Germany to Surveil CoS

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

                           DEPARTMENT OF STATE
                        DAILY PRESS BRIEFING INDEX
                            Friday, June 6, 1997
                           Briefer:  Nicholas Burns

[Excerpt]

QUESTION:  What is the State Department's reaction to the decision of
the German Interior Ministers to put the Church of Scientology under
nationwide observation by the anti-extremist watchdogs?

MR. BURNS:  Well, we understand that the German state and federal
interior ministers have agreed to pursue the recommendations of an
experts group which called for the collection of information on
Scientologists and scientology.  It is our understanding - and we have a
very incomplete understanding, actually, of this decision - that the
ministers directed state and federal law enforcement agencies to develop
a plan to implement these recommendations.

We will examine the details of this decision carefully, but since I
don't believe our embassy in Bonn or our German experts here at the
State Department have had sufficient time really to look at this in
detail, I don't think it's appropriate for me to give you a detailed
comment.  I will say this.  The United States obviously has to stand for
freedom of religion.  We have that in our own country and we stand for
freedom of religion around the world.  If you would just look at our
annual human rights reports, I think four out of the last five years or
five of the last six - I forget which - we have mentioned this issue of
scientology.

But I feel compelled to say something else about this issue, and that is
that Germany needs to be protected, the German Government and the German
leadership need to be protected from this wild charge made by the Church
of Scientology in the United States that somehow the treatment of
Scientologists in Germany can or should be compared to the treatment of
Jews who had to live, and who ultimately perished, under Nazi rule in
the 1930s.

This wildly inaccurate comparison is most unfair to Chancellor Kohl and
to his government and to regional governments and city governments
throughout Germany.  It has been made consistently by supporters of
scientology here in the United States, and by Scientologists themselves.
I do want to disassociate the United States Government from this
campaign.  We reject this campaign.  It is most unfair to Germany and to
Germans in general.

QUESTION:  Anything in this latest effort by Germany to deal with the
Church of Scientology that concerns you?

MR. BURNS:  Well, Carol, as I said, we have a sketchy understanding, at
best, of what this means.  It appears to be instructions by state and
federal law enforcement agencies to look at a set of recommendations and
develop a plan upon recommendations.

We have an alliance relationship with Germany.  We have a very close
relationship. I think among friends, you don't shoot first and ask
questions later.  What we need to do is study this issue, talk to the
German Government about it, and then perhaps we will have something to
say later on.  But I think it would be most unfair to Germany for us to
have detailed comments when we don't have a detailed understanding of
what this process may or may not be.  Yes.

[End excerpt]