Scientology Petition To Prevent Anonymous Protests In Clearwater Rejected
The Church of Scientology's last minute appeal in the Pinellas Circuit court to prevent protesters from assembling in front of the Church's most prominent center (often referred to as Flag Land Base) on Saturday, was rejected according a St. Petersburg Times article:
Tuesday's suit, a petition for an "injunction for protection against repeat violence," was denied Wednesday afternoon by Circuit Judge Linda Allan, who ruled the relevant Florida statute does not apply to corporations.Just hours before Allan ruled, the church filed a separate, nearly identical lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order. The second suit seeks protection under a different Florida statute. No decision has been made on that suit.
The lawyers for Scientology cited a barrage of alleged harassment as the basis for the injuction, but as the statute is typically used in domestic abuse cases, Scientology was not able to make a valid case to prevent members of Anonymous from protesting outside of the Clearwater, Florida location.
Some of the alleged incidents filed in the lengthy reports are outlined in the article:
Scientology also says members of the Internet activist group Anonymous made, or encouraged others to make, 8,139 harassing or threatening phone calls to the church. Anonymous sent 3.6-million "malicious" e-mails to Scientologists, the church contends, committed 10 acts of vandalism at various churches and made 22 bomb threats and eight death threats.
Much of these allegations are presented in a video made by Scientology and posted on YouTube yesterday. The CoS was hoping to prevent the second set of protests orchestrated by Anonymous from coming within 500 feet of the Clearwater Org, but so far it seems their efforts have failed.
Interestingly, the suit names 26 people as members of Anonymous and alleges they, as part of Anonymous, took part or were privy to the aforementioned harassment charges. How Scientology obtained those names is of great interest to anyone who may be following this situation and certainly anyone planning on attending protests this weekend in other cities.
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