For Decades, International Bodies Warned Germany Over Its Treatment of Scientologists

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Jun 07, 2026, 23:01 ET

LOS ANGELES, June 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Church of Scientology International released the following statement:

Germany cannot say it was not warned. The warnings were public, documented and institutional. They came from courts, diplomats, human rights experts, religious freedom advocates and international observers. Germany heard them. Then continued anyway.

As early as 1997—the same year Germany’s OPC surveillance campaign began—the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex warned that democracy was being used “to impose conformity.”
The warning was already on the record. The campaign continued anyway. Now the surveillance campaign ends without the threat ever being proven. — As early as 1997—the same year Germany’s OPC surveillance campaign began—the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex warned that democracy was being used “to impose conformity.” The warning was already on the record. The campaign continued anyway. Now the surveillance campaign ends without the threat ever being proven.

For decades, German authorities defended the surveillance of Scientologists as a defense of democracy. But after years of intelligence activity, public suspicion, "sect filters," blacklisting and institutional exclusion, the campaign is ending without the government proving the danger it claimed to be investigating.

That outcome does not strengthen Germany's position. It exposes the weakness of the premise that kept the machinery running long after the evidence failed to appear.

The warnings began early. In 1997, the same year the Office for the Protection of the Constitution's surveillance campaign began, the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex warned that democracy in Germany was being used "to impose conformity" and described an officially endorsed climate of discrimination and vilification against minority religions, "most particularly, the Church of Scientology."

The warnings continued. The U.S. State Department criticized Germany for the "clearly discriminatory practice" of preventing individuals from participating in public and professional life solely because of religion or belief.

It also recorded the fact German authorities could not escape: Years of surveillance had produced no prosecutions, no convictions and no evidence that Scientology represented a security threat.

The warnings widened. At the OSCE, concerns were raised over Germany's use of sect filters—declarations requiring people to distance themselves from Scientology in order to obtain employment, contracts or access to public opportunities.

And in 2019, United Nations Special Rapporteurs warned that those declarations forced applicants to disavow association with Scientology beliefs, practices or organizations in order to access opportunities ranging from personal benefits to professional contracts, public tenders and employment-related access.

The warnings came from different institutions, different countries and different years. But they all pointed to the same reality: Germany was not protecting democracy by excluding Scientologists. It was violating the principles democracy exists to protect.

And German courts repeatedly reached the conclusion German officials resisted: Scientologists had rights.

In Berlin, a court barred the use of undercover agents against Scientology after years of observation failed to produce information justifying such intrusive methods.

In Bavaria, courts struck down Munich's use of an anti-Scientology "sect filter" after a woman was denied an environmental subsidy because she refused to declare she was not a Scientologist.

The issue was not terrorism.

It was not extremism.

It was an e-bike.

That is what Germany's machinery of suspicion had become: a state apparatus so conditioned to exclude Scientologists that even a public environmental grant became a vehicle for religious discrimination.

The warnings were right.

The courts were right.

The human rights concerns were right.

And now, after decades, the surveillance ends without the government producing the threat it invoked to justify the damage.

Scientologists lost jobs.

Businesses were marked.

Families were stigmatized.

Children encountered hostility.

Professionals and artists were targeted because of religious association.

Germany did not merely investigate a religion. It helped create the conditions under which ordinary believers could be treated as threats to democratic society because of their faith.

That is the record now facing Germany.

Not what it found.

What it did after finding nothing.

The question is no longer whether the surveillance should end.

It is why it was allowed to continue so long after the warnings were already on the record.

SOURCE Church of Scientology International