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Comment by belter | Hacker News Reader

You will not find an advocate of Scientology in me :-)) But you will find an advocate of equal treatment under the law and the rule of law.

Apparently members have stronger restrictions than those applied to persons who express extreme right views:

"Scientologists in Germany face specific political and economic restrictions. They are barred from membership in some major political parties, and businesses and other employers use so-called "sect filters" to expose a prospective business partner's or employee's association with the organization."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_Germany

I am just trying to check who are the committees who define what is an acceptable religion, how and under what legal framework.

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As I said, not defending Scientology here at all, but from the wikipedia article found this case interesting:

"In 2019, the Munich Labor court sided with the director of personnel of Haus der Kunst, a well-known artistic museum. He had been removed from his position after working for 22 years because it was discovered that he was a Scientologist. The case was settled and the director of personnel was paid 110,000 euro as severance and received a full pension. Many Germany courts also ruled the legitimacy of Scientology as a religion. In 2019, Ahmed Shaheed and Fernand de Varennes who were UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion and on minority issues wrote to Germany that, "discriminating against those who profess a certain belief is illegal under international human rights law, irrespective of whether the belief is religious or merely philosophical or cultural."

That sounds pretty fair to me. It's one thing to punish an individual for having a belief; it's another to give an organization a tax break for a Ponzi scheme based on that same belief.

In the case of political parties: they decide themselves. The large parties all have lists of clubs and informal organizations where membership is incompatible with party membership.

(No major party allows membership in another party, except european sister parties in other countries, but it's possible, and some smaller parties allow it)

in your quote, it says that private businesses and political parties are making these decisions. that's likely done as part of their regular screening processes.

So...If a business would decide to screen a candidate for the their Muslim or Jewish faith that would be what?

That would be a violation of the general act on equal treatment (introduced 2006), and hence referred to the state's attorney's office. Scientology does not enjoy the protection of religion or worldview because the organisation is under surveillance from the federal office for the protection of the constitution because of their politically motivated crimes.

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