{"id":2997,"date":"2008-04-18T23:19:08","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T23:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/scientology-the-metropolitan-police-and-number-10\/2997\/"},"modified":"2008-04-18T23:19:08","modified_gmt":"2008-04-18T23:19:08","slug":"scientology-the-metropolitan-police-and-number-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/scientology-the-metropolitan-police-and-number-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientology, the Metropolitan Police, and Number 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Temple of Xenu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indymedia<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently an e-petition was submitted to the UK government calling for the prohibition of the use of Narconon by the police force. The petition text read as follows:<\/p>\n

The Times detailed, on the 20th Jan 2008, that the \u201cChurch\u201d of Scientology is exploiting the British Police to distribute materials with no basis in fact. I quote: \u201cOfficers have been handing out booklets that praise the science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, the church\u2019s founder, and describe both prescription and illegal drugs as \u201cpoison\u201d.\u201d This is irresponsible at best, and at worst, manipulating the Police to promote a commercial organisation. These \u201canti-drug leaflets\u201d are nothing of the sort- the charity DrugScope said \u201cThese booklets\u2026 should not be allowed in schools.\u201d The booklets went so far as to claim that Scientology\u2019s version of drug \u201ctherapy\u201d was \u201cthe safest, most effective – and only – detoxification procedure of its kind\u201d. This is, of course, a complete untruth. In conclusion, leave drugs policies to the experts, and sever any future links between the Police and any other commercial organisations.<\/p>\n

This is a reference to the article \u201cScientologists enlist police to push antidrugs drive in school,\u201d published in The Times on 20th January of this year, not exactly a lifetime away. The government responded today, as follows:<\/p>\n

You have signed an e-Petition about severing links between the Church of Scientology and the British Police.<\/p>\n

The day-to-day management, use of resources, policies and deployment of staff are operational matters, and so they are the responsibility of the Chief Constable of each individual police force.<\/p>\n

Your petition may relate to news reports about the City of London Police using scientologist drugs literature, or supporting a scientologist drugs campaign. In response to these reports, the City of London Police issued the follow statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City of London Police has not given any support to drugs campaigns, nor have we endorsed their drugs education and rehabilitation programmes. There are no plans for the Force to work with Scientologists on any programme in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

You will see, therefore, that there are in fact no \u2018links\u2019 that need to be severed.<\/p>\n

There are two major problems with this response:<\/p>\n

1. The petition did not refer to any one police force, but instead to \u201cBritish police\u201d.
\n2. The article in question referred not to the City of London police, but to the Metropolitan police, making only a passing reference to the City at the end in reference to a previous scandal in which the cult was revealed to be bribing police officers.<\/p>\n

In short, the \u201cresponse\u201d does not respond to anything at all, but combines a brushoff with false information.<\/p>\n

One can only hope this is simple government inefficiency.<\/p>\n

Links:
\n– The petition (and response),\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.pm.gov.uk\/output\/Page15283.asp<\/a>
\n– The Times article,\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/news\/uk\/education\/article3216965.ece<\/a>
\n– Previous incident with the City of London police,\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/uk\/2006\/nov\/22\/freedomofinformation.religion<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Temple of Xenu Indymedia Recently an e-petition was submitted to the UK government calling for the prohibition of the use of Narconon by the police force. The petition text read as follows: The Times detailed, on the 20th Jan 2008, that the \u201cChurch\u201d of Scientology is exploiting the British Police to distribute materials with no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1615],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-2997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"category-uk-news","8":"tag-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}