Potential witness in Exclusive Brethren sex abuse case paid to remain silent

Michael Bachelard
The Sydney Morning Herald
OCTOBER 21 2017

The Exclusive Brethren church has been covering up child sex abuse for decades, and last year I wrote about it. The story told of children who were denied, bullied or bought off by the religious sect to keep their abuse secret.

The main source for the story was the Brethren's former spokesman, Tony McCorkell.

A towering, flawed mountain of a man, McCorkell went nervously on the record with me, breaking ranks a decade after leaving the church and confessing to the role he had played in the history of cover-ups. It was a role that ate at his conscience.

What was not clear at the time, to either McCorkell or me, was how far the Exclusive Brethren would go to continue resist the truth being told.

The Exclusive Brethren is a Christian-based religious sect that former members say is a cult. Led by multi-millionaire Sydney businessman Bruce D. Hales, it hides from public scrutiny. Its members will not eat, form friendships or communicate with outsiders, except to do business with them or to lobby conservative politicians.

It donates freely, but secretly, to the Liberal Party, even though its members do not vote. It splits families, denies children the opportunity to go to university and minimises its tax payments. Hales recently recommended one member take arsenic or rat poison rather than communicate with his own family members.

The church's response to my sexual abuse story was swift and comprehensive.

Before it was even published last June, they warned me I was in danger of breaching the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act and the defamation law. A Melbourne-based church functionary, Lloyd Grimshaw, wrote to Fairfax Media chairman Nick Falloon seeking "management oversight" of my journalism.

A month after the story was published, a Brethren company registered as a charity, the Plymouth Brethren (Exclusive Brethren) Christian Church Limited, briefed Sydney lawyer Mark O'Brien and sued Fairfax Media and me personally in the Supreme Court for defamation.

As The Australian's legal affairs editor, Chris Merritt, reported at the time: "If the case goes to court, the evidence of Mr McCorkill [sic]… could be ­crucial."

A second legal action over the same story was taken against me by a church member described as "Jane Doe" who alleges my reporting illegally identified her as a child victim of sex abuse. That case continues in a different Sydney court.

In suburban meeting halls in Australian cities, the Brethren held prayer gatherings in which they appealed to God for the death or "removal" of me and McCorkell over "the legal proceedings in Sydney". When McCorkell did actually die this year at the age of 37 of natural causes, they called it an "answer to prayer", and "God's work completed".

But for this wealthy, closed Christian group, leaving it to the courts and to prayer was not enough. They also talked with their wallets. They resorted to bribery.

As we prepared our defence, behind the scenes, McCorkell was negotiating the financial terms of his silence.

Just three days after the defamation writ lodged, Lloyd Grimshaw, a director of the company suing me, signed an agreement with McCorkell. Entitled "Services and Confidentiality Deed", the agreement proposed to pay McCorkell $920,000 over 10 years; part up front, the rest in monthly payments of $6000, along with a $75,000 "holding" account, to keep his mouth shut.

McCorkell, though, did not want to wait 10 years for his cash.

On Friday, October 21, last year, he flew from his Queensland home to Sydney to renegotiate. Grimshaw's name might have been on the agreement, but it was not him talking turkey. That was left to Dean Hales, the son of the Brethren's Elect Vessel, the Man of God, Bruce Hales.

Dean Hales did not return calls, and Grimshaw said it was "not convenient" to talk when I spoke to him at home this week.

But the evidence is clear: McCorkell got what he wanted – cash up front.

On Tuesday, October 25, last year, McCorkell sent a text to a friend, saying: "Dean's been texting me today and so it will happen this morning, I believe. I'm tired and nervous but excited."

At 3.18pm that day he texted his friend again: "They just confirmed it's paid."

Bank records of McCorkell's company, Auserv, obtained by Fairfax Media, show that $137,500 hit his business account the same day – the first half of the bribe plus GST.



The following month, McCorkell was after his second tranche. On November 16, he texted his mate, saying: "Dean Hales is going to tell Lloyd to release."

Six days later, on November 22, there was none of the nervous excitement of October: "I'm not flash so home having a nap and a vomit," he texted. "Brethren confirmed payment."

Once again, his business bank account records the transfer – another $137,500.



The total of the two payments was $275,000.

What did this money buy?

The Services and Confidentiality Deed bound McCorkell not to divulge any information "relating to the past, present or future operations or affairs" of the Exclusive Brethren church, its members "including Mr Bruce Hales", their family members, companies, trusts or employees.

Any such information must be held "in strict confidence". McCorkell was particularly prevented from giving any information to "any of the persons or their associates listed in Schedule 3".

One name only appears in Schedule 3: "Michael Bachelard."

In addition, McCorkell was purportedly barred from giving evidence in a court case, provided he had come by any such evidence through his work with the Brethren.



Asked if the deed was an attempt to corrupt a witness – which is a criminal charge – criminal barrister Nick Papas, QC said: "It appears to be an intriguing attempt to suggest to a witness that he can wriggle out of his obligation to the court. Legally, though, it could never have that effect."

The Exclusive Brethren's spokesman, Ben Haslem, did not answer questions about the payments, saying, the "directors and staff" of his PR firm, Wells Haslem Mayhew, "are unaware of any of the payments to Tony McCorkell".

"Wells Haslem Mayhew has never provided advice to the Plymouth Brethren [Exclusive Brethren] Christian Church on payments to Tony McCorkell or any other person identified in your email," he wrote.
Six-figure sums

The deed was not the first time the Exclusive Brethren had tried to pay money to stop my reporting.

Before he signed the confidentiality deed in July last year, McCorkell was keen to expose how they had three times previously considered paying a bribe to shut me up.

The first was a decade ago when, through him, they offered me and my family an all-expenses paid trip to Noumea on the understanding that I stop writing about the Brethren's links to then-prime minister John Howard and their secret donations to Liberal and National Party campaigns.

I turned that offer down.

The second suggested bribe was in September 2015, when the Brethren approached McCorkell again after I published excerpts from Bruce Hales' church "ministry", in which he preached that a mentally ill young man should "finish yourself off" with poison.

On that occasion, according to McCorkell, Hales' right-hand man, Phillip McNaughton, a relative by marriage, suggested paying me a "six-figure sum" to stop writing about the Brethren. McCorkell would receive a similar sum if he could convince me to accept the money.

The offer was made, McCorkell said later, "because Jenny, Bruce Hales' wife, was feeling the sting of the barrage of stories, and Bruce was trying anything possible to stop the flow of the negative press".

McCorkell never put the offer to me. Instead, in an email in October 2015 to McNaughton, he advised the Brethren leaders against it.

"I must sound the strongest of warning bells as to the hidden dangers of going down this path," he wrote, saying the "other party" (me) would "take such a strategy as an affront to their professionalism in their field and to their integrity professionally".

An attempted bribe would likely "achieve the exact opposite" of what was intended, he wrote. It went no further.

Then, about a month before publication of the sex abuse cover-up story – after I had informed the Brethren it was coming –the religious group's leaders flew McCorkell to a Sydney hotel, where McNaughton initially offered him $15,000 to deny the story.

They later upped the offer to $65,000 in total. In return, they wanted him to sign a statutory declaration saying I had coerced him to give his interview, and that he had been quoted out of context.

"No problem offering attendence [sic] fees," McNaughton told McCorkell via text. "We will cover costs, stat dec is to tell the truth about mb's [Michael Bachelard's] call to you as discussed."



Asked about this exchange this week, McNaughton said: "No, I do not recall that whatsoever." Then the line went dead.

McCorkell responded to McNaughton's June text rejecting the money, "despite my constant need for it". He then signed a statutory declaration outlining the above details, which he sent to me. At the time, he wanted me to tell the story.

After July 15 last year, though, he suddenly went cold on the idea. Only later did I find out that was the same day he signed the "Services and Confidentiality Deed".

