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City authorities in Munich, southern Germany, have closed down a kindergarten with immediate effect after discovering it was run by the Church of Scientology, the municipality said overnight.

“The wellbeing of the children in the establishment was under threat because the education process was based on the principles of Scientology,” the municipality said.

“A few weeks after the center opened we received a letter from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,” Eva-Maria Volland from Munich’s Education Department told SPIEGEL ONLINE. All members of the Kinderhäusl’s board were Scientologists, according to the letter, and the children were being raised according to the cult’s ideology.

Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution was set up after World War II to pursue any group which the government deemed a specific threat to its democratic system. Neo-Nazis as well as radical Muslim groups have been watched and shut down by the office.

A regional court in Germany recently ruled that Scientologists had enough “ambitions against the free, democratic basic order” for the agency to go on watching them.

Evidence against the Church of Scientology in this case included brochures called “The Way to Happiness,” part of a worldwide project called “Operation Planetary Calm,” which aims to spread Scientology’s principles around the world. A brochure was even sent to German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, whose office watches Scientology and any group it deems a threat to the Germany’s constitution, including neo-Nazi parties and anti-democratic Muslim organizations.

Other items of evidence included texts by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the science-fiction author who died in 1986. Some of his writings, the government argued, inveigh against democracy. Other passages detail how and when ex-members and critics of Scientology should be harassed.

Anonymous is also hoping to galvanise public opinion with a mass “real-world” protest outside every Scientology office worldwide on February 10th. But its best weapon may be ridicule. The group got going in reaction to efforts to ban an internal Scientology video of Mr Cruise that leaked onto the internet. The star appears to discuss his beliefs with a degree of incoherence and exaggeration that might lead some to question Scientology’s effects on its adherents’ sanity.

The famous eyes stare and his head lolls about at the wonder of it all while gibberish pours from his lips. Tom Cruise is extolling the glories of Scientology. “It’s rough and tumble. It’s wild and woolly and it’s a blast,” he declares, throwing his carefully dishevelled head back and roaring with laughter. “It’s really […]

The biographer of Princess Diana alleges Cruise is consulted by Scientology leader David Miscavige on “every aspect of planning and policy” and is tailoring his career to fit the aims of Scientology.

Miscavige is said in the book to have gone to extraordinary lengths to charm Cruise, even ordering his staff to plant a field full of wild flowers at a Scientology base in California after Cruise had told him of his fantasy to run through a wildflower meadow with his then newlywed wife Nicole Kidman.

The relationship between the two men is so close that, according to Morton’s book, Miscavige even joined him on honeymoon in the Maldives after his wedding to Katie Holmes in 2006.

Germany’s federal and state interior ministers have declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional, clearing the way for a possible ban.

The ministers have asked Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to examine whether the Church’s legal status as an association could be challenged.

They said Germany’s domestic intelligence agencies should continue gathering information on the legality of Scientology’s activities in Germany so that a decision could be made about a possible ban next year.

But the domestic intelligence agencies have been closely monitoring Scientology’s operations for a decade and see little hope of amassing sufficient evidence to justify a ban.

Citing unnamed domestic intelligence agents familiar with the Scientology issue, Der Spiegel magazine reported that German authorities where having little success infiltrating the organization.

The magazine also said Scientology’s membership in Germany had stagnated.

Germany does not recognize Scientology as a religion and regard it as a cult masquerading as a church to make money.

German federal and state interior ministers declared the Church of Scientology unconstitutional on Friday, opening the door for a possible ban on the organization.

Federal Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and 16 state interior chiefs agreed “that we do not consider Scientology an organization that is compatible with the constitution”, Ehrhart Koerting, Berlin’s interior minister and chairman of a ministers’ conference in Berlin, told reporters.

Germany does not recognize Scientology as a religion. seeing it as a cult masquerading as a church to make money. Scientologists reject this view.

The government permits the Church of Scientology to operate in Germany as an organization, and in January it opened a six-storey headquarters in the heart of west Berlin.

The Church of Scientology has been accused of using British artists as a front for recruiting members.
The Stuckist movement, which rails against conceptual art, is in turmoil over claims that sales of its artists’ paintings are effectively funding Scientology, a religious sect accused of brainwashing its followers.
The row has led to disquiet among artists as […]