I, Gerry Armstrong declare:
1. On July 12, 2008, I participated in a protest outside the Scientology operation at 401 West Hastings Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The protest, which was one of many protests that occurred on the same date at Scientology sites in several countries, had been scheduled and organized by the loose collective of people known as anonymous. I have attended similar protests outside the Vancouver Scientology operation on March 15, April 12, May 10 and June 14, 2008, which were also scheduled and organized by anonymous. All these protests were peaceful, and all participants I observed conducted themselves courteously and in compliance with Canadian and local laws.
2. At approximately noon on July 12, I was standing on the public sidewalk in front of the Scientology building along with one other man, and a woman known to me as Susan Kerr came out of the building and accosted us. Ms. Kerr stated that we were on Scientology property and ordered us to get off the property. The other man and I were not on Scientology property, but were both more than a foot off the property, and we told Ms. Kerr that we were not on the property. She stated that the Scientology property line ran between the green parts of the building, which are the parts that project the farthest toward Hastings Street and abut the public sidewalk, and she asserted repeatedly that the other man and I were over that line. I pointed out to her that she was wrong, that we were very aware where the property line is, and that we were well on the public side of the property line that ran between the green building parts.
3. Ms. Kerr also stated repeatedly that the other man and I were blocking the Scientology building entrance and preventing people from entering, and she ordered us to move and stop blocking the entrance. We were not blocking the entrance and not in any way preventing anyone from entering or leaving the building, and we both told her so. Her charge was ludicrous because the entrance between the green parts is approximately twenty feet wide, and several people at once could have walked by us and entered without being prevented, delayed or hindered by us in any way. In fact, during the time that the other man and I were together on the sidewalk in front of the Scientology building not one person entered or attempted to enter.
4. Ms. Kerr threatened that if the other man and I didn’t get off the Scientology property and didn’t stop blocking the entrance she was going to call the police. Both the man with me and I again stated that we were not on Scientology property and not blocking the entrance, and we did not move. The man standing with me actually encouraged Ms. Kerr to call the police, and suggested that the media would be interested in such an incident. She then accused us of threatening her, and I pointed out that her accusation was false, and that by lying about our being on the property, lying about our blocking the entrance, and asserting that she was going to call the police, she was threatening us.
5. Ms. Kerr also accused us of harassing her and her church, and I said that we were doing nothing of the kind, and that we were peacefully protesting her organization on a public sidewalk, which is our right as citizens to do. I told her that in fact by falsely accusing us of being on Scientology property and blocking the entrance and by threatening to call the police, to whom she would also necessarily lie, she was harassing us.
6. I have participated in peaceful protests of Scientology fraud, abuses and criminality many times and in many places from 1995 up to the present, and I am very familiar with the organization’s practice of having its personnel falsely accuse protesters of trespassing on its property so as to create an incident to be able to assault such protesters or have them charged with criminal trespass. Appended hereto as Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of a report written March 13, 1999 by Martin Hunt and posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (“a.r.s.”) concerning a protest he did with me of the same Vancouver Scientology building on March 12 and 13, 1999. In his report Mr. Hunt stated:
Vancouver org picketed Friday and Saturday March 12 & 13 by Gerry Armstong and myself. Highlights:
* Scientology executive ordered another cult member to “shoot Gerry” should he dare step over their property line.
* Next day, another Scientologist invites us in the org to talk; a group waited inside. I demanded that they put the offer in writing, as it smelled of a set-up of some kind – call us in, then charge us with trespassing.
* Later, a Scientologist told us that we were trespassing, even though we were on a public sidewalk, and scrupulously avoided their property line.
Mr. Hunt’s posting is archived on Google at: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/59fb273c0a2c3231?dmode=source
7. Appended hereto as Exhibit B is a true and correct copy of a posting I made to a.r.s. March 8, 2005 concerning a protest I did at the Vancouver Public Library in August 2004 and the protest I did in March 1999 with Mr. Hunt. I made this posting to a.r.s. after I had tentatively identified the Scientologist, who had been told during the March 1999 protest to shoot me if I stepped on Scientology property, as Jeff Beaumont. I stated in my March 8, 2005 posting:
As I reported, in August last year I carried out a one-man protest of the Scientology cult’s CCHR anti-mental health hate exhibition at the Vancouver, B.C. Public Library.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/our/picket-2004-08-14.html
During my peaceful protest I was assaulted by a couple of the Scientologists manning their hate exhibit, most violently by a man I’d known to be a CCHR official but whose name I didn’t then know.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/our/picket-2004-08-14-17.html
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/our/picket-2004-08-14-11.html
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/our/picket-2004-08-14-16.html
This guy struck me twice, tore a strip of skin off my arm, and tried to rip from me a bunch of friendly Xenu flyers I’d brought for the protest.