McCorkell started saying he would not give evidence in the defamation case.

"Mum and dad would basically disown me and im not minded to blow my family up over it even more so i dont want to do it at this stage … I just want to walk away from anything to do with it because they will publically [sic] make me out to be a liar and I'm not ready for that," he wrote to me in a series of texts.

Two things then happened. Firstly, the Plymouth Brethren (Exclusive Brethren) Christian Church Limited disputed the authenticity of the confidentiality deed in a court action.

Secondly, McCorkell admitted the document was authentic, though superseded. In a tape recorded phone conversation, he said: "I mean, they gave it. They did it as a business deal."

Did you get money? I asked.

"I got just a little bit to keep me going."

It did not keep him going for long. In March, McCorkell's business went into liquidation owing creditors more than $1 million. He died of complications of diabetes a few months later.

On October 3, the Brethren lost their defamation case against me and Fairfax. Supreme Court Justice Lucy McCallum ruled that we could not have defamed a company that did not exist when the events described in the story took place. The Brethren were ordered to pay Fairfax's costs.

Fairfax has been advised that the Brethren are appealing that decision.

A fortnight later, they still had not informed their flock about losing a case they all prayed so fervently to win.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/potential-witness-in-exclusive-brethren-sex-abuse-case-paid-to-remain-silent-20171018-gz35mf.html

The Right Chemistry: Placebos, persuasion and all that voodoo

So I visited New Orleans and bought a voodoo doll. Can it actually do harm?

JOE SCHWARCZ
MONTREAL GAZETTE
October 20, 2017

Bourbon Street in New Orleans features a number of shops selling voodoo dolls.

“Why is that one more expensive than these others,” I asked, pointing at one on the shelf behind the counter.

“Because that one is not just a souvenir — it is real,” came the answer.

Of course, I had to have that one.

The instructions were simple enough. To torment someone, you just have to acquire a piece of fingernail or a strand of hair from the intended victim and place it on the doll before sticking pins into it.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Well, it helps,” I was told, “if the person knows you intend to inflict harm.”

That argument I can buy, because what we then have is a classic example of the “nocebo effect.”

The term “nocebo” comes from the Latin meaning “I will harm” and can be regarded as the famous placebo’s evil twin.

A placebo produces health benefits in spite of having no plausible scientific merit, while the nocebo effect occurs when something that rationally should have no effect causes real symptoms. “Think sick and be sick” would be an appropriate description.

A study back in 1987 in which patients with unstable angina were treated with aspirin to reduce the risk of a heart attack represents a classic example. Some of the subjects were told that aspirin can cause gastrointestinal side effects, others were not. Six times as many patients withdrew from the study citing gastrointestinal effects in the group that had been told of the possibility of side effects than in the group that had not been so informed. There was no objective evidence such as peptic ulcer or gastrointestinal bleeding in the case of subjects who abandoned the study. Their subjective symptoms, which were very real, were generated by the mind. The nocebo effect in action.

There are numerous other examples. After reading accounts of radiation poisoning following the 2011 Fukushima accident in Japan, people as far away as the U.S. reported experiencing symptoms despite there being no possibility of exposure to radiation from the accident.

The nocebo effect can also be noted in cases of “mobile phone headache syndrome,” a condition in which people claim to suffer from headaches when they are exposed to radio frequencies generated by the device, often triggered by media accounts that raise the spectre of harm. However, when 17 individuals who claimed to be affected took part in a double-blind, randomized trial using sham or actual radio frequencies, no difference was found in reported instances of headache or other discomfort.

There are also some fascinating individual case reports. Take, for example, the man who was involved in a trial of a new antidepressant drug. He had a fight with his girlfriend and decided to end it all by taking all the pills in the bottle he had been given. Soon he started to feel ill, regretted his decision, and asked a neighbour to take him to the hospital where he duly collapsed. All tests came back negative, but the feeling of being unwell persisted. When doctors contacted the organizers of the study, it turned out that their patient had been in the placebo arm of the trial and had tried to kill himself with sugar pills. When informed of this, the man made a rapid recovery.

Now back to my voodoo doll. Can it actually do harm?

In 1942 Dr. Walter Cannon coined the term “voodoo death” to describe demise brought on by a strong emotional shock such as fear. He described a number of cases, albeit anecdotal, in which death occurred as a result of a belief that a curse had been imparted.

When the salesperson noted that I was somewhat skeptical about the evil powers of the doll, she quickly assured me that it can also be used for good. Stroking the doll, she explained, can trigger affection from a person whose picture is placed under the doll. I don’t think I would place too much faith in that, but I do think that a voodoo doll can cause mischief for people who believe in such things. The link between body and mind is indeed a fascinating one.

That relationship is exactly what we will explore further in this year’s “Trottier Public Science Symposium.” On Monday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m., we will hear from CTV health journalist Dr. Marla Shapiro and McGill placebo expert Dr. Amir Raz. On Oct. 24, also at 7 p.m., our speaker will be Dr. “Patch” Adams, who was portrayed by Robin Williams in a movie about his exploits. He will explore the value of laughter as therapy.

The location is the Centre Mont Royal, 1000 Sherbrooke St. W., corner Mansfield St. The event is free and, of course, everyone is welcome.

joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca
Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.

http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/the-right-chemistry-placebos-persuasion-and-all-that-voodoo

Historian digs into the hidden world of Mormon finances, shows how church went from losing money to making money - lots of it

The church built the shopping and housing center for $1.5 billion.

Peggy Fletcher Stack
Salt Lake Tribune
October 14, 2017

Some Mormons — and plenty of others — were appalled to witness their church build a $1.5 billion mall in downtown Salt Lake City and hear their prophet proclaim, “Let’s go shopping.”

Isn’t religion, they argued, supposed to be about feeding the hungry and clothing the poor? How is selling Tiffany jewelry, Nordstrom cocktail dresses and luxury condos any part of a Christian faith?

Such critics, though, fail to understand Mormonism, says historian D. Michael Quinn. The American-born movement has always seen its mission as serving both the spiritual and physical needs of its people. It doesn’t distinguish between the two.

“It’s as spiritual [for Latter-day Saints] to give alms to the poor,” Quinn told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2012, “... as it is to make a million dollars.”

On that last score, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been wildly successful, says Quinn, author of the newly published “Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth & Corporate Power.”

The church, launched in 1830 in upstate New York with six members, counts nearly 16 million members worldwide — and untold billions in assets.

It wasn’t alway so. At one point, the federal government confiscated all its properties, withholding them for nearly a decade. Thereafter, the Utah-based faith endured cycles of near bankruptcy every 20 to 30 years until it finally found its economic footing in the 1960s.

Quinn estimates — and estimating is about the best even a top-notch researcher can do — the church took in about $33 billion in tithing in 2010, based on a model of projected growth rates that followed a consistent pattern starting in the 1950s. It earns another $15 billion annually, he says, in returns on its profit-making investments. (The Bloomberg Businessweek piece from five years ago cited an investigation pegging the LDS Church’s worth at $40 billion.)

No matter the precise bottom line, these figures represent an astonishing accomplishment, Quinn says.

“It is an American success story without parallel,” the longtime historian says in an interview. “No institution, no church, no business, no nonprofit organization in America has had this kind of history.”

Yet LDS general authorities — from the most senior apostle to the lowest-ranking Seventy — all receive the same yearly “living allowance”: $120,000. Though the church has enormous wealth, he says, none of the leaders is getting rich off it.

The LDS Church declined to confirm any financial statistics or participate in this story.

As a seventh-generation Mormon, Quinn, who was excommunicated from the faith in 1993 for apostasy based on his historical writings about polygamy, says the LDS Church’s financial trajectory, as well as the self-sacrificing actions of its hierarchy, is “an enormously faith-promoting story.”

