European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the US c/o Dialog Zentrum Berlin, Heimat 27, 14165 Berlin;=20 email: info@leipzig-award.de

2002 Leipzig Human Rights Award (originally the "2000 Alternative Charlemagne Award"

http://www.leipziger-preis.de and http://www.leipzig-award.org )

Alain Vivien, president of the "Mission Interministerielle pour la lutte contre les sectes for the Prime Minister of the Republic of France (MILS)"= =20 receives the human rights award of the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA.=20

On May 11, 2002, this year's human rights award of the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA will be presented to Minister Alain Vivien. Previous recipients are US citizen Robert S. Minton (2000) and Norbert Bluem, former Labor Minister for the Federal Republic of Germany (2001). The award, designed by Leipzig artist Ruediger Bartels, will be handed over to Minister Alain Vivien on May 11, 2002 during a ceremony in Leipzig's "Old Stock Exchange." The award speech (Laudatio) will be given by the Bavarian State Minister of the Interior, Dr. Guenther Beckstein. Leipzig, a Saxon city in former East Germany, is considered to be the home of the civil rights movement that led up to the fall of "the Wall."=20

The recipient of the annual award is presented by the internationally diverse "European-American Citizens for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA" (http://www.leipzig-award.org). This committee is concerned, from a trans-Atlantic perspective, with violations by the Scientology organization against human rights and religious freedom. Within the last few years, the totalitarian Scientology organization has managed to conduct its activities from the USA with the apparent support of that government, such as with tax-exemption and diplomatic activity.=20

2002 Award Recipient

Alain Vivien has been engaged with problems associated with sects and totalitarian cults since 1983. At that time, as the socialist representative of the Seine-et-Marne department, he presented the first situation report in this problematic area to the French National Assembly, as commissioned by Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy. After that, his posts included State Secretary of the French Ministry of State.=20 Vivien also worked out the first French Enquete report on sects and totalitarian organizations in 1993, and since November 1998, he has been president of the Mission Interministerielle pour la lutte contre les sects for the Prime Minister of the Republic of France (MILS).=20

Vivien has also been involved with the fates of those affected by destructive groups, has worked toward the legal, organizational and political shoring up of their human rights, and toward the protection of victims of Scientology and similar organizations in the creation and implementation of a legal framework for the French National Assembly.=20

In doing this he has demonstrated courage, not only in using his expert knowledge to cope with the intense political pressure, both domestic and foreign, but also in using his personal dedication to publicly debate the new totalitarianism of the Scientology Organization (SO). For this reason he has been heavily targeted by the Scientology Organization and its allies.=20

This award is also granted in recognition of the important and successful work done by all the MILS staff, not leaving out the work done by the French National Assembly, which worked through all party differences to enact legislation for the protection of human rights against the new dangers posed by totalitarianism.=20

At the same time, this award is also a gesture of our appreciation to politicians on either side of the Atlantic for their efforts to put a stop to the human rights violations committed by the Scientology organization in both Europe and in the USA.=20

The Committee:

Gerry Armstrong, Canada, artist - Ursula Caberta, director of the Task Force on Scientology, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg - Prof. Claire Champollion, linguist, researcher and author, Paris - Joe Cisar, Vietnam veteran, journalist, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, USA - Prof. Dr. Alexander Dvorkin, Moscow, Director of St. Irenaeus of Lyon Center - Rev. Thomas Gandow, Berlin, Germany, publisher of the Berliner Dialog - Mike Garde, Dublin, Dialog Centre Eire - Roger Gonnet, Paris, author - Friedrich Griess, Vienna, Eng ineer, spokesman for the Gesellschaft gegen Kultgefahren =D6sterreich - Tilman Hausherr, Berlin, software developer - Birgitta Harrington, accountant, Helsingborg, Sweden - Ursula MacKenzie, retiree, London - Solveig Prass, Leipzig, operating manager, EBI Leipzig - Prof. Dr. Johannes Aagaard, Aarhus, President of the Dialog Center International (DCI)

How the committee came into existence:

We were dismayed that, for the last few years, the Scientology Organization (SO) has managed to exert its influence in US foreign politics. The SO, responsible for the 17 days of anguish immediately preceding the death of Lisa McPherson (USA), for the financial ruin of the Aigner family (Germany) and for the tragic death of Patrick Vic (France), tries to inflict damage upon the European-American friendship for which we have all been working so hard in the past decades. As European friends of the United States of America and or as US citizens, we are concerned about the attacks by the Scientology organization on the lives and human dignity of not only its own members, but also of its critics.=20

Therefore, the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA became involved in human rights and religious freedom in the USA and worldwide, and is engaged in the discussion in particular about new totalitarian org anizations. In doing so it lets itself be guided by the stance taken by 17 million Americans in 1950 when they signed a pledge to the Berlin Liberty Bell:=20

"I believe in the sacredness and dignity of the individual.=20 I believe that all men derive the right to freedom equally from God.

I pledge to resist aggression and tyranny wherever they appear on earth."

If you would like to support this award, please send in for the Tabula Gratulatoria, which reads as follows: "With my name I support the presentation of the human rights award of the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA to Minister Alain Vivien, and I heartily congratulate him": an e-mail in the format:=20 [Name, city, country, profession/institution] to:

listme@leipzig-award.org

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