- Nothing to take notice of, claims Norwegian lawyer.
By Helle Høiness
- Many are scared when they get milelong letters from American lawyers
who claim copyright and threaten to prosecute, says lawyer
Knut Vigeland.
Vigeland has just won a case in High Court (Lagmannsretten) where a
client who had been swindled now has been awarded compensation from the
Church of Scientology in Oslo. Vigeland has because of this case become
well-known with the methods used by the Church of Scientology.
- First of all you should demand that any accusations are in Norwegian.
Threats of prosecution is meaningless if there is no documentation of copyright
according to Norwegian law and they refer to the actual Norwegian laws
that have been violated. In USA there are 50 states and none of them have
the same laws.
In Norway we follow Norwegian laws, says lawyer Vigeland.
He emphasizes that the Church of Scientology is not a church, but a business
enterprise.
Nordic warfare
On November 8th Norwegian Andreas Heldal-Lund made available secret
Scientology papers on the Internet for everybody to see. This has resulted in
an explosive reaction from both the Norwegian and American church.
- After I put the documents on the Internet I've been visited by representatives
from the church. They behaved very threateningly, says Heldal-Lund.
Since the documents were published two weeks ago they have been copied
to numerous home pages on the Internet and Scientologists have begun a hopeless
job of fire extinguishing. The minute the church manages to close down one
home page, new copies
appear new places on the net. Fights over the same documents are going on
both
in Sweden and Denmark.
Threatens with USA laws
Several Norwegian Internet providers have closed down Heldal-Lund's home
pages when the Church of Scientology have contacted them and threatened with
American laws of copyright. Nettguiden in Østfold has however had
the secret Scientology documents available since the 15th of November.
- I will let the documents be available here until I get a Norwegian
court order that says what we do is illegal. I have received a big number of
calls from USA. Recently I got a mail from a Norwegian lawyer who
represents the
church. She claims that the church has been given approval in similar
cases both in
Sweden and Denmark. This I have asked the lawyer to substantiate, says
Øivind
Robbestad who is editor of Nettguiden.
Inger Dørstad at the lawyer firm Haavind and Haga confirms that
the Church of Scientology is her client. She will for the time being not
tell what the church will be doing in the Internet case.
Follow the religious net war
Andreas Heldal-Lund: Operation Clambake (http://www.xenu.net/news/)