Interior Agency Booklet on sect penitential camp

Caught in Scientology's concentration camp

Hamburg Morgen Post/October 24, 2000
By Sandra Schaefer

Does Scientology maintain penitential camps in which apostates are forcibly held and are subjected to brainwashing? A new booklet from the Work Group on Scientology in the Interior Agency has come to that conclusion.

Its author is Professor Stephen Kent from Alberta, Canada. For the initial presentation of the booklet he brought Stacy Brooks with him from the USA. She reported that she was dragged off to such an training camp herself.

"Even residents of Hamburg who are members of Scientology run the risk of ending up in one of the organization's penitential camps in Denmark or the USA," said Ursula Caberta, Hamburg's Scientology Commissioner. A handful of sect adherents were demonstrating in front of the Interior Agency as she was saying that. They distributed their printed party line, in which Caberta was described as having accepted bribes and in which Interior Senator Wrocklage was threatened with charges.

According to Stephen Kent, the penitential camps are the "Rehabilitation Project Force" (RPF) of Scientology. He said the camps were set up to break down the will of members critical of the organization. "Witnesses have told me that they were held there an entire year," said Kent. He said such training camps existed not only in Los Angeles, but also in England and Denmark - and they have been for years. At this point, the government authorities have done nothing. Kent: "They always say there is not enough proof to get involved."

"I was pulled out of my bed early in the morning and dragged off," Stacy Brooks reported. She said the rehabilitation camp was in the middle of Los Angeles. Brooks: "I was constantly watched there and interrogated daily - with a lie detector." She said she received threats that she would never see her family again. "In the afternoons we had to do the running program for hours to get rid of negative thoughts." The only ones that leave are those who toe the line for the sect, said Stacy Brooks. Now she has joined the struggle against the sect.