The Church of Scientology, notoriously ruthless at crushing its critics, may have met its match.The Times joins a demo by ‘Anonymous’ – the vanguard of a new internet-fuelled radicalism
There were signs, if you knew where to look, that the launch of Operation Sea Arrrgh was imminent. In a hundred corners of the internet plots were being plotted; in fancydress shops sales of Guy Fawkes masks were rising and in thousands of dank teenage bedrooms young men and women were making plans to converge on sites around the world, dressed as pirates.
Their target was the Church of Scientology – and this was an altogether new way of protesting. It was all so different from how it used to be. For more than a decade, a small group had gathered opposite the Church’s London offices to stage lonely demonstrations. Some were former Scientologists, some just angered by an organisation that they claimed split up families, extorted money and employed its followers as slave labour. Leafleting passers-by, explaining themselves to the police and countering – they claimed – the harassment of the Scientologists, they were happy if a dozen turned out.