LawFuel – The mounting controversy surrounding the Church of Scientology and the Tom Cruise video have raised questions about attempts by the Church to silence its critics.
Reference is made to the South Park episode in 2005 when a satirical take on the Church resulted in Cruise crying: ‘I’m going to sue you… in England!’
The facts is, the US courts protect freedom of speech far more than they do in Britain, where the laws of libel are far more stringent.
The Andrew Morton biography of Cruise has been withheld, with nary a copy to be obtained anywhere. Those attempting to buy a copy online receive a notification from the Amazon site: ‘the publisher has authorised the distribution of this book only to customers within the United States and Canada’.
As The Guardian’s Nick Cohen commented: “Publishers and every variety of American journalist from left winger to neo-con are demanding court judgments and new laws from US politicians to protect them from Eady and his kind. They have grasped that, far from promoting freedom, the net is allowing Saudi billionaires, Scientologists and soon, I imagine, Vladimir Putin’s stooges and the agents of sovereign wealth funds to come to London and secure a banning order that could be enforced anywhere in the world.”
