Leisa Goodman

A: Ms. Goodman, could you please tell me about the reasons of this event?
Q: This was the launching of an exciting human rights tour in Europe. “Multhatlon” means “many contests”. Different sports are involved. We decided to begin this year in St.Petersburg.
A: Why did you choose Paris as its final destination?
Q: Because there is a serious situation with human rights in France. France is a country that should be setting an example of Human rights, religious freedom and tolerance for the rest of Europe, which they don’t. Instead they have a repressive law against new religions, against any religious minority. We feel that the rest of Europe and the world should know about that. So we take our message that the Universal declaration of Human rights should be applied and we take this message all the way through 9 countries of Europe and 4000 km.

A: What is this law about?
Q: The About-Picard law was passed over year ago. It states that if any religious oganization takes any action that could violate the law, and they don’t specify what it is, then one can dissolve the whole group. Not just punish individual, the whole group. Destroy it at all. In fact, the only similar law ever passed was in 1931 by Mussolini against the communists. Then fascists wanted to stop communists. That’s how repressive this law is, and it is condemned by UN, by Council of Europe, US State Department, by many human rights bodies.

A: Don’t you think that Moscow –Beijing would be more actual rout, than Saint-Peterburg – Paris from the point of Human rights?
Q: We choised Saint-Peterburg because Russia is important country today, it’s becoming more and more known in the West and it is working hard to improve human rights. Why not Beijing…
Well, I should mention that the men behind the About –Picard law, Alain Vivien, actualy has been working with the Chinese government. He has worked, and went at conferences with them, and now they are looking at implementing the same law in Hong Kong. And this is through the work of Alain Vivien.

A: You mean the law against Falungong movement?
Q: No, I mean About-Picard law. This man is trying to implement it in Hong Kong. He’s also going around many countries of Europe –– say, Balkan states, and is trying to get them to implement similar laws. Many East countries now have even started looking at this. To be exact, he went to Greece to do the same thing. And so we feel we have to remind all these countries — our rout goes through Belgium, Holland, Sweden — what the religious tolerance is really about, and how they should apply Universal declaration of human rights. And specifically, the article 18, which is religious freedom. This could go a long way dealing with this situation.

A: Has the Scientology church Human rights activities with other religious groups?
Q: Very much so. France is a good example. We are part of a Freedom of Conscience group started in Paris a year and two months ago, and what we did to start was to set up an investigative hearings, where about 15 different groups, constituting this coalition, take part.

A: Could you please name some of them?
Q: There are three different alternative medicine groups, Hare-Krishna’ers, Unification church, Universal life church, Temple of Christ, many small groups you may’ve never heard of. There’s a Baptist church that we have also working with... We ask all this groups to come and speak. It was a first time. The Family came, many other groups. They spoke what have happened, an abuses they have suffered. And otherwise they never had a chance to speak and say what the truth was and what they experienced. So we started and every two months we have another investigative hearing. We have a panel of experts, religious leaders, and actual religious scholars who lead the panel and speak to the panel members. And we send the record of the hearings to the Human rights bodies outside of France so that they can do something about it.

A: Could you explain me the sense of the actions of Moscow Scientology groups, when they collect signatures on a stands with a “Say NO to drugs” slogan?
Q: It is done to get public support. Once collected, they are submitted to the authorities and then they ask them to implement education program against drugs to kids. It was very successful in America. The same thing happens in countries of Europe. We believe that while one has to stop illegal drugs, one must educate youth, even little kids. They don’t know what to do. Parents don’t know what to do. We have different publications –– “The truth about Marihuana”, “How do you tell your kids on drugs”… the parents in all these countries, even in France, they are so grateful, because no one was giving them this type of basic education, that they can use to help the situation with their kids.

A: The question of legalization of Marihuana is widely debated now in different countries. A legalization of heave drugs is debated also. What is your point of view on this question?
Q: My point and the point of the Church is that we don’t get into the politics of the matter, but we feel strongly that legalization of drugs will not solve the problem. We always look at the problem, how do we solve it. The point is that people get onto drugs. Why do they get onto drugs? Because they don’t have ways or solutions within their lives to solve their problems. We also, in addition to campaign “Say NO to drugs”, which is a campaign to educate children against taking drugs, we have a very effective drug rehabilitation program called Narconon, it was developed by Mr. Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. It has 80 percents success rate, it’s higher than any other program that exists in the world today. And we feel we have a solution and we’re promoting the same look. If you got the problem of drugs, let’s deal with that problem, deal with what you can’t cope with in life. You need drugs to try to cover up and “solve” your problem, but drugs isn’t a solution. We try to get to the heart of the matter and deal with it, the real problem. Because legalization, while, yes, I can understand, it would stop the mafia and the underworld thing, but it’s still only a gloss over, it doesn’t solve the problem. That is why we keep saying let’s deal with problem, let’s educate people, let’s get people off drugs, let’s give them way they can get off drugs.