If everyday Mormons could grasp “the larger picture,” he says, they would “breathe a sigh of relief and see the church is not a profit-making business.”

Others, though, may not be as comfortable as Quinn with how corporate the church has become. For that, it takes some historical perspective.
Four-decade quest

Quinn began researching for this new book in 1975, when he was working on two volumes about the Mormon hierarchy: “Origins of Power” and “Extensions of Power.”

As he delved into the lives and connections of LDS apostles and prophets, he was determined to document and profile their business enterprises and how they were related.

Initially, Quinn wanted this new book on the Mormon hierarchy’s wealth to cover only the faith’s first 100 years, from 1830 to 1930, but the publisher, Salt Lake City-based Signature Books, insisted he explore all the way into the 21st century.

It became a massive undertaking, especially since most of the church’s modern financial records are private. Quinn worked on this final installment of his trilogy intensely for a few years, then off and on until 2008, when he returned to it full time.

The finished product totals more than 500 pages, with nearly 1,000 footnotes and scores of charts and graphs.

“It is a monumental work, thorough, comprehensive, painstaking,” says Larry Wimmer, a retired economics professor from LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University. “I couldn’t put it down. Read all night.”

Quinn’s tome does not reveal any hidden slush funds, untoward personal spending or malfeasance at the highest levels, Wimmer says, but it offers insights through the arc of history the professor has never before recognized.

“I felt by the end I knew where the church is today,” Wimmer says, “and how it got there.”

Like Quinn, the economist was impressed by the skilled leadership of men who brought their financial wizardry to their religious assignments.

“If you compare the 1930s, when the church was in real financial straits, to the 21st century,” Wimmer says, “you can see the church now has incredible resources at its command.”

For instance, the price tag for building temples and new chapels used to be borne by local members. Now the Salt Lake City headquarters picks up the tab.

“If someone had told my parents or grandparents that the church would take over all building expenses,” Wimmer says, “they wouldn’t have believed it.”

It now subsidizes the cost of Mormon missions and provides far more humanitarian aid than it ever was able to do earlier, he says. “And that is due, in large part, to the financial ability and experience of the leadership.”

Just last month, LDS Charities provided an additional $11 million in relief to eight famine-stricken nations in Africa and the Middle East.

Few could have imagined such resources when the faith’s finances began with $3,000 (equivalent to more than $72,000 in 2010) from farmer Martin Harris for the first printing of the Book of Mormon, the foundational LDS scripture.
Layers of loss

From that day forward, the church and its leaders faced repeated fiscal hardships — losing everything each time they had to abandon their homes and communities.

That would have been tough for any group, but Latter-day Saints were especially hard hit.

Like Smith, the “vast majority of Mormonism’s 19th-century leaders,” Quinn writes, “had previously been subsistence farmers or working-class townspeople with limited finances.”

Congregations were led by lay clergy, who received no remuneration. But even those leaders who worked full time in ecclesiastical roles received little payment.

Economic conditions may have prompted Mormon founder Joseph Smith to create a system for sharing resources known as the “law of consecration.” Under this plan, members were expected to give their “excess” income into a common pool maintained to help those in need.

This economic experiment, similar to what was happening with other groups across the country at the time, worked with varying success in the LDS Church’s early days and in parts of pioneer Utah. Eventually, Mormons were expected to pay only 10 percent of their “increase” to the church.

Most believers had paid tithing, but they did so in an uneven and unpredictable fashion until about 1900, when then-church President Lorenzo Snow asked members to pay on a “regular and consistent basis,” Quinn says. Tithing became a requirement for admittance to LDS temples, where Mormons take part in their faith’s highest ordinances.

That mandate had a clear and immediate impact.

At that time, the church was $2.5 million in debt, he says, but because of the tithing push, Snow’s successor Joseph F. Smith could announce in 1907 that the institution was debt-free.

Within a couple of decades, though, the red ink again began to flow.

From 1933 to 1950, the church saved about 72 percent of its annual income, creating a large reserve. But a building program from 1958 to 1963 blotted out all the reserve funds, and the church didn’t have enough liquid assets to meet all its obligations.

Starting in 1959, the faith began deficit spending, Quinn says, and thus stopped reporting its expenditures in General Conferences, hoping to keep that fact from the members.

By December 1962, the deficit had ballooned to nearly $33 million (or about $236 million in 2010 dollars) and, in 1963, the historian says, LDS headquarters “didn’t think it could meet its payroll.”

Such anxiety led leaders to take steps to ensure that would never happen again.

They brought Canadian N. Eldon Tanner on board as an apostle. Tapping his enormous financial know-how, the church began to rebuild its nest egg, cutting back on building projects and overseeing investments until it could get back in the black.

Tanner was “methodically rescuing the church from the brink,” Quinn writes. “By 1964, commercial income accounted for about 40 to 45 percent of its total income.”

Step by step, the historian writes, Tanner introduced the church to “corporate financing.”

It never looked back.
Prophetic imperative

At the same time, Mormon authorities did not act like corporate giants, enriching themselves on profits.

Through the years, they paid themselves less than what others in their employ made, Quinn says. Today, that is sometimes barely half as much as some of the church’s skilled bureaucrats.

CEOs of other top nonprofits, including Harvard, Yale and the United Way, make almost 10 times as much, he says. “It was truly humbling to see these men who preside over an institution making tens of billions of dollars turning [the funds] back to the benefit of the rank and file.”

That fulfills what Mormon leader Brigham Young, known as the “Lion of the Lord,” said in 1875. At that time, Joseph Smith’s successor and his apostles signed a document, decrying America’s approach to unregulated capitalism, including the “growth of wealth in the hands of a comparatively few individuals.”

The country’s “priceless legacy,” they wrote, was “endangered by the monstrous power which this accumulation of wealth gives to a few individuals and a few powerful corporations.”

By pocketing such relatively small salaries and using church assets to serve the members, Quinn says, Mormon leaders have “maintained the spirit of that attitude.”

Utah Valley University anthropologist Daymon Smith isn’t buying Quinn’s numbers or his perspective.

“His estimates regarding revenue are nothing more than ‘faith promoting’ in the key of ‘prosperity theology,‘” Smith writes in an email, “and his intentionally limited view of ‘stipends’ neglects the obvious other financial interests these humble men benefit from.”

Smith points to a major unanswered question: Why keep the finances secret, even from faithful members (working in downtown Salt Lake City’s Church Office Building, for example)?

“As a Mormon, I don’t care about the story the corporation tells about ‘church’ finances,” says Smith, who once worked at headquarters. “I’d like to see them — acting like a religious nonprofit — submit their financial activities to the light of independent accounting, and then we’d all have a fine testimony meeting about how rich our church has become, at least in materials pertaining to this world.”

If the church did reveal its finances, it would be “a positive story,” Quinn says, “but that would never satisfy outsiders and insiders who believe religion and money should never mix.”

LDS author, researcher and blogger Jana Riess hasn’t read Quinn’s book, but was intrigued by his positive view of Mormon leaders and their handling of money for the global faith.

“If the church was in dire financial trouble as recently as the 1950s, that means there are still people in the hierarchy who remember that,” Riess reasons. “I tend to think the generation gap that exists in the church [apostles with an average age of 76] as always negative. But having institutional memory — at least among a few — can be very helpful.”

The Cincinnati-based writer is also impressed with Quinn’s description of LDS leadership as a “form of service,” she says. “They are clearly not in it to get rich.”

The LDS convert long has recognized Mormonism’s entwining of spiritual and economic goals, yet she still believes the City Creek enterprise — at least in the way it has been marketed to members — doesn’t quite fit the theology.

There is a difference between production and consumption of wealth, Riess says. Generating goods to build an economic reservoir for the future care of the church and its members is a good thing.

For her, though, the Main Street venture tipped the scales from preaching frugality to promoting luxury shopping.

In that mall, there is a store named True Religion that sells jeans for more than $200.

