Sydney Picket/Demonstration 7 December

Tony McClelland, Tue 10 Dec 1996

From: tonym@mail.mpx.com.au (Tony McClelland)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Sydney Picket/Demonstration 7 December
Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 06:39:50 GMT
Message-ID: <32a9100c.34983616@news>

Five of us protested from 10am until 1pm. During that time
we had in excess of 21 Scientologists leafleting around us
and carrying signs with various claims.

Their strategy, once again, was reasonably successful because
many passers by thought we were Scientologists, others saw our signs
and took leaflets from Scientologists.

For some reason Scientologists picked on Zed more than most. Zed is a
quiet and reserved person but he did not flinch with the hard time
they gave him. One Scientologist was rather rude with a tape recorder 
and held the recorder about 30cm from his face for more than an hour.
Another Scientologist "lost it" with Zed, knocked approximately 10 of
his floppy disks to the ground, after kicking the box,  picked them up
and refused to return them to Zed. I find it had to describe her
attitude but she appeared to be detached from reality and the
situation around her. I suggest that it would be inappropriate for the
CofS to allow this person to represent them in future.

I was most grateful when I asked Henry Bartnick, a member of OSA
to recover the disks and he returned them to me within 1 minute.
The only alternate action for me was to call the Police and ask for
the lady to be arrested. Considering the state she was in, this was
the last thing I wanted to do. In addition, I would have returned for
at least one more week.

The quite and gentle Zed is incensed and he is considering 
returning for regular Pickets. I suggest to Scientologists that you
do not take Zed’s shyness for a weakness.

Ellen, new to our team, was the most successful "leafleter" and
she would have handed out more than 250 leaflets. In all we handed
out about 550 to 600 leaflets. Arthur her friend was good but has some
practice to catch up to Ellen.

David was another first timer and he found it difficult to understand
the behaviour of some of the Scientologists.

Me --- I had an easy day, no death threats this time. I find some of
the  Scientologists do very little for the reputation of Scientology.
They asked me a question, and when I try to answer their question they
repeatedly answered it for me. It is almost impossible to have a
sensible debate.

Regards



Tony McClelland