments

I just read a blog post entitled Possible Fair Game in Vancouver at the VanCityAnon blog about how the blogger and some his friends got followed around Vancouver after picketing the cult’s Vancouver branch. The protesters were followed and then photographed probably more than halfway across the city from the “church”. And they completely brought it on themselves. Here are some quotes from VanCityAnon’s account of the day’s events:

“Today as we stood outside the sci org, me and my fellow masked anon stared through the front windows, while flyering and carding people, getting some honks and raising general awareness.”

“We went around the side to throw you found the cards into the smoke pit, and as we walked back up to the front doors of the org, a man walked out. Obviously surprised we had not left yet. He had a receding hairline, and long greasy hair and a pock marked face. We thought nothing of it and continued to stare into the org.”

What on Earth did these protesters expect? They had just spent a prolonged period of time standing in front of and starring into the cult’s windows and walking around walking around the building rather than simply staying at the front. This is clearly intimidating behaviour. Who would not be intimidated by a pair of masked individuals loitering all around their property and starring into their windows for a protracted period of time? This was beyond picketing. Picketing includes such activities as chanting, holding up signs, passing out flyers, talking to citizens (including members of the protested organization), and the like. While I am surely in favour of picketing the cult as I am against the cult in its current form, I am also for fairness and respect, and these picketing practices crossed the line.

To protesters: Use your heads when you are protesting. The point of this protest is to spread awareness of the cult administration’s abusive exploitative oppressive deceptive sociopathic fear-mongering family-destroying profiteering criminal activities, and by doing this encourage judicial investigation and appropriate repercussions, removal of the cult’s tax-exempt status in America, and most importantly, cessation of these activities. The point is not to instill fear in individual Scientologists. The only people that should be afraid are those responsible for the cult’s misdeeds. And they should be afraid not of intimidation of protesters, but of the societal, legal and organizational consequences that simple mainstream awareness of the cult’s crimes will bring.

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