I recently found a 1991 Vancouver Sun article that identified him as Brian Beaumont.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/our/picket-2004-08-14-24.html
Beaumont has a cookie-cutter Scientology web site: http://www.oursites.org/brianbeaumont/
It is possible that Jeff Beaumont, who also has a Scientology web site, is his son. http://www.our-home.org/jeffbeaumont/
During a picket of the Vancouver Scientology organization with Martin Hunt in 1999, a woman staff member ordered a young man, who could have been in his teens at the time, to shoot me if I stepped onto cult property. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/59fb273c0a2c3231?dmode=source
Later during our picket, the same guy made other threatening comments about getting his gun and taking care of me. Also later I saw Brian Beaumont talking to this young guy in a way that led me to conclude that they were probably father and son.
My March 8, 2005 posting is archived on Google at: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/1c8fe6822cc98b31?dmode=source
8. On October 16, 1999 I participated in a peaceful protest of the Scientology organization outside its Toronto headquarters at 696 Yonge Street. During the protest, A Scientology staff member, who was later identified to me as Paulette Layton, invited me to come onto organization property to talk to her. As soon as I did so, she ordered another Scientologist, known to me as Daniel Bryenton, to assault me. Mr. Bryenton complied with Ms. Layton’s order and punched me with both hands to the chest, knocking me backward.
9. On December 12, 2002, I observed a peaceful assembly of Scientology opponents at the organization office in Ekaterinburg, Russia. All of the people were there at the invitation of a Scientologist that I had met earlier at a conference in Ekaterinburg. Appended hereto as Exhibit C is a true and correct copy of a translation of an application by the Ekaterinburg Scientology organization to the Ekaterinburg Prosecutor and to several other Russian city, regional and federal authorities to prosecute me and other named persons. I have also webbed the translation of Scientology’s application at: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/osa-app-crim-charges.pdf
Scientology’s application stated:
On 12 of December 2002 a group of persons pre-arranged a collusion to cause a disturbance in the premises of the Regional Public Organization “The Urals Center Dianetics”. The citizens Father Vladimir Zaitsev and Father Nikita and foreign citizens, who did not want to tell their names, took part in this disturbance. Among foreign citizens, who caused the disturbance, was the citizen of the USA Dvorkin A.L., other foreign citizens D. [sic] Armstrong, T. Gandow, Broide P.P. called for actions against our public organization. The illegal activity of the above mentioned group was the following: they penetrated to the premises, which was rented by us, without our agreement.
On 12 of December 2002 approx. at 12 a.m., regardless of repeated prohibitions, these people, exercising physical strength, penetrated into the premises. They began to walk around it and publicly insulted the honor and dignity of staff members and members of our organization, (what comes within the article 130 of the Criminal Code of the RF) and cried: “Here is a totalitarian sect”, violating the principle of equality of all the citizens before the law (art. 136 of the Criminal Code of the RF). Without any response to our demands to go away, they began to grab the things and documents, which were placed on the tables, roughly violating our peace, trying to create the conditions, which impede to a normal work of the public organization (which comes within the article 213 item 2 of the Criminal Code of the RF).
10. Appended hereto as Exhibit D is a true and correct copy of a response to Scientology’s application, which I wrote on March 19, 2003 and transmitted to the Ekaterinburg Prosecutor and to the other Russian authorities to whom Scientology had sent its application. I also webbed my response at: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/armstrong-response-scn-app-2003-03-19.html In my response I stated:
Contrary to what Scientology states in its Application, I at no time penetrated the organization’s premises or even set a foot inside its office. At no time did I violate the peace of anyone. At no time did I insult the honor or dignity of anyone in the Scientology organization. At no time did I cause any disturbance. The claims by Scientology that I did these things are false.
Scientology’s claim that the persons who visited the organization’s office on December 12 “pre-arranged a collusion to cause a disturbance” is also false. The fact is that we were invited to visit by a Scientology organization employee. Two days earlier, during a conference in Ekaterinburg on totalitarian cults, at which I presented a paper, I had a conversation with a young woman who said she is a staff member of the Scientology organization and who invited me and other conference participants to visit the office. A photograph of this young woman, who also participated in a short debate with me about Scientology, and who gave her name, I believe, as “Maria,” is shown on my Internet report on the Conference. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/russia/index.html
I was very happy to be invited to meet with Russian Scientologists, because the leaders of the Scientology organization, which is headquartered in the U.S.A., have been using them to spread black propaganda about me in Russia, and I was hoping for an opportunity to discuss this hurtful black PR and perhaps have it corrected. Thus I was very grateful to “Maria” for the invitation to visit her organization’s office in Ekaterinburg. It is my belief that many of the Russian Scientologists who forward the U.S. Scientology organization’s black PR and other attacks on its human targets and victims are not aware of what evil they are doing, but are just robotically following orders received from their organization leaders in the U.S.
