Roger Friedman at Showbiz411 reports that human rights
advocate Kerry Kennedy has accepted
an invitation to speak at an event on May 1 for the Scientology front group
Artists For Human Rights.
Human rights abuses in Scientology have been increasingly
exposed in the media and in the recent books Going
Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Pulitzer-Prize
winner Lawrence Wright and Beyond
Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna
Miscavige Hill, the niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige.
Wright’s and Miscavige Hill’s books document human rights abuses in
Scientology organizations including fraud, coerced abortion, child labor, false
imprisonment, campaigns of terrorization, destruction of families, and other
human rights abuses.
A video
interview by Huffington Post’s Ahmed Shihab Eldin with Jenna Hill gives a
vivid sense of the abuses as Hill personally experienced them growing up in
Scientology and serving as a member of its elite Sea Org corps of dedicated
Scientologists that run everything in Scientology’s world-wide organization.
Kerry Kennedy is a daughter of murdered Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy, and she is the Honorary President of the Robert F. Kennedy Center For Justice and Human Rights,
which she established in 1987.
Actress Anne Archer
was drawn into Scientology through the acting classes of Scientologist Milton
Katselas at the Beverley Hills Playhouse and was nominated for an Oscar for her
performance in the 1987 hit film Fatal
Attraction.
According to Beverley Hills Playhouse Executive Director
Allen Barton, before Katselas died in 2008 Scientology
launched a “jihad” on Katselas around 2003 spearheaded by Scientologist motivational
speaker and host of the National Geographic show Turnaround King Grant Cardone that was intended to ruin Katselas’
reputation.
Barton has left Scientology and the Beverley Hills Playhouse
has no longer has any connection with Scientology. It recently premiered Barton’s new play Years To The Day which PJ Media CEO
Roger Simon has praised
enthusiastically.
Barton has recently told the story of Scientology’s
heart-breaking cruelty in forbidding his impoverished classical piano
mentor, 90-year-old Scientologist Mario Feninger, from receiving badly needed financial
help he requested from Barton.
Anne Archer founded Artists For Human Rights in
2006. It is one of a number of “human
betterment and humanitarian” front groups Scientology has established to
legitimize Scientology in the eyes of society.
Scientology’s Narconon drug rehabilitation front group has
been much in the news for deaths alleged to have occurred due to medical malfeasance
in Oklahoma, and police recently raided Narconon
offices in Atlanta on Saturday and hauled away a van loaded with documents
and computers for an investigation into possible fraudulent activity.
The Church of
Scientology maintains that its front groups for are totally independent and the
Church exercises no control over them.
This contention has been exposed as false by numerous
reports from former Scientologists including a former executive director of
Narconon Arrowhead, Lucas Catton, in his recent book Have
You Told All? and in a
recent interview on NBC’s Rock Center.
All Scientology-related entities and front groups are under the direct control of the Church of Scientology, which is micromanaged by David Miscavige through a thicket of interlocking corporate and legal entities.
Human rights front groups are particularly appealing because they
provide cover for Scientology’s own human rights abuses, legitimize Scientology
as a beneficent organization, and build a network of support against
Scientology critics.
Youth For Human Rights International (YFHRI) is aimed at
young people. The Citizens Commission For Human Rights (CCHR) pretends it is
defending the right to chose one’s mental health care but is in fact an anti-psychiatry
hate group according to former American Psychiatric Association President
Nada Stotland, M.D.
By accepting the invitation to speak at Artists For Human
Rights on May 1 Kerry Kennedy has decided to use her celebrity power to legitimize
Scientology and its human rights abuses.
It cannot be the case that Kerry Kennedy is ignorant of the
credible allegations and evidence of Scientology human rights abuses – numerous
people have brought them to her attention by emails and on Twitter and
FaceBook.
According to the website of the Robert F. Kennedy Center For
Justice and Human Rights Kerry Kennedy’s mantra is: Speak Truth To Power.
Kennedy ought never to have accepted Anne Archer’s
invitation, and should probably cancel her appearance even now.
If she is serious about Speaking Truth To Power she will
take the opportunity on May 1 to call Anne Archer and other Scientology
celebrities like Tom Cruise to acknowledge human rights abuses in the Church of
Scientology and bring pressure to end them.
Kennedy will speaking on May 1 at the home of Anne Archer
and her Scientologist husband “big
time television producer” Terry Jastrow.
