{"id":7565,"date":"2011-09-22T12:57:42","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T16:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7565"},"modified":"2011-09-22T13:05:19","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T17:05:19","slug":"australian-rugby-player-blasts-scientologists-in-print-and-tv-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/australian-rugby-player-blasts-scientologists-in-print-and-tv-interviews","title":{"rendered":"Australian rugby player blasts Scientologists in print and TV interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Negative press coverage continues for the Church of Scientology as an Australian rugby figure has denounced the church&#8217;s practices.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A former rugby league star has attacked the head of the church of Scientology, David Miscavige, describing him as a &#8216;violent man&#8217; who sent him to a re-education camp for 2 1\/2-years where he was paid as little as $2 a week and stripped of his passport,&#8221; reports the Internet news website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnewsblog.com\/26181\/former-rugby-league-star-slams-violent-scientology\" target=\"_blank\">ReligionNewsBlog.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The site then quotes at length the <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theaustralian.com.au\/news\/nation\/former-league-star-slams-violent-scientology\/story-e6frg6nf-1226144069372\" target=\"_blank\">Australian<\/a><\/em> daily newspaper, which describes Chris Guider as a former star of the St. George rugby squad, who &#8220;left the sport at 24 after being encouraged to devote more time to the church. After spending 2 1\/2-years working full-time for the church in Sydney, Guider travelled to the U.S., where he worked closely with Miscavige.<\/p>\n<p>Guider\u00a0told the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/lateline\/content\/2011\/s3323979.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Australian Broadcast Company&#8217;s\u00a0Lateline TV show\u00a0<\/a>of watching\u00a0Miscavige beat a former staff member, Mark Fisher, who worked at the church&#8217;s\u00a0Religious Technology Center.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q4tC8q53qK0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a violent individual,\u201d Guider told the TV show. \u201cHe is. And there are accounts of him being physical with people. I\u2019ve seen him physically beat one staff member, Mark Fisher, who was formerly an executive in the RTC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lateline goes on to note:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The church has denied the accusation, and sent Lateline two sworn declarations from church members claiming Miscavige did not hit Fisher.<\/p>\n<p>This is despite evidence from Fisher to the <em>St. Petersburg Times<\/em> that he was beaten by Miscavige and statements from at least four other former members of the church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Religious News Blog provided this\u00a0transcript of the Lateline program in which Guider was interviewed by host Steve Cannane:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>STEVE CANNANE: In the Church of Scientology\u2019s internal justice system, making a public statement against Scientology or Scientologists is considered the worst of all crimes.<\/p>\n<p>CHRIS GUIDER: That\u2019s church policy. They\u2019re not supposed to admit to anything. So, anybody you interview, they won\u2019t admit that they\u2019ve done something wrong or it\u2019s not that way. They\u2019ll go after you, the reporter, they\u2019ll go after whoever\u2019s putting the program together, they\u2019ll go after the individual \u2013 that\u2019s how it works.<\/p>\n<p>STEVE CANNANE: And you saw that happening when you were working in David Miscavige\u2019s office?<\/p>\n<p>CHRIS GUIDER: Oh, yeah. Yeah, RTC would run that. There were executives in RTC that were on the phones to attorneys telling them what to do and how to handle former members of the church.<\/p>\n<p>STEVE CANNANE: Chris Guider says he was eventually punished for the incident in the edit suite by being sent here, to the Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF, in Dundas in suburban Sydney.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;The Church of Scientology in the US disputes this,&#8221; notes ReligiousNewsBlog,\u00a0saying he went voluntarily to the RPF for, &#8216;\u2026 long-term negligence in fulfilling his religious duties and his repeated violations of Church scriptures.&#8217; The Church of Scientology says the RPF is a voluntary religious retreat. Defectors describe it as a punitive re-education camp.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The transcript continues:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>CHRIS GUIDER: It\u2019s like prison, except it\u2019s worse because you don\u2019t have television, you don\u2019t have visitor rights, you can\u2019t read the newspaper, you can\u2019t read books, you can\u2019t listen to music.<\/p>\n<p>STEVE CANNANE: Former Scientologists say those sent to the RPF are forced to wear black, do hard labour and eat basic meals like rice and beans. They say they\u2019re not allowed to talk to others except those on the RPF.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Guider told the Australian that he\u00a0served two and a half years at the RPF in Dundas, Australia. He says the church seized his passport and his credit card and paid him as little as $2 a week. He has made a formal complaint to the Fair Work Ombudsman.<\/p>\n<p>ReligiousNewsBlog noted: &#8220;The Church of Scientology in Sydney refused Lateline\u2019s request for an interview about the RPF in Dundas. In a statement they said, &#8216;The Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) is a voluntary religious program of spiritual rehabilitation offered to provide a \u201csecond chance\u201d to those who have failed to fulfil their ecclesiastical responsibilities.'&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Negative press coverage continues for the Church of Scientology as an Australian rugby figure has denounced the church&#8217;s practices. &#8220;A former rugby league star has attacked the head of the church of Scientology, David Miscavige, describing him as a &#8216;violent man&#8217; who sent him to a re-education camp for 2 1\/2-years where he was paid&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1360],"tags":[1557,2273],"class_list":["post-7565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scientology","tag-scientologists","tag-scientology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Australian rugby player blasts Scientologists in print and TV interviews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/australian-rugby-player-blasts-scientologists-in-print-and-tv-interviews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Australian rugby player blasts Scientologists in print and TV interviews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Negative press coverage continues for the Church of Scientology as an Australian rugby figure has denounced the church&#8217;s practices. &#8220;A former rugby league star has attacked the head of the church of Scientology, David Miscavige, describing him as a &#8216;violent man&#8217; 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