Ake Wiman made a solo protest at the Stockholm org on March 13. Handed out leaflets (Xenu, "Look out for the trap!") for a couple of hours in the afternoon. The org was mostly quiet, some staff peeking out now and then but not creating any real trouble. (The Swedish scientologists are usually not at all as aggressive as the Sea Org staff, thankfully).

The org did send a guy out to hand out their own leaflets. Not the title I would have chosen considering the circumstances - here's this guy standing right outside the office of a group which has a somewhat tarnished reputation as a suspect brain washing cult - and he's trying to convince people to grab a piece of paper with a picture of an evil-looking man and the text in large letters: "People's minds should be controlled" ??

(the actual content of that leaflet is standard fare anti-psych rants, but you wouldn't know that from the front page) There were 5-6 people entering the org who got leaflets from Ake, but these were of course immediately taken from them by org staff. Later, Ake were standing a block away from the org when he saw one of those persons again, leaving the org. Ake asked the guy if he had read the leaflet, and the guy (a newbie, presumably) said with some indignation that he couldn't because the org staff had taken it. So he got new ones and said he would take them home and read them.

Ake also had a short conversation with a neighbour, who said he was pretty tired of being approached by a CoS recruiter while walking past the org, but now had found a great phrase to deter them: "No thanks, I was warned about you already in my past life." For some reason that seemed to spook the poor bodyrouter...

Myself, I had other things to do that afternoon and my only contribution to the protest was a quick reply to someone who asked what this was all about, as I briefly entered the scene to bring Ake away. (That, and writing this little report for Ake) Despite all the outstanding Big Wins in Sweden lately (getting themselves registered as a religious community, license to conduct marriages, Zenon losing in court) the org still looks small and half deserted, no better than a year ago. Certainly *a lot* smaller than 20 years ago. Being a "certified religion" (not that our government actually certifies any religion, it's a simple registration) is not a big sales come-on in Sweden. I think they could have sold much better if they had pushed the UFO stuff...
Catarina http://xenu.just.nu - Scientologi till vardags

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