[if the style of this article is odd in places, it's odd in French too!]
http://www.rue89.com/2008/03/18/sciento ... ne-boublil
Scientology: getting to the bottom of the Martine Boublil affair
by Emmanuel Fansten 13:53 18/03/2008
According to our information, Martine Boublil, who claims to have been kidnapped by her scientologist brother, has made an official complaint.
[irrelevant pic of Tom Cruise]
The story has shaken Scientology. On January 20, Martine Boublil (48 ), ex-member of the sect, is discovered half naked in a house in Sardinia. Unable to walk, lying on an infested mattress, this ex-scientologist claims to have been locked up for a one month and half in Sardinia, after being held by force in la Sarthe [in France] for several days previously. Four people were implicated in Italy, as well as the elder brother of the victim, Claude Boublil, a retired doctor, like ther others a scientologist.
After Italian justice, the authorities [?] in Paris have opened a preliminary investigation in France, entrusted to the police of the Central Office for the Prevention of Violence to Individuals (OCRVP). According to our information, Martine Boublil, currently in a psychiatric hospital near Paris, has made a formal complaint concerning "abuse of weakness and kidnapping", the authorities have confirmed to us.
Another threat to Scientology, which continues to claim to be uninvolved: "There was no kidnapping, nobody was held against their will", insisted Danièle Gounord, spokesman of the organization in France. "It was a terrible family drama." In which Claude Boublil would have played an important part.
"He was regarded as a demigod by many followers"
Since the beginning of the affair, he has claimed to be a "simple parishioner", who sought to help his sister "to recover spiritually in a calm environment". A way, especially, of getting her out of the clutches of psychiatry, considered to be criminal by Scientology.
Contacted by telephone, Claude Boublil declined to make further comment today. "Scientology has nothing to do with this", he insisted firmly. Problem: the doctor, a known and acknowledged Scientologist, is one of the big shots at the Celebrity Center, the prestigious Parisian center of the organization. A follower for thirty-five years, he has reached level OT8, the highest rank in the organization.
"He was regarded as a demigod by many followers", says Alain Stoffen, pianist and ex-scientologist. "It is he who issued the certificates for purification (a treatment intended for new followers involving vitamins and sauna sessions)".
A Pioneer of Scientology in France, Boublil was even invited to speak on France Inter, in February 1988, to praise the merits of Dianetics, the bible of scientologists written by their founder, Ron Hubard. "It is at this moment in time the most advanced mental science", Boublil explained on air. "I am the most intelligent doctor practising Dianetics." [sic!?]
This same Dianetics would make headlines barely two months later: Patrick Vic, a young member of the Dianetics centre at Lyon, committed suicide in front of his wife. The affair resulted in one of the most damaging lawsuits for Scientology, leading to convictions for manslaughter and fraud.
"To say yes, they blinked eyes, for not, they left them open"
Since then Doctor Boublil having retired has been more discrete but remains an influential scientologist. At the end of 2004, still OT7, he supervised a national congress of the organization in Paris. Theme of the conference: "Assistance and dissemination, the magic formula to Clear the Planet."
Can we see a link here with the affair of his sister in Sardinia? "There can be no doubt", insists Arnaud Palisson, former police officer of the Interior Department and specialist in Scientology. For him, the "hell" described by Martine Boublil is not just a simple matter. "They did not address a word to me. To say yes, they blinked eyes, for not, they left them open ", the victim told "Parisien" [newspaper] before her return in France. According to Palisson, this silence corresponds exactly to a classic scientology procedure reserved for "psychotics", and called "Isolation Watch" by Hubbard. Several internal memos describe the precise protocol to be followed:
Quote:
"In the presence of a person undergoing a psychotic crisis, totally isolate this person, all communications made must be silent"
In France, kidnapping and false imprisonment have a possible sentence of twenty years in prison. The investigation will now have to determine the exact circumstances of this detention.
Whilst waiting for the opening of a possible criminal case, deputy [member of French parliament] George Fenech is demanding the immediate creation of a parliamentary board of inquiry. Objective: "To burst the abscess [sic], and to detirmine once and for all the methods of the Church of Scientology." Should disorder be proven with public order, the procedure could lead to a proposal for the movement to be closed down.
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