Sydney Scientology Protest

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Sydney Scientology Protest

Originally posted on Sydney Indymedia.

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Anonymous Confronts the Church of Scientology

Legions of Anonymous came out today to protest the Church of Scientology. A lively, vibrant, non-violent protest took place. Gatherings started at Hyde park around 11am and then marched to the head office of scientology in Castlereagh Street. The protesters gathered on the footpaths unhindered by police for 2 hours. Chants, speeches and street theater took place. Flyers were handed out to passers by to educate the public on the evils of scientology.

Videos (youtube links): The protest moves off from Hyde Park | Walking down the footpath on the way to head office | Arriving at CoS headoffice | Crowd chants 'brainwashed' | Crowd chants 'GTFO' | Crowd chants 'We are the SPs' | Street speech. Anon talks about Lisa McPherson | At Glebe office chanting 'Hubbard's a wanker' | At the Glebe office. Crowd chants 'why are they dead?'

The group then marched down George street to the scientology office at Glebe where another lively protest took place.

At both locations scientologists peered down from the windows, taking photographs. They chose not to engage even when they were invited to come and talk to the protest.

Being that this protest was against the Church of Scientology it was good to see no incidents took place with the police. The protest stuck to the footpath and confronted its target. The police were co-operative and allowed free speech and free assembly to take place.

About 250 people showed up. This was a diverse crowd of people. It was organised totally anonymously in a decentralised fashion. There were no leaders, no head organisation. It was pure spontaneous protest from the grass roots.

The legions vowed that this was just the beginning...

 

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cam
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So I was wondering what

So I was wondering what people thought of this rather significant world wide protest?

Of interest, at least at the Sydney protest, there was a placard with 'religion is free' on it, implying that the CoS is not a legitimate religion becaue you have to pay money to get into it. One of the chants that happened was 'church on the left, cult on the right' because right next to the CoS office was a church (jewish, i think). It seems other religions are not being criticized.

There are more protests planned, so I'm thinking some atheist agitation could take place within the protest to make people aware of how cult-like other religions are (even some promotion of RRS?). In sydney this is particularly pertinent because the pope is coming for a visit in a few months. It would be good to see people protesting him.

Thoughts anyone?