I, Gerry Armstrong declare:
1. I was a Scientologist from 1969 through 1981. For eleven years, I was in the “Sea Organization,” (“Sea Org”) the segment of Scientologists through which Scientology “churches” and “religious” groups around the world are controlled and Scientology-connected commercial enterprises are overseen. The Sea Org is a pseudo-military organization, and I rose to the rank of “ensign.” I served in the Sea Org on its ships or at its land bases in several countries.
2. Scientology markets and sells, by-the-hour, an extensive and expensive system of mental exercises that the inventor of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard (“LRH”) called “auditing.” He directed Scientology and the Sea Org throughout the time I was a Scientologist. The Scientologists claim that by doing what Mr. Hubbard said, by following his “taped path,” by auditing, they progress from the state of ordinary humans they all call “wogs,” up many “levels” of ever-increasing intelligence, ability and ethics to the super-human state of “Operating Thetan” or “OT.” I reached the level of OT 3. Hubbard claimed that humans are all in a trap and that Scientology gives them “total freedom.”
3. Mr. Hubbard and his family were on the same ship, the Sea Org’s “Flagship Apollo,” that I was on, and I communicated with him regularly. I held a number of Sea Org positions and gained knowledge of the organization’s nature, structure, intentions and activities. My Sea Org posts included “Legal Officer,” “Public Relations Officer,” “Intelligence Officer,” “LRH External Communications Aide,” “Deputy Commanding Officer of LRH’s Household Unit,” “LRH Archivist and Biography Researcher,” and “Rehabilitation Project Force (“RPF”) Bosun.” RPFs are the punishment, labor and re-education camps or squads that the Sea Org has operated in different countries. Mr. Hubbard personally assigned me to the RPF twice and I was held there a total of twenty-five months.
4. During my last two years in the Sea Org, I assembled an archive of Mr. Hubbard’s personal papers and provided them to a writer contracted to create an approved biography. In the course of studying these papers, I proved to myself that in Mr. Hubbard’s books and other publications he had lied on a grand scale. He lied about being a nuclear physicist, about being crippled and blinded in World War II, about being awarded a multitude of military medals, about his wives and children, about having nothing to do with occultism or black magic, and about a long list of other claims about his life and accomplishments. Mr. Hubbard and the Scientologists had used his lies to recruit me into Scientology and the Sea Org, and to keep me toiling, impoverished, and submitting to physical and psychological abuse. I attempted to get my organization seniors to remove Mr. Hubbard’s lies from Scientology books and promotional materials, and to become honest in our facts and claims. In response, these seniors verbally attacked me and threatened punishment. I was then stationed at the Sea Org base in Los Angeles, California. I concluded that I was in physical danger and I escaped from the base, and left Scientology for good.
5. By observation of the obvious around me; by reading Hubbard’s writings and listening to his lectures; by obeying him for years; and by my acceptance of the truth of my experiences before I escaped, I determined that the Scientology system or its auditing “technology” or procedures did not work as advertised and sold. They did not produce super-beneficial results as Mr. Hubbard claimed and Scientologists promised. I (and others) did not become more intelligent, able or ethical from doing Scientology and moving up its “levels.” I realized that Mr. Hubbard had concocted, and Scientologists operated, a massive money-making fraud. The Scientologists claim that they form the most ethical organization in the world; in fact, Scientology is highly unethical, defrauding untold numbers of people, invading privacy as policy, violating basic human rights, committing crimes against individuals, groups and governments, and victimizing people who left or anyone who legitimately criticized Mr. Hubbard, Scientology or Scientologists. I recognized that I had been controlled by a web of lies and by my fear of what I knew the Scientologists could do to me. I believe the same is true for many Scientologists in every country; they are held psychologically by a web of lies, and by the fear to think for themselves that the Scientology system instills in them.
6. Right after I escaped, Mr. Hubbard had his lieutenants publish a “Suppressive Person Declare” on me. Mr. Hubbard spoke and wrote a great deal in his “scripture” about the nature of “Suppressive Persons” or “SPs.” His SP doctrine states, and Scientologists teach, that SPs are completely evil, destructive, truly dangerous, incapable of redemption or reform, and deserving no civil rights. The doctrine states that SPs comprise two and a half percent of the population, and are the cause of all illness, accidents and every bad condition on earth. The doctrine equates SPs with antisocial personalities or psychopaths, and Hubbard provides what he called “stellar examples” that included Adolf Hitler.