The irony, she says, “is palpable.”

http://www.sltrib.com/religion/local/2017/10/14/historian-digs-into-the-hidden-world-of-mormon-finances-shows-how-church-went-from-losing-money-to-making-money-lots-of-it/

Hungary: Police search Scientology center in Budapest

Fox News
Associated Press
October 18, 2017

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Hungarian police say they are carrying out a search at a Church of Scientology center in Budapest.

Police said the search by members of the National Investigation Bureau is related to an investigation into the suspected misuse of personal information and other crimes, but will not be releasing more information because the inquiry was ongoing.

Online publication riposzt.hu said over 50 police officers surrounded the church's Budapest headquarters on one of the Hungarian capital's busiest roads early Wednesday.

The Church of Scientology is not among the 32 churches officially recognized by Hungary since a widely disputed law on churches and religious matters went into force in 2012.

The church did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/18/hungary-police-search-scientology-center-in-budapest.html

Former Philly neo-Nazi now fighting white supremacy with empathy

Frank Meeink

At 16, Frank Meeink was a notorious skinhead gang leader. Later, out of prison, a Jewish business owner helped him see things differently.

JOHN KOPP
PhillyVoice Staff
October 18, 2017

Frank Meeink remembers rolling into a Lancaster nightclub with one primary purpose: picking a fight with a group of skaters during a concert.

He was 14 years old and his childhood had been anything but easy. But the South Philadelphia native finally had found acceptance – with a group of skinheads.

A fight indeed broke out during the concert, with Meeink safely perched atop the shoulders of a larger skinhead. Yet, he realized their power when his group verbally threatened another skater as they left the venue.

"I saw the look on his face and I absolutely loved it," Meeink said. "... It felt good to see someone have fear of me. That night, someone asked if I wanted to be a part of it, and I f***ing jumped at it."

Soon, Meeink was hating more than skaters.

Meeink quickly ascended the ranks of the neo-Nazi world, even hosting a cable access talk show, "The Reich," on television. But within three years, he was a teenager serving time in an adult prison in Illinois.

Once again, his world began to change – a bit more slowly. He began questioning his white supremacist ideology, eventually abandoning his fellow neo-Nazis not long after being released from prison.

Today, Meeink serves as a vocal opponent of white supremacy, sharing his recovery story at speaking engagements across the country.

An updated version of his book, "Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead," was published last month by Hawthorne Books, adding an additional nine chapters to history. The new section details his struggles with addiction, his friendships with celebrities and the deaths of his son and mother.

"I end the book saying, 'I don't know what's going to happen,'" Meeink said. "I just know that it's been a long journey and the book is what I've learned."

But Meeink said he'll never return to a lifestyle based on hate.

"Racism is the greatest bait-and-switch ever pulled in the world," Meeink said. "It's a legendary bait-and-switch. It's done on such a horrendous scale. It's something you have no control of – it's your skin."

White supremacy provides its believers acceptance, a feeling coveted by most of the ideology's recruits, Meeink said. But that acceptance comes at a tremendous cost.

Meeink remembers a conversation he once had with Tony McAleer, a former recruiter for the White Aryan Resistance with whom he co-founded Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps individuals who want to leave a lifestyle of hatred and violence.

"'Frank, we didn't lose our humanity when we joined this group,'" Meeink recalled McAleer saying. "'We just gave it up for acceptance.'"

'THIS BECAME MY LIFE'

Meeink was introduced to white supremacy when he moved out to the Lancaster area to live with his cousin, who helped him assimilate into a group of neo-Nazis.

And it came at a moment when he was craving acceptance.

His childhood in South Philly had been difficult. His mother mostly raised him on her own until age 9, when she remarried a man whom Meeink says often tried to "beat the Italian out of me."

"I can't say, 'Abracadabra, I'm not the neo-Nazi whisperer here. I'm just a guy who can relate to a guy who has gone down that path." – Frank Meeink, former Philadelphia skinhead

At 13, Meeink moved in with his dad in Southwest Philadelphia, where he attended a mostly-black middle school. He routinely engaged in fights.

Meeink finally found people who took an interest in his life when he went to live with his cousin.

He accompanied the skinheads to Bible studies, where they'd share ideology. Beforehand, they'd shoot guns together.

Most importantly, the skinheads inquired about his life in Philly.

"They couldn't fathom that I had seen black people all the time," Meeink said. "To me, it was someone asking me, 'How is my life?'"

Finally feeling accepted, Meeink eventually bought into their ideology.

He soon was traveling across the country, recruiting others to join the neo-Nazi movement and espousing his views on television. He rolled with neo-Nazi groups notorious for their violence.

"It changed everything in me," Meeink said. "I grew up a huge Philadelphia Flyers fan, a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan. I could tell you who their draft picks were up until 1988. After 1988, until 1994, I can't tell you who was on the team. This became my life."

SEEDS OF CHANGE

One Christmas Eve, Meeink and an accomplice kidnapped a rival skinhead at gunpoint in Springfield, Illinois and spent the evening beating him – all while recording it on videotape. The victim informed the police and, soon enough, Meeink was serving three years in an adult correctional facility.

But that experience provided the seeds for change.

During prison recess, Meeink began playing football with a group of black inmates who welcomed him into their crowd – despite his swastika tattoo.

"Right now, one of their guys is in the White House. They feel empowered by this, definitely." – Frank Meeink

"They let me be a kickoff returner on the first play," Meeink said. "I knew no one was going to block for me. I ran that ball back for a touchdown. After that, they let me play."

And bonds began to form.

"After we were done playing sports with the guys, you talk," Meeink said. "You talk about home life. You talk about girls. I just enjoyed my time with them. ... They were city kids like me."

Upon his prison release, Meeink initially returned to his neo-Nazi crowd in Philadelphia. But a number of experiences, including his time in prison, prompted him to leave.

A Jewish man in Fox Chase not only had given him a job as a furniture assemblyman, but he had treated Meeink with respect. He began cross-referencing his stereotypes with the realities he saw in his life.

But it was empathy that broke him, Meeink said. And it holds the power to do that to others, too.

Today, when he's talking to someone struggling to overcome his or her hateful ideology, that's the tool he uses.

"I can't say, 'Abracadabra,'" Meeink said. "I'm not the neo-Nazi whisperer here. I'm just a guy who can relate to a guy who has gone down that path."

FROM HIDING TO ACTIVISM

For Meeink, the path to advocacy began with the Oklahoma City bombing, carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in April 1995.

The explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people. Afterward, investigators found excerpts of "The Turner Diaries" in McVeigh's getaway car. The novel, by neo-Nazi William Pierce, describes the bombing of the FBI headquarters with a homemade bomb.

"That whole event tore me up inside," Meeink said. "When I saw the pictures of that dead little girl in the firefighter's arms, it made me go from a guy in South Philly who was hiding from his past to an activist."

Meeink first went to the FBI – not because he had anything to report, but because he knew they would understand his past. The FBI pointed him to the Anti-Defamation League, which kickstarted the speaking engagements he has continued to this day.

"You can't just not do bad s*** and think you should get a cookie for that," Meeink said. "I started thinking, 'I'm always going to do something positive.'"

Meeink partnered with the Flyers to launch Hockey Through Harmony, a hate prevention program, and later developed a similar program in Des Moines, Iowa, where he now lives.

He also helped launch Life After Hate, where he speaks with people grappling with the same hatred he once fostered.

'THEY FEEL EMPOWERED'

White supremacist groups have gained headlines across the United States during the last year, most prominently during a rally in Charlottesville that left three people dead, including Heather Heyer, who was killed when a car crashed into a crowd of protesters.

Meeink is blunt when addressing the state of white supremacy in America.

"Right now, one of their guys is in the White House," Meeink said. "They feel empowered by this, definitely. "

White supremacist groups also surged after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Meeink said. But they lost their momentum when Obama didn't take the myriad actions white supremacists claimed he would. But Trump's campaign awakened them.

