According to a BBC News report, France has convicted the Church of Scientology on fraud charges in the country and is seeking to ban the organization from operating there.

The French government refuses to recognize the Church of Scientology as a real religion and instead classifies it as a sect. The allegation is the the organization is only a commercial venture designed to fleece vulnernable victims of as much money as possible.

This stance has drawn some flak on the French government with accusations of violations of France’s constitutional guarantees on religious freedom as well as the European Convention on Human Rights.

There have been several instances of individual representatives of the Church of Scientology being charged with fraud but this is the first case where the organization itself has been charged. “The case came after complaints from two women, one of whom said she was manipulated into paying more than 20,000 euros (£18,100) in the 1990s.” (excerpted from the BBC News report) Of course, the organization denies any wrongdoing and insists that no mental manipulation took place.

The conviction resulted in the fining of two branches of the Church of Scientology operations, as well as several of its leaders,  in France.

Wikipedia outlines the beliefs of the Scientology:

The Church of Scientology promotes Scientology, a body of beliefs and related practices, created by L. Ron Hubbard, starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics.^[18]

Scientology teaches that people are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature.^[19] Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counseling known as “auditing“, in which practitioners aim to re-experience consciously painful or traumatic events in their past, in order to free themselves of their limiting effects.^[20] Study materials and auditing courses are made available to members in return for specified donations.^[21] Scientology is legally recognized as a tax-exempt religion in the United States^[22] and other countries,^[23][24][25] and the Church of Scientology emphasizes this as proof that it is a bona fide religion.

Scientology describes itself as the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others, and all of life. One purpose of Scientology, as stated by the Church of Scientology, is to become certain of one’s spiritual existence and one’s relationship to God, or the “Supreme Being.”^[26]

One of the major tenets of Scientology is that a human is an immortal alien spiritual being, termed a thetan, that is presently trapped on planet Earth in a physical “meat body.” Hubbard described these thetans in “The Space Opera” cosmogony. The thetan has had innumerable past lives and it is accepted in Scientology that lives preceding the thetan’s arrival on Earth lived in extraterrestrial cultures. Descriptions of space opera incidents are seen as true events by Scientologists.^[27]

Scientology claims that its practices provide methods by which a person can achieve greater spiritual awareness.^[28] Within Scientology, progression from level to level is often called The Bridge to Total Freedom. Scientologists progress from “Preclear”, to “Clear“, and ultimately “Operating Thetan“.

Scientologists are taught that a series of events, or incidents, occurred before life on earth.^[29] Scientologists also believe that humans have hidden abilities which can be unlocked.^[30][31]

Should the USA be more discerning in what should be considered a real religion? Or is the more correct in allowing broad interpretation of what qualifies as a religion in order to satisfy often liberal interpretations of the Constitution?