Scientologist acknowledges 30th Anniversary of ODIHR while exposing religious hatred by Germany

Permanent Representative to the UN, EU, and OSCE from the Church of Scientology Human Rights Office, Ivan Arjona, participated in events (14 and 15 October) to celebrate in Warsaw the 30th Anniversary of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Arjona, on behalf of the Scientology church, stressed the need for OSCE participating States to abide by the guidelines carefully and consensually issued by the OSCE ODIHR in regards to religious minorities, recognizing and granting the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all citizens – without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion. The event was attended physically and online, with some 600 registered in the first hybrid event with diplomats and Civil Society coming from all around the OSCE region.

Among those present were members of different religious communities, including Monsignor Janusz Urbanczyk, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations and Specialized Institutions in Vienna, Austria, who also addressed the 2 days event in Poland, on Oct. 15, who said that “Human rights, are universal, inalienable and inviolable.” “Universal because they are present in all human beings, without exception of time, place, or subject. Inviolable insofar as they are inherent in the human person and in human dignity […]. [And] Inalienable insofar as ‘no one can legitimately deprive another person, whoever they may be, of these rights, since this would do violence to their nature’.” “However“, he said, “to bear fruit, it is not sufficient that fundamental human rights are solemnly proclaimed. They must also be put into practice.”  He lamented that in many parts of the world,  there seems to be no end to grave offenses against fundamental human rights. “These rights“, he pointed out,  “are not always fully respected even in democratic countries“. 

At one of these events on Friday, the Scientology representative was given the floor, and congratulated the present and past teams of the ODIHR for the job done during the last 3o years, and took the opportunity to expose a situation that goes on in Germany for decades, and which regardless of the Germany courts protecting Scientologists and their church, Germany authorities, regardless of party color, continue to produce or condone.

“Scientology parishioners”, Arjona said, [are] “a religious minority present in practically all the 57 OSCE participating states, and respected as a religion by many such as Sweden, Spain, UK, Portugal, Italy, US, and even the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations“.

He added that over 40 years, the religious minority of Scientology “has been battling and winning in the judiciary against the discrimination and harassment perpetrated at the local, state, and federal authorities level in the Federal Republic of Germany“.

Their last victory happened earlier this year, when the court “condemned the city of Munich, for rejecting an ecology grant to a citizen just because she did not want to resign from her religion” explained the Scientology representative.

“So we have a country, namely Germany, that despite its Constitution, despite court decisions, and despite its commitments and obligations to the OSCE, and under the excuse of an unsustainable and false ‘security approach’, continue to execute and fund state campaigns of discrimination and requesting citizens to resign from their religion if they want to enjoy certain fundamental, civil and political rights”.

“In speaking of intolerance, discrimination, marginalization, antisemitism, antiscientology, even dehumanization, and state hate speech, especially in regards to countries with so many lessons learned less than a century ago, how do we call the practice of a government requesting its citizens to resign from their religion, to get a job in the city hall as a gardener or as an architect to name just a few, especially when is a minority religion that the courts have repeatedly ruled is protected by the Constitution?” Arjona concluded.

Some of the expert panelists consulted at the event, told us that Scientologists should go to the streets and protest, while the German delegation believes that (according to Arjona when asked by The European Times) these “disagreements” should be dealt with in a dialogue table between the Church and the German authorities.