Now, many white supremacists groups are identifying as "Alt-Right," an uber-form of conservatism.

"They always have to rebrand themselves from the groups that are before them, because they did really bad s***," Meeink said. "These guys have to change the script a little bit. They have to say, 'We're not the same guys.'

"They're fearful, scared males. It's the same group."

That fear prompts them to resort to violence, as seen in Charlottesville, Meeink said.

"Because you're full of fear, that's what happens," Meeink said. "They lash out violently. What else are you going to get out of the situation?"

That's where Meeink preaches empathy.

Violence by leftist groups won't halt the hateful rhetoric spewed by white supremacists, Meeink said. Nor will accusations.

Instead, Meeink said, it takes someone to show them the love and empathy they seek. And it helps when it comes from someone like him, who once shared the same identity.

"I'm going to tell them why they believe that way," Meeink said. "Here's the truth to that. Or here's the turning point."

It's what led him out of white supremacism. And he's convinced it's the best tool for leading others out, too.

http://www.phillyvoice.com/former-philly-neo-nazi-now-fighting-white-supremacy-empathy/

Costa Rica 'cult' facing deportation, Canadian man safely leaves group

Eligio Bishop, left Alex Raposo, right

Group leader 'Nature Boy' says he was roughed up by police during arrest

Ryan Cooke

CBC News

October 19, 2017

An alleged cult in Costa Rica may have met its end, after local police detained the group following a traffic stop and held 11 of them for deportation.

The group, dubbed Melanation by its leader Eligio Bishop, has a large online following and follows a back-to-nature philosophy promoted through social media.

Who is Natureboy? 'Cult' leader says Kayla Reid can leave at any time

Corner Brook woman in Costa Rican 'cult', says family pleading for her return

Most of the members were living in Costa Rica illegally, according to Alex Raposo, a Toronto man who joined the group three weeks ago.

"Everything on the car was expired — all the paperwork, the licence plate. So [police] impounded the vehicle," Raposo said. "Along with that, I think six people had expired passports. They overstayed in the country for a long time."

Bishop is among the members who say they are being deported. Raposo has a valid travel visa and was released soon after being detained.

Known to his followers as Nature Boy, Bishop made news last March when a 21-year-old woman from Newfoundland and Labrador quietly left home to join him.

Kayla Reid was listed as a missing person by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, until she showed up in a live stream on Facebook from Costa Rica.

Her mother expressed concerns to CBC News, saying Bishop had taken advantage of her daughter's mental illness and that her daughter had joined a cult.

On March 20, Bishop told CBC News that Reid was free to go at any time. He did not deny being a cult leader, but said he also believes all countries and corporations are cults.

The next day, he gave Reid a plane ticket to Florida, where a family member picked her up and brought her home.

While Reid expressed a desire to go back to the group, Raposo said he wants nothing to do with Eligio Bishop anymore.

"He wants to be the big man who stood up for something," Raposo said. "He wants to live free without a passport in nature. But you can't do that."

Detention turns rocky, police get rough

The group was detained near Puerto Limón, the sixth-largest city in Costa Rica, after being stopped at a police checkpoint.

When it was discovered they were in the country illegally, the group members were told to wait for a bus to come and take them to see immigration officials, Raposo said.

When the bus took them to the police station, Bishop told the group to stay put.

A video shows police trying to forcibly remove them from the bus. Bishop is heard repeating "I love you" to an officer as he attempted to pull him out of his seat.

In subsequent videos, some members of the group said they were charged with resisting arrest. Bishop and one other man showed off cuts and bruises to followers during a Facebook live from the police station.

Raposo was allowed to leave the entire time, but felt obligated to stay with the group he considered his family.

Seeing things from different light

Raposo said he now sees the struggle as being futile, but at the time he felt he had to follow Bishop's commands.

After a few days away from the group, Raposo said he feels "awakened."

"[Bishop] created a situation out of nothing," Raposo said of the detaining.

Some members of the group say they were charged with resisting arrest following a traffic stop near Puerto Limon on Oct. 14. (Eligio Bishop/Facebook)

"Just because you're against the system and you don't like paperwork, doesn't mean you can do what he did."

No traveller from North America is permitted to stay longer than 90 days in Costa Rica without a visa.

Raposo said he now feels differently about the man he once revered as Nature Boy.

"He's just manipulative. He knows how to use his words very well ... I'm not going to say he controlled me, but it's just I fell for it."

Travelled to Costa Rica to change lifestyle

Displeased with life in Toronto, Raposo became one of the nearly 37,000 people following Bishop on YouTube and Facebook.

A strong believer in a lifestyle closer to nature, Raposo went to Costa Rica and joined Melanation.

Three people close to Raposo reached out to CBC News before he left and expressed concerns he was joining a cult.

Two former members of the group have said they were asked to turn over their cash upon joining the group, and said Bishop gets donations from his followers online.

'Making a change is not going against a system that is still here.' - Alex Raposo

One member, who left the group last winter, accused Bishop of manipulating his followers into staying with him, adding he is motivated by controlling people's lives.

The former member also labelled the group as a cult.

Raposo said he does not feel like he joined a cult, but did feel manipulated and misled by Bishop before moving to Costa Rica. Upon arriving at the group's headquarters, he realized they were not living a back-to-nature lifestyle at all.

"[Bishop] was still paying rent for a house," Raposo said. "He was still buying materialistic things."

Alex Raposo says he now feels 'awakened,' and despite wanting to continue living a life away from the modern world, he says he will also do it away from Eligio Bishop. (Alex Raposo/Facebook)

Still, the former personal trainer said he has no regrets and was thankful for Bishop encouraging him to leave a modern lifestyle behind.

Raposo said he will stay in Costa Rica for now, and keep pursuing a life closer to nature — but he will do it legally.

"I just want to send a message of peace and love," he said.

"It's time to make a change ourselves. But making a change is not going against a system that is still here, because you pay consequences for it if you try to be a smartass."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/costa-rica-nature-boy-melanation-eligio-bishop-alex-raposo-1.4360235

Melbourne base of US religious cult sells for $9.5 million

THE Australian base of a US religious cult — whose founder quit amid a wave of allegations of sexual assault — has sold for $3.5 million more than its quoted price on Melbourne’s fringe.

Scott Carbines
Herald Sun
OCTOBER 20, 2017

THE Australian base of a US religious cult — whose founder quit amid a wave of allegations of sexual assault — has sold for $9.5 million on Melbourne’s fringe.

The Institute in Basic Life Principles’ 3.36ha “Yarra training ­facility” at 111 Mangans Rd, Lilydale, was on the market for $6 million.

The IBLP has run its home school program and seminars from the property, which features on-site houses, apartment complexes, conference centres and a commercial kitchen.

IBLP Australian director Robin Harrison said he believed developer Westrock had purchased the site to turn into housing lots.

“We were sort of driven out really by the cost of utilities,” he said.

“Mainly electricity got beyond the capacity of the families to support, so we’re looking around for another home for the institute ... the electricity bill just doubled in one year. It was $7000 a month just for electricity, so that’s what tipped it over. It’s a pity to lose the open spaces.”

Mr Harrison said the group would be looking for a new base in the local area and would vacate its Mangans Rd home of 17 years mid 2018.

Westrock director John Delaney would not comment to the Herald Sun on whether it had purchased the site, adding “we’re private people.”

A mix of developers, retirement village operators and church or not-for-profit organisations had shown interest in the site, according to MBA Multisell director Mike Brown.

But Mr Brown would not take a call from the Herald Sun about the sale.

The IBLP claims millions have ­attended its seminars since it was founded by Bill Gothard in 1961.

The group states its purpose is to provide instruction on how to “succeed in life” by following principles found in Scripture — but it has been marred by serious allegations in the US of sexual harassment and abuse as well as cover-ups.

