Scientology's Concentration Camp for Its Executives: The Prisoners, Past and Present - 2012-08-02

Scientology's Concentration Camp for Its Executives: The Prisoners, Past and Present August 2, 2012, Tony Ortega, Runnin' Scared, Village Voice

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As Brousseau explained, it was after Scientology finally got out from under the Lisa McPherson wrongful death lawsuit with a settlement in 2004 that church leader David Miscavige's attention seemed to turn inward.

Suddenly, he says, Miscavige directed an unending fury at his own top executives, some of his most loyal and longest-serving officials in international management. And in 2004, he rounded up about 50 of these Sea Org members, locked them in a room, and then confined them to another building for three days. He then asked Brousseau to secure the CMO Int offices, and then the next day moved the executives down to it.

The Hole was born.

Harrowing accounts of what occurred in The Hole turned up in a 2009 investigation by Joe Childs and Tom Tobin of the Tampa Bay Times, in Marc Headley's 2009 book Blown for Good, and in Janet Reitman's 2011 history of the church, Inside Scientology.

Then, this year, we heard from two additional sources about conditions in The Hole -- Debbie Cook's dramatic court testimony this February in San Antonio, and Mike Rinder's Voice video interview in March. (At Cook's hearing in February, the church put out a statement denying that The Hole exists. But the attorney who uttered that denial was not, as Cook, under oath in a court of law. He's also outnumbered by numerous former Scientologists who have spoken about the church's concentration camp with utter consistency.)

Wikipedia cite:

{{cite news | first = Tony | last = Ortega | title = Scientology's Concentration Camp for Its Executives: The Prisoners, Past and Present | url = https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/08/02/scientologys-concentration-camp-for-its-executives-the-prisoners-past-and-present/ | work = Runnin' Scared | publisher = Village Voice | date = August 2, 2012 | accessdate = September 25, 2017 }}