Experts, Officials, Others Speak
The storm of controversy which surrounds Germany on the international human rights front has included condemnations from a broad range of groups and individuals.
A number of U.S. officials, including Senators and Congressmen, have been monitoring developments in Germany—and they have been dedicated to making their views public.
Indeed, members of the Senate and House—representing more than 80% of Congress—have written both to the Secretary of State and to German officials to express their deep concern over the mistreatment of Scientologists in Germany or to request the Secretary of State to intervene to protect the rights of Scientologists.
Veteran Congressman Carlos Moorehead recently wrote to the German Ambassador in Washington that “Certainly, it would be gratuitous to constantly harangue those who have inherited the history of the Holocaust about the sins of half a century ago. ... History has dealt you an expectation of high standards in this regard, but your government is not even meeting an acceptable standard. ... I hope you take my thoughts as constructive ones, for they are meant with respect. But, as a World War II veteran, I also wanted you to know that I have lived through the history of this century and find these recent developments disturbing.”
Public perception of increasing intolerance is by no means limited to government officials and bodies established to investigate human rights abuses. Freedom found that 67 percent of Americans surveyed believe that there is “a serious problem of religious intolerance in Germany.” And 79 percent of those surveyed believe that the return of Nazism in Germany is a real danger.
Across the Atlantic, a visiting delegation of British human rights experts reported that it found the level of politically-sanctioned discrimination in Germany both “astonishing” and “perplexing.”
The five committee members—two Members of Parliament, Lords McNair and Hylton, accompanied by professors of philosophy and sociology and a religious scholar—reported that they were stunned by the contrast between the clear evidence of widespread violations of international human rights agreements to which Germany is a signatory, and the assertions of the officials they interviewed who maintained that there was “no discrimination” in Germany. (See “Echoes of the Past”.)
How Many Will Confront Them
It is certainly appropriate that such international concern and outrage over the present state of affairs in Germany is growing. But just as it is apparent here in the United States and around the world that something is highly amiss, it is equally clear that this perception has yet to sink in within Germany—and that the abuses continue.
“It has been observed that the future will be determined not by how many Nazis there will be, but how many anti-Nazis, people of Goodwill, there will be to confront them. That is what I think it all comes down to today,” says Rev. Heber Jentzsch, President of the Church of Scientology International. “More and more people are piercing the veil of lies and propaganda. It is my hope that they will act on the knowledge they gain and thus help ensure that this stain on the latter half of the 20th century is removed—and that no one else suffers such treatment.”![[End of Text]](img/cuby.jpg)
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