The IBLP incorporates several “programs”, including its advanced training institute, which has a branch at the Lilydale property.

That is a Bible-based homeschooling program whose most notorious alumni are the stars of canned US reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting.

The show was engulfed by scandal in 2015 after the eldest son admitted sexually abusing girls, including several of his sisters.

He is believed to have attended a IBLP-run facility after admitting the abuse.

Mr Gothard resigned in 2014 after more than 30 women made sexual harassment and molestation claims against him.

A lawsuit against him and the cult was launched by ex-members last year alleging physical and sexual abuse.

He has denied all the claims.

The lawsuit alleges that IBLP is liquidating its assets and calls for a trust to be established to ensure alleged victims can be compensated.

The controversial founder is listed as a seminar instructor on the IBLP Australia website.

Marketed as a “developer’s dream,” the 3.36ha Lilydale property includes training areas, two 24-bedroom apartment complexes, two four-bedroom “American-style” homes and one three-bedroom “manager’s home”.

It also features three large office complexes, one large conference centre, two smaller conference rooms and a commercial kitchen with seating for more than 100 people.

The IBLP Australia website advertises seminars at the Lilydale property until January 2018.

scott.carbines@news.com.au

Originally published as US cult’s Melbourne base sells for $9.5m

http://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/melbourne-base-of-us-religious-cult-sells-for-95-million/news-story/1e91b90487f4e5127887898d30320884

In 2,500 words on abusive psycho-spiritual group, New York Times buries crucial four-letter word

Mark Kellner
GetReligion
October 20, 2017

Anyone who has followed the history of new religious movements in the United States and elsewhere knows that, since the 1970s, the word "cult" is one four-letter word newspapers have often been loath to apply to controversial groups.

That wasn't the case before and after the 1978 Jonestown massacre, when newspapers saw cults under almost every rock.

But now, there's a great reticence at using this particular four-letter word in many news organizations. What, however, can a newspaper do when a group really and truly has the markings of a, well, cult, at the level of sociology and human behavior? Do you use the word or bury it?

For an answer, consider this front-page story from The New York Times, which reports on what can easily be considered a psycho-spiritual group, called NXIVM (pronounced neks-ee-um). In some cases, this organization literally leaves its mark on adherents, according to the story, headlined "Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded."

Read this longish excerpt to understand the scene being set:

ALBANY -- Last March, five women gathered in a home near here to enter a secret sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.

To gain admission, they were required to give their recruiter – or “master,” as she was called – naked photographs or other compromising material and were warned that such “collateral” might be publicly released if the group’s existence were disclosed.

The women, in their 30s and 40s, belonged to a self-help organization called Nxivm, which is based in Albany and has chapters across the country, Canada and Mexico.

Sarah Edmondson, one of the participants, said she had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.

Each woman was told to undress and lie on a massage table, while three others restrained her legs and shoulders. According to one of them, their “master,” a top Nxivm official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”

A female doctor proceeded to use a cauterizing device to sear a two-inch-square symbol below each woman’s hip, a procedure that took 20 to 30 minutes. For hours, muffled screams and the smell of burning tissue filled the room.

Now, this excerpt contains the first 210 words of a 2,500-word story. That larger number is a huge total word count by today's newspaper standards. As readers of the entire piece will find, the story goes into agonizing detail about the secrecy and rituals of this group, not to mention the concerns of family members – including "Dynasty" actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose daughter, India, was caught up in NXIVM – over everything that goes on.

Read the whole story. And see if the description doesn't scream "cult."

So where do we find that designation? In the absolute last sentence of the piece, and uttered by the "branding" victim whose anecdote led things off:

Ms. Edmondson and other former followers of [NXIVM founder and leader Keith] Raniere said they were focusing on recovering.

“There is no playbook for leaving a cult,” she said.

(Actually, if author Steven Hassan, a former Unification Church member, is to be believed, his 2015 book "Combatting Cult Mind Control" is such a playbook. But I digress.)

Why didn't The New York Times call NXIVM a cult or consult an expert in such matters for background?

Well, to be fair, they didn't use the word in obituaries for Unification Church founder the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, rogue Hare Krishna leader Swami Bhaktipada, or Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. All three groups gained prominence in the 1970s and all three have been labeled "cults" by critics, either for doctrinal reasons, sociological reasons or both.

NXIVM seems more psychological than spiritual, but there were spiritual elements, it seems:

In March, Ms. Edmondson arrived for an initiation ceremony at Ms. Salzman’s home in Clifton Park, N.Y., a town about 20 miles north of Albany where Mr. Raniere and some followers live. After undressing, she was led to a candlelit ceremony, where she removed a blindfold and saw Ms. Salzman’s other slaves for the first time. The women were then driven to a nearby house, where the branding took place.

Other media have given more prominence to the "cult" claim. In 2012, the Albany Times-Union ran an investigative series, "Secrets of NXIVM," which used the word in a sub-headline, with the text going further:

At least one cult expert said Raniere directs one of the most extreme cults he has ever studied and has likened Raniere to David Koresh, who most Americans link with images of a burning cult compound packed with women and children. Raniere has denied that NXIVM is a cult.

Earlier, in 2003, Forbes magazine called NXIVM a "Cult of Personality," quoting billionaire Edgar Bronfman, Sr.'s assessment:

But some people see a darker and more manipulative side to Keith Raniere. Detractors say he runs a cult-like program aimed at breaking down his subjects psychologically, separating them from their families and inducting them into a bizarre world of messianic pretensions, idiosyncratic language and ritualistic practices. “I think it’s a cult,” says Bronfman. Though he once took a course and endorsed the program, he hasn’t talked to his daughters in months and has grown troubled over the long hours and emotional and financial investment they have been devoting to Raniere’s group. One daughter, Clare, 24, has lent the program $2 million, at 2.5% interest, the senior Bronfman says (she denies this).

In 2014, NXIVM sued some journalists – including a Times-Union reporter – over allegations the writers "hacked" into organizational computers to steal secret information. According to The Nation magazine, the suit cast a pall at the time. But in 2015 a judge tossed the lawsuit.

As I said, there's plenty of skittishness about using the word "cult" in news stories about religious or spiritual communities, but there are perhaps times when the label is deserved. Church historians, sociologists and others debate definitions of this term and much can be learned by paying attention to their discussions.

This might have been one of the times to use the word "cult" and then discuss it. If editors at The New York Times thought the word "cult" was suitable for what was very much the final quoted word in the story, then perhaps it could have been used – and explained – higher up.

https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2017/10/18/in-2500-words-on-abusive-psycho-spiritual-group-the-new-york-times-buries-a-crucial-c-word

TAJIKISTAN: One more prisoner of conscience

Mushfig Bayram
Forum 18
October 20, 2017

Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector to military service Daniil Islamov has been jailed for six months. And the government has imposed highly intrusive Mourning Regulations ordering among other things: "Crying while grieving for the dead is allowed. But crying and wailing loudly .. is forbidden".

Eighteen-year-old Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector to military service Daniil Islamov was on 13 October sentenced to six months jail, Jehovah’s Witnesses who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18. Prisoner of conscience Islamov is the first conscientious objector to have been jailed, and his lawyer is preparing to appeal against the sentnce (see below)

Protestant prisoner of conscience Pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov has been moved to a prison about 360 kilometres (about 220 miles) away from his home, and has been placed in solitary confinement. "We do not know when exactly he was put in solitary confinement and when he will be moved to his general regime prison", Protestants who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18 (see below).

