A later response from the cult (Feb 15, 2012) [the previous Karin Pouw response was dated Feb 10]:
PDF: http://abclocal.go.com/three/kabc/kabc/ ... 5_2012.pdf

A TOP scientologist has claimed she was waterboarded as part of the cult's twisted bid to control members.

A court heard that she was locked up and beaten in a squalid torture chamber called The Hole.

Members of the weird "religion" — followed by A-listers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta — are allegedly forced to endure "horrific" abuse as part of a warped exorcism-like "auditing" process.

Former scientologist Debbie Cook, 50, lifted the lid on the "terror and tyranny" she witnessed during 17 years as head of the church in Florida.

She told a court in San Antonio, Texas, that she was put in The Hole at a scientology base in the Californian desert.

Mrs Cook said she was kept in a locked area "infested with ants" with other scientologists for seven weeks as temperatures soared to 106F.

http://twitter.com/#!/timesworld/status/169915913540354048
Times Foreign Desk @timesworld
Scientology executive tells of beatings and torture http://thetim.es/ychCDb (£)
10:48 PM - 15 Feb 12

An attempt by the Church of Scientology to gag one of its former executives has backfired after she used her day in court to blow the lid on a "horrific" litany of torture, harassment and abuse by the organisation's leadership.

In a humiliating climbdown, the church, whose leader, David Miscavige, is accused by multiple ex-members of ruling by "terror" and "tyranny", abandoned a court hearing against Debbie Cook, who repeated in the witness stand the very allegations they had been attempting to silence. "Ms Cook was beaten, she was tortured, she was degraded," her lawyer, Ray Jeffrey, told the court in San Antonio, Texas.

The church had applied for an injunction against Ms Cook, 50, a former head of its spiritual headquarters in Florida for 17 years, accusing her of violating a confidentiality agreement that she signed when she quit the church in 2007. But the church abruptly pulled out of proceedings and admitted that Ms Cook had dealt it "irreparable damage" with her allegations that she was persecuted for challenging Mr Miscavige's abuses of policy.

What she endured over the years left her so broken, and so desperate to leave, that "I would have signed that I stabbed babies over and over again and loved it. I would have done anything", she told Bexar County Court during tearful testimony.

She said that on one occasion Mr Miscavige, a friend of Tom Cruise, the actor, ordered his secretary to slap her, which she did so forcefully that Ms Cook was sent crashing into chairs.

She was held for 45 days, along with 100 other Scientology executives, in a den known as The Hole at the church's California desert compound, where she was subjected to distressing "confession" sessions including being forced to stand in a dustbin for two hours while water was poured on her head and abuse screamed in her face.

"It had bars on the windows and the one entrance was guarded by security 24 hours a day," she said. "The place was infested by ants, so ants would crawl on you, and there was a twoweek period during that time when the electricity had been shut off -- as ordered by Mr Miscavige -- and this was of course in summer in the desert so the temperature in there was about 106." She said that in 2005 she "witnessed Mr Miscavige physically punching in the face and wrestling to the ground another very senior executive". Another was beaten by his assistant and made to lick a dirty floor for 30 minutes.

During another confrontation, Mr Miscavige came at her with his hands held out "as if he was going to choke me", she told the court, adding that he stopped short and instead "grabbed my shoulders and shook me while he was yelling".

In her final months working for the church she was "imprisoned" at a compound in Florida and followed everywhere, even to the lavatory. "I called my mother and told her if I wasn't out in three days, to call the police," she said. Ms Cook was eventually let go and given a $50,000 (Pounds 32,000) payoff and a contract to prevent her from speaking ill of the church.

The court clash came after she e-mailed church members in January, denouncing Mr Miscavige's autocratic ways and overbearing fundraising tactics and urging them to help restore Scientology to its roots. She is the latest in a series of high-level defectors who have left, vowing continuing loyalty to the spiritual teachings of the church's late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, but accusing his successor, Mr Miscavige, of having steered the church "off policy".

A statement issued by the church stated that it withdrew its motion for an injunction against Ms Cook and her husband "to preclude the court being used further as a forum for the defendants to violate the rights of the church and its members with more false and disparaging statements". It branded her a "heretic" and vowed: "She and her fellow bitter apostates will never enter a Church of Scientology again."

Ms Cook said: "I take seriously being under oath. I absolutely told the truth."

Credit: United States Jacqui Goddard Miami
Illustration

Caption: David Miscavige: ruled Scientology by "terror and tyranny"; Debbie Cook, right; David Miscavige with Tom Cruise, one of the church's most famous members

[...]

Ugh. We can only hope that Debbie's testimony will spur a larger investigation into the Church of Scientology's leadership. This is not the first time we've heard terrifying reports like this one.

Awful.

Scientology took on Debbie Cook, Debbie Cook kicked Scientology's ass, and now...Scientology wins?

This afternoon, former Church of Scientology executive Debbie Cook posted a public thank you to her supporters at the blog of Marty Rathbun, who is also a former high-ranking church official.

[...]

Cook also reasserted her dedication to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology -- if not the Scientology of the official church, as it's being led by David Miscavige...

I support L Ron Hubbard. I have seen L Ron Hubbard's technology create many miracles. There is no question in my mind that Scientology books and lectures as written by L Ron Hubbard hold tremendous benefit for anyone who just takes the writings as they are and applies them. I have seen the lame walk. I have seen emotionally broken people renewed. I have seen relationships healed. And I have seen these things over and over and over again. Nothing could ever shake my belief in the value of L Ron Hubbard's philosophical writings.