“ Black propaganda” or “black PR” is the term Scientology founder and director L. Ron Hubbard (dec. 1986) gave to his organization’s policy and practice of destroying a target’s reputation, credibility, relationships, livelihood and life with the broad and relentless spreading of lies and defamatory materials about him. On my website is a letter containing black PR on me that Scientology disseminated in 2001 at the time of another conference on totalitarian cults that took place in Nizhny Novgorod.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/osa-ltr-fsb-2001-04-20a.html
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/osa-ltr-fsb-2001-04-20a.pdf
I will address the falsehoods contained in the 2001 black PR letter later in this response.
Upon my arrival at the Scientology organization office in Ekaterinburg on December 12, 2002, I learned from the Scientologist gentleman in the reception area that some higher-up had countermanded “Maria’s” invitation to visit. Therefore, because this man did not specifically again invite me to enter the office, I did not enter. It is my understanding that, by Russian law, a public organization, which Scientology certainly claims to be in Russia, must permit visitors into its reception area. Nevertheless, at no time did I insist that I be allowed to enter, nor did I make any attempt to enter, even the reception area of the office. I had a few conversations through the open doorway with some of the Scientology employees who were inside the office, and I had conversations with some customers and some media representatives who were outside the office, where I remained during the visit. All of my conversations with the Scientology employees or their customers were civil, and at no time did I cry out, violate the peace, or violate the principle of equality before the law as Scientology asserts in its Application.
I took no documents and I saw no documents stolen by anyone. I understood that documents concerning some of the conference participants were being given out by Scientology in its reception area. The documents that concerned me, and which were given to me, were the same as documents Scientology disseminated about me in 2001 in Nizhny Novgorod. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/scientology-da-docs.html#russiada
These are also the same as documents that Scientology maintains on one of the cult’s U.S. based Internet hate sites that black PR me: http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/armstrong_docs.html
Scientology’s statement that I did not want to tell my name is also false. I willingly gave my name. In fact, I assumed that the Scientologists knew who I am because they had distributed black PR materials about me in Russia with my photograph, I had openly participated in the Ekaterinburg Conference using my own name and wearing a name card, I had appeared on Ekaterinburg television using my own name, and, as I mentioned, one of their personnel, “Maria,” had just two days earlier met me face to face, knew who I was, and invited me to visit the Scientology office. The Scientologist in the reception area of the Scientology office knew who I was, and we discussed my personal history and experiences with the cult, which further confirmed that I was who I said I was. That I had tried to withhold my identity from the Scientologists is blatantly untrue.
Scientology’s assertion that during the visit to the Scientology organization office on December 12 I “called for actions against [the] organization” is similarly false. I called for no actions whatsoever. I attempted to engage the Scientologists in civil, rational communication in an effort to get them to see that the hateful way in which their U.S. leaders require them to view me and people like me is illogical, antisocial and damaging, and hopefully to get these Scientologists to realize that the actions they are taking against me, and people like me, are unjustified, and in fact criminal.
11. Ms. Kerr knows who I am, and she has participated in Scientology operations to suppress my human rights here in Canada and to black PR me to Canadian media representatives and to others for the purpose of harming or destroying my reputation, relationships, opportunities, and livelihood. In November 2007, for example, I did an interview with Randall Mark, the host of the program The Standard on CHNU TV, a Rogers Media company. On December 7, just before the interview was scheduled to air, the producer Jonathan Roth called me and told me that Ms. Kerr had called him and the station manager and threatened that Scientology would sue if the interview aired. Mr. Roth said that consequently the station management had decided to not air the interview. He said that Ms. Kerr, in her capacity as a Scientology representative, had also faxed the station documents about me. He said that additionally Multifaith Action Society (“MAS”), a Vancouver based organization that claims “to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding,” sent a letter to the station urging that my interview not be aired. Ms. Kerr was then, and is still, identified on MAS’s web site as its Vice President, and I later learned that she was the person who instigated the letter MAS sent to suppress my interview, although the letter was signed by MAS’s Executive Director Nancy Chiavario. On March 4, 2008, I wrote and executed a declaration detailing my involvement with the Rogers Media TV station and personnel, and what I knew of Scientology’s, Ms. Kerr’s and MAS’s actions to kill my interview. I also webbed my declaration at: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-2008-03-04.html
12. During the confrontation with Ms. Kerr during the July 12, 2008 protest, described in paragraphs 2-5 above, she lied willfully and repeatedly and was aggressive and threatening. It was clear to me that she acted in that manner for the purposes of bullying the other man and me and inciting us to react aggressively to her bullying tactics. The other man and I did not react, however, but maintained our position and continued to behave non-aggressively, and Ms. Kerr backed off and did not further harass us overtly throughout the rest of the protest.
I declare under the penalty of perjury pursuant to the laws of British Columbia, Canada and the United States that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed this 14th day of July 2008 in Chilliwack, B.C., Canada.