The State Committee for Religious Affairs and Regulation of Traditions, Ceremonies and Rituals (SCRA) and the state-controlled Council of Ulems have issued Mourning Regulations imposing a procedure that all ceremonies mourning dead Muslim people and the expression of condolences on this loss must follow. Amongst their highly intrusive regulations is: "Crying while grieving for the dead is allowed. But crying and wailing loudly .. is forbidden" (see below)

Asked by Forum 18 if the Mourning Regulations were not both a violation of people’s fundamental freedoms, as well as state interference in peoples’ very personal emotional matters, Abdurakhmon Mavlanov of the SCRA replied: "I wonder why somebody in Canada should be interested or concerned for religious issues in Tajikistan." He then refused to speak further with Forum 18 (see below).

And three actors have been given police permission to wear beards in plays (see below).

A Tajik human rights defender who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18 on 20 October that the "authorities are radicalising Muslims by such actions", noting that "when the authorities attack the hijab and women, local Muslims begin sympathising with the radicals". They also commented that: "This is stupidity! Instead of finding real terrorists they punish innocent people" (see below).

Conscientious objector prisoner of conscience jailed

Eighteen-year-old Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Daniil Islamov was on 13 October sentenced to six months jail. Judge Alisher Rafikozda, Chair of Qurghonteppa Military Court in the southern Khatlon Region, sentenced prisoner of conscience Islamov under the Criminal Code’s Article 376 Part 1 ("Evasion by an enlisted serviceman of fulfilment of military service obligations by way of inflicting on oneself injury (self-mutilation) or evasion by simulation of sickness or by other deception"), Jehovah’s Witnesses who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18 on 18 October.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been banned in Tajikistan since 2007, military comments at the time suggesting that the ban might possibly be linked to this pacifist community's conscientious objection to compulsory military service. Since 2007 Jehovah’s Witnesses have endured raids on their meetings, prosecutions uing police agent provacteurs and torture whil exercising their internationally-recognised right to freedom of religuon and belief (see Forum 18's Tajikistan religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2138). Prisoner of conscience Islamov is the first conscientious objector to have been jailed.

Prisoner of conscience Islamov was forcibly conscripted in April 2017, despite heath problems preventing him doing military service even if he wanted to do it, and has since April been detained in a military unit (see F18News 31 August 2017 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2312).

In May 2013 the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee in its Concluding Observations on Tajikistan (CCPR/C/TJK/CO/2) "reiterates its previous concern (CCPR/CO/84/TJK, para. 20) about the State party’s lack of recognition of the right to conscientious objection to compulsory military service, and at the absence of alternatives to military service (art. 18)". It stated that Tajikstyan should "take necessary measures to ensure that the law recognizes the right of individuals to exercise conscientious objection to compulsory military service, and establish, if it so wishes, non-punitive alternatives to military service" (see F18News 31 August 2017 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2312).

Immediately after the court hearing, prisoner of conscience Islamov was taken to a temporary detention prison in the south-western town of Kurganteppa [Qurghonteppa] where is still being held. Where he will be taken for the rest of his jail term is unclear. Prisoner of conscience Islamov’s lawyer is preparing an appeal against the sentence.

Court officials claimed that Judge Rafikzoda was "not available to talk" and his phone was not answered on 18 October. His assistant Izzatullozoda (who would not give his first name) told Forum 18 the prisoner of conscience Islamov will serve his sentence in a general regime prison. He refused to further discuss the case or Tajikistan’s binding legal human rights obligations in international law with Forum 18, claiming that he does not know the case well.

Protestant prisoner of conscience moved further from family, put in solitary confinement

Prisoner of conscience Pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov has been moved to Yavan Prison in the southern Khatlon Region, which is about 360 kilometres (about 220 miles) from Khujand in the northern Sogd Region where Pastor Kholmatov and his family live, Protestants who asked not to be named for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18 on 16 October. While on trial and while his appeal was heard (which he lost) he had been held 80 kms (50 miles) from his home (see F18News 31 August 2017 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2312).

Prisoner of conscience Pastor Kholmatov was jailed for three years for allegedly "singing extremist songs in church and so inciting ‘religious hatred’". The government threatened family members, friends, and church members with reprisals if they reveal any details of the case, trial, or jailing (see F18News 30 July 2017 http://forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2298). The National Security Committee (NSC) secret police arrested Pastor Kholmatov on 10 April after they raided his Sunmin Sunbogym (Full Gospel) Protestant Church in Khujand, and harassed and physically tortured with beatings its members (see F18News 28 April 2017 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2276).

Prisoner of conscience Kholmatov has been placed in solitary confinement in Yavan Prison, the authorities claiming that this is in accordance with the normal procedure in the Code on Execution of Punishments. Article 77 Part 2 states that convicts are placed in solitary confinement for 15 days before being relased into the main prison. "We do not know when exactly he was put in solitary confinement and when he will be moved to his general regime prison" Protestants said. "He will be allowed to receive parcels and visits from his family", and they also said he has his Bible with him and is allowed to read it.

Prisoner of conscience Kholmatov’s address is:

Tajikistan
Yavan
Ispravitelno-Trudovaya Koloniya, yas. 3/6
6th otryad
Bakhromu Khasanovichu Kholmatovu

State regulations for mourning the dead

The State Committee for Religious Affairs and Regulation of Traditions, Ceremonies and Rituals (SCRA) and the state-controlled Council of Ulems (which controls all permitted public expressions of Islam) have issued Mourning Regulations imposing a procedure that all ceremonies mourning dead Muslim people and the expression of condolences on this loss must follow.

The imposition of Mourning Regulations was announced in September 2017 changes to the Traditions Law, which at the same time saw teachers being banned from attending mosques on the Islamic festival Id al-Adha. They and children were forced to attend school, even though the state declared it a holiday. Officials also banned haj pilgrimage returnees from holding celebratory meals (see F18News 12 September 2017 http://forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2315). The only expressions of Islam allowed are Sunni Hanafi (see Forum 18's Tajikistan religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2138).


Independent Tajik news agency Asiaplus reported on 18 October that the authorities had issued 500,000 copies of the Mourning Regulations.

"Crying while grieving for the dead is allowed"..

Amongst the Mourning Regulations are orders that:

- Payment of fees for the work of grave-diggers must be made in the presence of an authorised state official;

- Crying while grieving for the dead is allowed. But crying and wailing loudly, casting earth onto one’s head, tearing hair out, scratching ones face [all traditional Tajik customs] are forbidden;

- Only very close relatives and children of the deceased can stay in the same house with the deceased overnight. Close relatives can only publicly mourn for three days;

- Wearing black clothes during mourning is banned;

- Using microphones to amplify prayers during burial is banned;

- After the burial it is "not recommended" to stay in the house of the deceased for many hours.

"I wonder why somebody in Canada should be interested.."

Abdurakhmon Mavlanov of the SCRA in Dushanbe refused to comment on 19 October, when asked by Forum 18 if the Mourning Regulations were not both a violation of people’s fundamental freedoms, as well as state interference in peoples’ very personal emotional matters. "I cannot comment", he said.

When Forum 18 repeated the question, he replied: "I wonder why somebody in Canada should be interested or concerned for religious issues in Tajikistan." He then refused to speak further with Forum 18.

A Tajik human rights defender who wished to remain anonymous for fear of state reprisals told Forum 18 on 20 October that the "authorities are radicalising Muslims by such actions". They noted that "the authorities say that they are for national values, but these regulations are actually getting rid of Tajik traditions which have existed for centuries". They also commented that: "This is stupidity! Instead of finding real terrorists they punish innocent people".

"Total control of Muslim activity"

The state has particularly sought to control and restrict all Muslims who exercise their freedom of religion and belief (see Forum 18's Tajikistan religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2138). Mosque demolitions, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, a ban on state employees at Friday prayers, youth activists to prevent prayers not in Hanafi or Ismaili tradition have all been part of the state’s increasing moves to "establish total control of Muslim activity", human rights defenders have told Forum 18 (see F18News 6 May 2016 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2175).