7. The second key component of Hubbard’s SP doctrine is his definition or categorization of a “Suppressive Person:” a person who commits “Suppressive Acts.” He then defined “Suppressive Acts” as actions or omissions that “suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists.” In his “scripture,” he designated a long list of “Suppressive Acts,” any one of which renders a person an SP. The most common, and obvious, among these is speaking up and telling the truth about experiences or knowledge that organization leaders want to keep hidden. Since there are so many lies over so many years in Mr. Hubbard’s life and claims, and so much fraud, abuse and human rights violations in Scientology, there are many years of many people’s experiences and knowledge of these facts that these leaders have sought to keep hidden. These leaders’ emphasis on keeping Scientology-related lies, fraud, abuse or crimes hidden is understandable because telling the truth about these evils actually can reduce or impede the organization. The Suppressive Person class also includes persons who might never have been in Scientology but support the people telling such truth and speak up themselves about the lies, fraud, abuse and crime they learn about.
8. The third key component of the SP doctrine is the aggressive actions Scientologists take against persons who speak up and tell the truth about their experiences and knowledge that the leaders do not want divulged. The Scientology policy and practice of attacking people declared “Suppressive Persons” is known, both inside and outside the organization, as “Fair Game.” The goal of “Fair Game” is to “silence or destroy” the SPs, the people telling the truth about their experiences and knowledge, and the people supporting them. The scope of “Fair Game” attacks Mr. Hubbard intended on SPs can be seen in this very succinct and well known statement in his scripture from the early years of the Suppressive Person doctrine’s implementation.
ENEMY — SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. (Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 18 October 1967, “Penalties for Lower Conditions.”)
9. In compliance with their SP doctrine, the Scientologists have Fair Gamed me for almost forty years. Actions by their own personnel or by hired agents include: physically assaulting me multiple times; threatening to murder me; trying to involve me in a freeway crash; suing me six times; trying to have me prosecuted on false criminal charges; framing me for crimes; bankrupting me; illegally wiretapping my attorney and me; illegally videotaping me; stalking me; running intelligence operations against me; destroying a number of my relationships; and black PRing me. The Scientologists and their hired agents similarly Fair Gamed my attorney.
10. Black Propaganda or Black PR is a Scientology practice and a vital component of Fair Game. The Scientologists’ objective is to destroy SPs’ reputations, credibility, relationships, livelihoods and opportunities, by designed, covert or overt, repeated and relentless lies and scandalmongering. The Scientologists seek by Black PR to make their targets hated and make persecuting them acceptable or laudable. The Scientologists and their agents have Black PRed me internationally, including in Russia. They have Black PRed me to their own members, and to governments, courts, law enforcement, clergy, media, and to anyone who might read or listen to what I say about my experiences or knowledge.
11. Another weapon in the Scientologists’ Fair Game arsenal is the practice of “Disconnection.” If a person leaves Scientology, speaks out critically, or supports people speaking out, organization leaders will commonly compel Scientologists still in their control to “disconnect” from that person. If a Scientologist even “grants credence” to a declared SP, that Scientologist can also be declared an SP and targeted for Fair Gaming. The practice of Disconnection has split up countless families, destroyed marriages, separated children from parents or grandparents, and ruined careers and businesses. The Scientologists had my wife Caroline’s daughter disconnect from her, and Caroline has not heard from her for more than twenty years, nor ever been able to meet her granddaughter, who is now eighteen years old. The threat of being declared SPs, of being Fair Gamed, or of disconnection from family or friends keeps many people from leaving Scientology or speaking up about their experiences or knowledge.
12. After I left the organization, because of my need to survive in the face of legal and extralegal Fair Game, and because of my grounding in Scientology-related experiences and knowledge and my continuing post-escape study of Scientology-related materials, I acquired an uncommon, but top-level expertise in the Suppressive Person doctrine. I have applied my expertise to what I understand about Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, “Incitement of Hatred or Enmity, as Well as Abasement of Human Dignity.” I have reached the conclusion that the Scientologists’ Suppressive Person doctrine incites hatred against the Suppressive Person class, and abasement of their dignity. The doctrine’s application and enforcement incites, or even compels, hatred of individual, named citizens. This hatred is demonstrated by the Scientologists’ long history of Fair Game. It is incitement to hatred by an organized group. There is no moral justification or reasonable lawful defense for the SP doctrine or for any act of Fair Game throughout Scientology’s history. The Scientologists’ behaviors are not necessarily or wholly driven by individual psychologies or aberrations of Scientology “believers,” but majorly by Mr. Hubbard’s unchanging extremist agenda: world domination, or, as he termed it, “clearing the Planet.” The SP doctrine and Fair Game are to silence or destroy any and all opposition, anything that reduces or impedes the Scientologists on their agenda. The SP doctrine is inculcated not only in the Scientology “churches” or “religious” entities, but in Scientology-dominated commercial businesses, and in Scientology front groups, such as its anti-drug, anti-psychiatry, pro-education, pro-human rights or management consulting fronts. They all forward the same extremist agenda.
I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of Canada and the Russian Federation that the foregoing is true and correct.
Signed this 29th day of March, 2021 in Chilliwack, BC, Canada.
Gerry Armstrong
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