This past Saturday, Anonymous DC held its June raid, protesting the Church of Scientology. This time, we took the always-popular pirate theme for our raids, which means that we dressed in stereotypical pirate garb. As was the case last year, the pirate-themed raid was a LOT of fun. And like last year, our raid was the same weekend as the Capital Pride festival, which ties in nicely with Scientology protests. After all, Scientology can arguably be labeled as homophobic.
Early on, we got visited by two people in bikinis. One of them went into the Org wearing just the bikini. Not all that surprisingly, she got kicked out, with the Scientologists citing that she wasn’t wearing enough clothes.
Exiting the Org after being kicked out, and making a sad face for the camera due to her getting kicked out of the Org.
She also posed with our Anons for a photo…
Another one of the themes this time around focused on the fact that participants in Anonymous DC raids have allegedly been physically assaulted by Scientologists. The first was the assault on Ron Jeremy at the April raid, and more recently, an assault on HT that happened during a flyering session for this raid. There, three Scientologists allegedly came out of the Org. One grabbed HT’s Guy Fawkes mask with enough force to crack it and yanked it off, throwing it with enough force to land it at the top of the steps in front of the Org. Another began punching HT in the stomach. A third took photos of it all. And because of these incidents, we made this part of our message. After all, what kind of church physically assaults its critics? A dangerous cult might do this (any dangerous cults come to mind, wink wink?), but I wouldn’t think that a true place of religion would do that…
Beret demonstrates this point with her “Join Scientology, beat up girls” sign.
John McNonymous also demonstrated this point with an add-on to an existing sign.
Meanwhile, Enturb held up a homemade wanted poster for Reinhard Koenig, the alleged kicker in the Ron Jeremy incident, who, at the time this photo was taken, was still at large.
I still find it amazing how Scientology finds it useful to engage in illegal activities to try to scare us off. After all, most groups, when targeted by demonstrators in Washington, don’t even bother getting involved, leaving the cops to handle the demonstrators. Not Scientology. They used to just try and screw with us, but now they’ve graduated to assault and battery. All in all, it’s not very becoming for a supposed religious group.
This raid also marked the first time in about a year that we had a large banner. While our last banner in 2008 read “BOOOO SCIENTOLOGY”, this one read, “Scientology is a dangerous alien CULT”.
We also got good activist press coverage at this raid! Luke, whom many of you have seen in photos from other demonstrations, swung by our raid while covering the Capital Pride events for DC Indymedia.
Luke takes a few photos of our raid, and interviews an Anon.
Luke’s work ultimately led to this article on DC Indymedia about our raid.
This raid also had a feel similar to some of our earlier raids. Some Anons came back to raid with us again, plus we had the big sound system like we did for early raids.
The sound system returns!
Heidi also made it to her first raid after way too many months’ absence.
One person who was noticeably absent was WalkingStickMan, whose trademark phrase is “Why so ironic?” He was out graduating from high school on this particular occasion. He may not have been there, but his sign was, and we made sure to put it to good use.
Heidi and I each ask, “Why so ironic?”
And then of course, we just generally had fun…
HT and Purple Hair Anon dance to pirate-themed music.
Meme sings a sea shanty written specifically for this raid. “Sylvia” refers to Scientology spokesmodel Sylvia Stanard, who never did make her token appearance this time around.
As you can see, the atmosphere was light, as word came out that the police had caught alleged attacker Reinhard Koenig.
And then as the raid neared its close, guess who showed up! It was none other than WalkingStickMan, who, after going to graduation and post-graduation activities, came to our raid.
Beret gives WalkingStickMan a congratulatory hug for a job well done.
And that was basically it! After the raid, a bunch of us went to Bailey’s for our usual after-raid dinner and lulz, and all in all, a fun time was had by all.