Germany Isolated Itself
From the Democratic Consensus on Religious Freedom

For nearly three decades, Germany claimed democratic authority for a campaign of surveillance, blacklisting and discrimination against Scientologists.

Now that surveillance has ended without Germany establishing the threat it invoked to justify it.

The embarrassment is not only that the campaign failed.

It is that democratic nations had already shown Germany what religious freedom required.

Across the democratic world, courts and governments reached the conclusion Germany resisted:

Scientology is a religion.

Scientologists are entitled to equal protection.

Discrimination against them violates the principles democratic societies exist to uphold.

In 1993, the United States granted full religious recognition to Scientology following one of the most exhaustive reviews ever conducted of a religious organization.

In 1997, Italy’s Supreme Court recognized Scientology as a religion and rejected efforts to criminalize its practices.

In 2007, Spain’s National Court affirmed Scientology’s religious status under European protections for freedom of belief.

In 2013, the United Kingdom Supreme Court condemned discrimination against Scientologists as “illogical, discriminatory and unjust” while recognizing Scientology chapels as places of religious worship.

In 2016, Belgian courts rejected years of sensational allegations, fully acquitted Scientology and condemned proceedings rooted in prejudice and a presumption of guilt.

Across Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia and beyond, governments and courts have recognized Scientology as a religion entitled to legal protection and religious liberty.

These were not isolated legal technicalities. They were democratic institutions upholding democratic standards.

They applied the principles of religious freedom. They examined facts rather than propaganda. They recognized Scientology as the religion it is.

Germany chose the opposite course.

It maintained suspicion. It legitimized discrimination. It allowed “sect filters” to spread through public and private life. It permitted religious association itself to become a basis for exclusion.

Scientologists lost employment opportunities. Businesses and professionals were targeted. Families were stigmatized. Children faced hostility because of their parents’ faith.

All of this occurred under a state narrative that claimed to be protecting democracy while denying the very religious freedom democracy is designed to protect.

That is the contradiction Germany now faces.

The democratic world recognized Scientology.

Germany surveilled it.

The democratic world extended protection.

Germany built exclusion into public life.

And after nearly thirty years, Germany still ended where democratic principle should have led from the beginning: with no proven threat.

Religious freedom is not an ornament of democracy. It is one of its tests.

Constitutional protections mean little when governments refuse to apply them to the people whose rights are at stake.

The end of surveillance does not erase the damage inflicted on Scientologists.

Nor does it repair the stigma created by years of official suspicion.

But it does leave Germany facing the record it created.

Scientology is a religion. Scientologists are entitled to equal rights. And after thirty years of failed surveillance, Germany did not expose Scientology.

It exposed how far it had isolated itself from the democratic standards it claimed to defend.