A SPOKESMAN for Anonymous Ireland, which organised a picket outside the Church of Scientology premises in Dublin on Saturday, has condemned abusive phone calls to church members and the hacking of computers.
The Anonymous Ireland spokesman said he did not know whether such abusive calls had been made or whether computers had been hacked into by supporters of theirs but, if so, he condemned such actions. He told The Irish Times:"we are committed to entirely legal means [of protest against the Church of Scientology] and do not want to be associated with such actions."
Gerard Ryan, spokesman for the Church of Scientology, said that since the Anonymous Ireland protests began last month church members' computers had been hacked into, including his own, and that e-mails of his had been forwarded to fundamentalist Christian groups. He had also personally received abusive and threatening phone calls, he said.
The Anonymous Ireland spokesman said his group was committed to "raising public awareness" about the Church of Scientology "and its five decades-long history of human rights violations."
They had chosen to remain anonymous because of a history of defamation with which critics of the Church of Scientoliogy had been met in the past and the allegedly devious methods it had used to damage those critics, he said.
He instanced the experience of US author Paulette Cooper who, on publication of her book The Scandal of Scientologyin 1971, "was harassed for years afterwards".
An estimated 25 people took part in the five-hour Anonymous Ireland protest outside the Church of Scientology's Dublin headquarters in Saturday's rain.
It was part of a series of worldwide protests which are aimed at systematically dismantling the Church of Scientology in its present form.
Mike Garde of Dialogue Ireland, who also took part in Saturday's protest, said the Anonymous Ireland group represented "a new generation which has become alerted to the totalitarian nature of Scientology, which is disguised by people such as Tom Cruise".
He said it was imperative that in this country, as in Germany, Scientology did not get State recognition as a religion.
Mr Ryan described members of Anonymous Ireland as "internet anarchists" who "want to destroy us".