Actors given police permission to wear beards in plays

Commenting on the authorities’ campaign against women wearing the hijab and men wearing beards, the human rights defender noted that a radical group is using the slogan "Wives and mothers protect your honour", and that "when the authorities attack the hijab and women, local Muslims begin sympathising with the radicals".

President Emomali Rahmon has been attacking women wearing the hijab as well as men wearing beards from at least March 2015. About the same time, police began forcibly shaving bearded Muslim men throughout the country (see Forum's Tajikistan religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2138). In Spring 2017 officials launched a massive renewed campaign against women wearing the hijab (Islamic headscarf). Victims and human rights defenders complain that women have been questioned, threatened and fined, as have some husbands. Some have lost their jobs or been forced to leave school (see F18News 2 August 2017 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2301).

The campaign against hijab wearing women and beard-wearing men continues. Police in the northern city of Konibodom in Sogd Region have given written permission to three actors to wear beards, Radio Free Europe reported on 13 October. Khushnudi Dado, Farrukh Vaitov and Farkhod Tukhtashov of the Musical-Drama Theatre were all permitted to wear beards while performing in the ballet Death of a Usurer. The actors were given permission after police on 7 October stopped and questioned them in a street.

Mavlanov of the SCRA told Forum 18 that the SCRA does not give such permission. "We do not give such permission, but in Sogd Region the police gave this permission", he said.

Interior Ministry Press Secretary Umarjon Emomali Umarjon Emomali on 20 October told Forum 18 that: "I don’t know who made this news [about the actors’ beards]". Asked why men are pressured not to wear beards, he replied: "We want to be a developed country, we don’t want visiting guests to have the wrong impression of us as untidy people". Asked what this has to do with being a developed country, he replied that "we are not against beards but they need to look more cultured and well-groomed".

He denied that the state forcing men not to wear beards and women not to wear hijabs violated their fundamental freedoms. (END)

More coverage of freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Tajikistan is at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=31.

For more background see Forum 18's Tajikistan religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=2138.

A compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1351.

A printer-friendly map of Tajikistan is available at http://nationalgeographic.org/education/mapping/outline-map/?map=Tajikistan.

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All Forum 18 material may be referred to, quoted from, or republished in full, if Forum 18 <www.forum18.org> is credited as the source.

http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2327

Glenn Close says growing up in a cult motivated her to be a better parent

Fox News
October 19, 2017

Before Glenn Close became a Hollywood star, she was a member of a religious cult known as the Moral Re-Armament (MRA). But the 70-year-old insisted her traumatic childhood has helped her become a better parent to 29-year-old Annie Maude Starke.

“You’re totally pulled up from what your roots were, what you love and your family is pulled apart,” Close recalled to Closer Weekly Thursday. “It was very destructive.”

Close said her controversial past has made her determined to give her daughter a stable and loving upbringing.

“She’s wonderful and makes me incredibly proud,” explained Close. “I’m also proud that I have a great friendship with her father [producer John H. Starke], and when she turned seven she was living in the same house that she was taken home to when she was born, and we still have that house.”

Back in 2014, Close told The Hollywood Reporter she was just 7-years-old when her father, a Harvard-educated doctor, joined MRA, a group founded during the late 1930s. The publication added it was led by Rev. Frank Buchman, who was recognized as a “violently anti-intellectual and possibly homophobic evangelical fundamentalist.”

“You basically weren’t allowed to do anything, or you were made to feel guilty about any unnatural desire,” said Close at the time. “If you talk to anybody who was in a group that basically dictates how you’re supposed to live and what you’re supposed to say and how you’re supposed to feel, from the time you’re 7 till the time you’re 22, it has a profound impact on you. It’s something you have to [consciously overcome] because all of your trigger points are [wrong].”

Close wouldn’t reveal how she manage to leave MRA at age 22, but she did share how her memories impacted her over the years.

“I would have dreams because I didn’t go to any psychiatrist or anything,” she said. “I had these dreams, and they started with betrayal, a sense of betrayal, and then they developed into me being able to look at these people and say, ‘You’re wrong. You’re wrong.’ And then the final incarnation of those dreams was my being able to calmly get up and walk away. And then I didn’t have them anymore.”

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/10/19/glenn-close-says-growing-up-in-cult-motivated-her-to-be-better-parent.html

The Church of Scientology is opening a new multi-million pound 'Ideal Org' in Birmingham

International Business Times UK

By Josh Robbins

October 19, 2017

The Church of Scientology will open a major centre at a Grade-II listed building in Birmingham on 21 October where protesters are expected to greet its leader David Miscavige - anticipated to cut the ribbon on the day - and his devout followers.

IBTimes UK understands the controversial church has finished renovating the iconic property, called Pitmaston House, which it purchased 10 years ago, and lies in Moseley, a leafy suburb of the West Midlands city. Hundreds of Scientologists from across Europe will descend on the estate for the opening, and members of the local community are also invited.

The grand unveiling comes just a week after another Scientology hub, or "Ideal Org", was opened in Dublin with a large security operation to keep out a group of vocal protesters and the media. Miscavige was in Ireland for the opening.

Ex-Scientologist-turned-fierce critic Pete Griffiths told IBTimes UK he would be heading over to Birmingham from Ireland along with a handful of others who believe the church is about nothing more than making money – a claim Scientology strongly denies – to join other protesters.

Griffiths said: "There will be serious security. I have no doubt there will be loud speakers to block out the noise of the protesters. If you are a Scientologist, they'll let you in through a narrow entrance to take part in this 'wonderful' event.

"Hopefully the protesters will be well behaved because some people get very upset. It'll be people holding signs and if any members of the public want to ask questions and talk then that's what it's all about. It's about sharing information and telling the truth."

Griffiths said he hoped members of the local community would also make their way to Moor Green Lane to voice their opposition to the secretive organisation that boasts a large celebrity following, which includes Tom Cruise.

In the 2011 census, 51 people from Birmingham identified themselves as Scientologists. The figure was 88 for the entire West Midlands.

In May 2016, IBTimes UK revealed that Pitmaston was part of a multi-million pound UK property portfolio held by the church but had been empty for years. Other sites are in Gateshead, Portsmouth, and Trafford.

Moseley residents expressed concerns that such a historic building was left languishing after it was bought for more than £4m pounds in 2007. But the completion of its renovation was largely welcomed by the community as a new chapter for the historic building. Fiona Adams, chair of local conservation group the Moseley Society, said it is "better that it's used and looked after by someone that can afford to keep it up".

However, Adams said that some people living in the 25-30 houses and flats on the Pitmaston Estate were distressed that large signage at the front of the hall gave onlookers the impression that everyone using the driveway was a Scientologist. She also mentioned concerns the society had about increased traffic and overflow parking in the area.

Labour MP for Birmingham Hall Green, Roger Godsiff, said previously that he is "not a fan of the Church of Scientology, which is essentially a money-making cult" and expressed concerns about Pitmaston. But he has now praised the church for its work to restore the building to its "former glory" and said he was disappointed to be unable to accept an invitation to the opening due to other commitments.

Asked more generally about the Church of Scientology, Godsiff said: "I take as I find. I have not had anyone come to me and say 'my friend or family has had a bad experience'. I have an open mind. My concern was that this prestigious building shouldn't go to wreck and ruin."

The Church of Scientology declined to comment.

However, in a previous statement, Graeme Wilson, its spokesman in the UK, said: "The Ideal Org programme is entirely about creating churches which provide an ideal environment for people to engage in religious services and as an emanation point for all the church's social programmes – including drug rehabilitation and education, criminal rehabilitation, human rights and moral education, youth literacy and disaster and suffering relief.

"It is not about anything else. It is contributed to by parishioners who support this purpose – in exactly the same way that followers of other religions contribute to better churches and places of worship for their religions, the world over."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/church-scientology-will-finally-open-major-new-centre-birmingham-10-years-after-buying-property-1643775