Fair Game: Zenon Panoussis on Fair Game Raids, 13 Sep 2002

Zenon Panoussis <oracle@xs4all.nl>
Raided again
13 Sep 2002

Martin Cleaver wrote:

> I find it extremely worrying that the prosecution
> service and police in Amsterdam allow themselves
> to be used by intimidating crooks like this [...]

They do not. I know that scientology has been filing complaints against me to the prosecuror for years now, and I have to assume that what I know is only the top of the iceberg. Put yourself in the prosecutor's shoes. He knows that the scienos are a bunch of liars, he knows that the complaints are most probably false, but he does have a certain obligation to investigate if the complaints *seem* credible enough. The word"seem" is the key here; after all, you don't really know what's true unless you do investigate. Scientology has no scruples against lying, so they can easily make a complaint seem credible.

The way I see it, today's raid was based on insufficient suspicion evidence, but humanly it was rather natural and to be expected after all the pressure that scientology has put on the authorities. For all I know, the prosecutor probably thought "Let's search. If we find nothing, then we can definitely tell scientology to go to hell and get rid of them. If we do find something, then they might have been right all along and we have to acknowledge and protect their rights either we like them or not". Strictly speaking this way of arguing is against the law, which requires a certain strength of suspicion before a search (the mere repetition of a complaint does not strengthen it), but from a human point of view it's understandable.

The end result is going to be that the prosecutor will be even more careful next time scientology complains. If he waited four years before acting wrongly this time, he will wait forty-four years before doing the same next time. At the end of the line this *strengthens* the rechtszekerheid of the citizen (and it's really remarkable that English has no word for rechtszekerheid).

> What has happened to freedom of speech in Holland
> if you can't stand up and say that $cientology is
> an evil, criminal, brainwashing scam? And provide
> it with their own laughable documents?

Freedom of speech and copyrights are exceptions to each-other: freedom of speech is an exception to copyright, but copyright is also an exception to freedom of speech. Besides, criminals have rights too, as scientology's lawyer Ruprecht Hermans accurately pointed out to the court in scientology's case against Karin (which he lost, and see footnote). It's a balance of interests and, as all other balances, it has to be made by humans. It will therefore never be perfect and its standard can only be judged in relative terms. Well, while Dutch justice realy sucks, I am still much happier to be living in Holland than I would be in most other places in the world. That's very relative, but it's what actually counts.

Z

Note: Hermans pleading at the Hague district court: "The possibly criminal nature of my clients is not relevant to this case". Tsja. Nobody in the audience managed to keep a straight face.