In 1992, the Church of Scientology in Denmark co-founded the Danish Interfaith Forum, whose membership includes representatives of Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Unitarian, Christian Science, Quaker, Lutheran and Bahai faiths. The Forum organized religious services at which a variety of faiths were represented and staged an exposition in Copenhagen in September 1998, entitled “Who Believes What?”, to introduce the public to diverse religious and spiritual groups that have become a part of Danish society. The Forum has published a booklet explaining a diversity of beliefs, Global Love and Justice, and held public events that included a former Justice Minister of Denmark speaking on the importance of freedom of conscience. In May 2002, 75 representatives from the world’s religions attended a conference titled “Filling the Moral Vacuum” at the Great Hall at Saint Hill, headquarters of the Church of Scientology in the United Kingdom. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Church’s European Human Rights Office, the Association of British Muslims and the Queens Federation of Churches in New York, a coalition of 700 churches in the New York area. Participants included clergymen, professors and government officials from two dozen different religious traditions. Some came from faculties of universities in England, Germany, Belgium and Sweden, others from Nigeria, Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, Russia, Belgium, France, Poland, USA, Latvia, Croatia, Canada, Spain, Zambia, Bulgaria, Armenia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. The Church of Scientology has continued to hold roundtables and conferences to promote religious tolerance in countries around the world. The Church has also published a series of brochures in ten languages that describe the national and international laws protecting freedom of religion, so that individuals are informed of what their religious rights are and how to protect them. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Church’s Human Rights Office has upheld this basic right all over the world. Where repressive laws or officials create discrimination, oppression and intolerance, the Church forms alliances with human rights groups, publicizes the intolerance, contacts members of parliament known to have strong pro-democracy views and to be defenders of religious freedom and human rights, and conducts campaigns to popularize democracy and human rights. Over the last decade, the Church of Scientology Human Rights Office has organized many conferences internationally to increase inter-religious understanding. A post-September 11 conference at the Church of Scientology Religious Education College in East Grinstead, England, brought together 75 representatives of the world’s major religions. The clergymen, professors and government officials represented two dozen religious traditions from all parts of the world. The Office played a key role in uniting more than 30 minority religious and spiritual organizations in France into a coalition to protect the rights of their members. The coalition holds public hearings that examine cases of religious discrimination and publishes the results. Throughout the last decade, the Church has taken actions to promote the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To this end, a new series of public service announcements (PSAs) has been created, each of which features a child envisioning the type of world he or she will grow up into. The PSAs promote the need to learn and apply the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The PSAs, to run in community-conscious newspapers and TV outlets, are a centerpiece of a massive new campaign to increase public awareness and use of the Declaration. Human Rights are defined as: “The basic rights and freedoms to which all human beings are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law.” None of us enjoys being wrongly accused. We resist being told what to think and believe and prefer to make our own choices. We feel we should be able to freely voice our own opinions. We like to be treated equally with others. Each of these is a human right: the right to a fair hearing, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of conscience, and the right not to be discriminated against. There are many other rights, such as the right to life and human dignity, the right to an education and the right to form groups. Human rights are based on respect for each individual. Those whose rights have been violated feel a strong sense of resentment. If they have no means to remedy the injustices, it simmers and may break out in what we recognize as civil disorder, ethnic conflicts and other disturbances. Government officials then feel they must become increasingly repressive to hold down the potential violence in the society. It is a vicious circle, leading in the end to conflict between the oppressor and the oppressed. The Church of Scientology is a leader in the forwarding of human rights across the world. It has proven, in the face of adversity, that when one is determined to help the individual and to better society that intention of this nature is unstoppable.