[...]

Now, with Debbie's letter showing up on Rathbun's blog, there's little question that church members are being asked to choose a side: both claim Hubbard for their own.

We're watching Scientology split in a very public way.

[...full article in link...]

Exclusive: ‘I’m scared of the Scientologists. I know’

Senior executive who fled the Church of Scientology says she is ‘an important part of the biggest cover-up in Scientology history’

The Times UK
Has another "pay to play" story on Debbie Cook

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/
someone who might has a subscription can access plox

also
Debbie Cook has created a blog
the second blog post Is the Letter published yesterday on Martyrs Blog and covered by Tony O yesterday in his article
http://www.debbiecookbaumgarten.com/
She gives a little info on her background and involvement with Scientology here
http://www.debbiecookbaumgarten.com/about-me/

also a link with quotes from Hubbard.
and a pay pal link to donate..

her first Blog post was Feb 2nd BTW
http://www.debbiecookbaumgarten.com/page/2/
looks like Shes going to exercise her right to speak freely and thumb her Nose at the asthmatic Totalitarian Dwarf...

set enturbulation to overdrive please...

'I didn't want to fight Scientology. I knew what they were capable of'; United States
Jacqui Goddard
Miami
18 February 2012
The Times


A senior executive who fled the Church of Scientology complaining of torture and persecution decided to go public with her story after telling a Texas court that she had become "an important part of the biggest cover-up in Scientology history."

Debbie Cook, 50, testified that she left the Church after witnessing a "horror story" of abuse against members, including beatings and false imprisonment allegedly ordered by its self-appointed leader, David Miscavige.

She spoke out despite claims made in court of a sinister campaign of intimidation aimed at silencing her. "I know what they are capable of. I never wanted to wade into battle with the Church," she said in an interview with The Times.

She told the court that the "horrific" violations she witnessed were at odds with the religion to which she has dedicated her life since the age of 14.

Mr Miscavige is blamed by many Scientology defectors for having turned what they see as an uplifting and purposeful religion into a cult dictatorship. Those who challenged his methods were punished, sometimes violently, Ms Cook testified in San Antonio district court last week.

Ms Cook and her husband, Wayne Baumgarten, have been excommunicated by friends, relatives and business contacts who are under the Church's control over an e-mail that she sent to members last month urging them to restore the organisation to the principles on which it was founded in 1952 by L. Ron Hubbard.

It complained of Mr Miscavige's alleged coercive fundraising strategies, which have built the Church a reported billiondollar fortune, and autocratic leadership, which included dealing out "long and harsh" punishment to those who displeased him. Ms Cook's experiences included physical assaults and 45 days' imprisonment at a detention centre, known as the Hole, while working for the Church in California under Mr Miscavige's personal direction, she told the court. She added that she witnessed other executives being beaten and forced into degrading rituals by Mr Miscavige's lieutenants.

Ms Cook told The Times: "I had got tremendous personal benefit from Scientology, I dedicated my life to it, I loved what I did. Then you see things and somehow it just takes a bit before you figure out what's really happening." She still supported Scientology, but not its leadership.

After the Hole she returned to Florida, where she was shadowed everywhere to prevent her escape, the court was told. "There's a procedure when someone of significance blows [defects]," Ms Cook testified. "People are put on tracking you down. They're sent to the airport, the bus stop. They're sent where your family is."

The Church sought an injunction last week to silence Ms Cook, saying that her e-mail violated a gagging clause in her contract.

It withdrew its attempt after she spoke in court. In a statement, the Church dismissed her allegations as "extreme falsity" and said it would now seek a summary judgment against her, adding: "Church counsel is pleased that Ms Cook has admitted to the facts confirming both her agreement and the irreparable harm caused to the Church through her actions."

Accusing her of disparaging Church officials, executing a bitter hate campaign and trying to extort the Church for money, it added: "The Church refuses to let her continue under the guise of judicial privilege to falsely disparage the Church. In three hours of testimony she did not have a positive statement to make about anyone she ever encountered in her decades long Scientology career. Moreover, true or false, her statement about Church staff clearly violates the ministerial privilege. The Church fully intends to use its ecclesiastical procedures grounded in Church scripture to expose Cook's false testimony and ecclesiastical transgressions."

Debbie Cook told a court of a "sinister campaign to silence her"

A trial detailing abuse and confinement of officials in the upper echelons of the Church of Scientology began this year in federal court in San Antonio, and put one Bulverde lawyer in the middle of an internationally and sensational affair.

Bulverde lawyer and former Bulverde mayor Ray Jeffrey is defending Debbie Cook, 50, of Converse, who is being sued by the Church for allegedly violating an extensive nondisclosure agreement she signed when leaving the church in October of 2007.

Cook and her husband, Wayne Baumgarten, relocated from Florida to Texas at that time.

The Church of Scientology is being represented in the case by attorney George Spencer Jr. of San Antonio.

Jeffrey ended up representing the couple on recommendation from a fellow lawyer and friend in Florida who told Jeffrey that his proximity to the church in Florida would make it difficult to represent Cook.

“Here I am in Bulverde in the middle of this international case,” said Jeffrey.

Along with international and U.S. news media knocking at his door as well as following the trial in San Antonio, Jeffrey said private investigators have swarmed around his office in the Village of Bulverde conducting surveillance.


[...more in article link...]