Kevin Hague, drugs spokesman for New Zealand’s Green Party, has alleged in Parliament that the Church of Scientology is using tax-payer money to promote an anti-psychiatry agenda and messages against medication used to treat mental illness through cha…

Cult leader Bert Potter dies; a look at how Jim Jones manipulated politicians in San Francisco; and Kate Bornstein is no longer afraid to speak out about Scientology. Also in this religion news briefing: the rise of paid, online worship in India; plu…

Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times changed an anti-Scientology speech by Australian Senator Nick Xenophon into an anti-Islam speech by switching the terms. Amid concerns for his safety, the senator says the paper’s apology is too little, too late.

Neither pays the other side money, and Cook and her husband are legally prohibited from ever again speaking ill of the church. The Church of Scientology walks away having suffered through a day of brutal testimony that remains in the public record.

Charges against Janice Meyer accused of coaching a child to lie about sex abuse have been dropped in a Sydney court. Meyer, who also uses the name Jan Eastgate, heads Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a Scientology front group that wages an ong…

Health officials have ordered the Narconon rehabilitation centre for drug addicts in Trois Rivières, Canada, to evacuate and relocate its 32 residents, citing concerns over procedures that “may represent a risk to health” and a lack of doctors on sta…

The Narconon Drug Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre in Trois-Rivières is shut down for ‘dangerous’ practices. The organization, viewed as a front group for the Church of Scientology, employs treatments based on the medical fantasies of Scientolog…

A regional court in Moscow has upheld a lower court decision made in June 2011, declaring books published by the Church of Scientology to be extremist literature and banning publication or distribution of books from Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard….

The Irish branch of the Church of Scientology remains deep in the red as revenues continue to decline. Interest-free loans from overseas Scientologist and from other Church of Scientology ‘missions’ are keeping the Dublin branch abroad.

Members of the Netherlands’ House of Representatives have asked questions of State Secretary for Finance, Frans Weekers, regarding tax deductions on financial donations given to the Church of Scientology via front groups. Scientology is not considered…

We have collected nearly 500 religion stories this week. Most of them we never post, but simple file instead to have information on hand should we need it. But we have hand-selected 5 news stories from the past week that we think deserve a closer look.

Australia’s Mental Health Minister, Helen Morton, says a new campaign by the Church of Scientology is sensationalist. The ‘Citizens Commission on Humans Right,’ a Scientology front group engaged in an ongoing hate campaign against psychiatry and psych…

The controversial Church of Scientology is in the process of acquiring an office complex in a suburb of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The enormous complex is located in the New West suburb — well away from the city’s center, where the problem-plagued cult …

Another PR Crisis for Scientology: Nightline interviews Debbie Cook — the former Scientology executive whose criticism of the Church of Scientology has rocked the religious cult to the core. Having failed to silence Cook in court, Cook has now filed…

An anti-drug group run by the Church of Scientology will be investigated to ensure money granted to it by the government was not misspent. Drug education experts say the information in the pamphlets funded by the grants is not based on science, and s…

The Church of Scientology in Australia has asked the Federal Government for an exemption to the Fair Work Act so they do not have to pay workers the minimum wage. Last September the cult was found to be subject to Australian labour laws after an inves…

A controversial drug-awareness program widely considered to be a front group for the Church of Scientology has received funding from the Government of New Zealand to spread its unorthodox views through schools and community groups. “This kind of quac…

Two former Scientology ministers want the 9th Circuit to let them sue the church for forced labor, rejecting application of the First Amendment’s ministerial exception. Husband and wife Claire and Marc Headley each filed complaints against the Church …

In the middle of suburban Australia is a secret compound that’s labelled ‘degrading’ and ‘inhumane’, with allegations of keeping children prisoner. Australia’s current affairs program Tonight Today reports on Scientology’s prison camp.

After explosive trial testimony last week, the Church of Scientology abandoned its quest to silence a former church official it sued for breach of a confidentiality agreement. The change came after Cook gave lurid testimony about abuse she says she u…