Michael Barger from San Francisco emails:
Dialog Ireland has just published an article by Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Steve Wiseman on the controversy over the Simon Wiesenthal Center humanitarian award to Tom Cruise to be made on May 5 in Los Angeles. SWC is a high-profile Jewish human rights group dedicated to the promotion of tolerance and education about the lessons of the Holocaust.
US and Israeli Jews, particularly those with relatives who died in the Holocaust, are dismayed in light of Scientology's savage campaign of terror against its leading Jewish critic, Paulette Cooper, who is a Holocaust survivor, and in view of its exploitation of the Holocaust in its campaign to destroy psychiatry and all the mental health professions and replace them with L. Ron Hubbard's dangerous pseudo-medical and pseudo-psychiatric practices.
Dialog Ireland has also posted an article on Dr. Wiseman speaking on Scientology's anti-psychiatry front group, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). Former American Psychiatric Association President Dr.Nada Stotland has referred to CCHR and Scientology as an anti-psychiatry hate group.
Dr. Wiseman has encouraged people to circulate the article. Feel free to send to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, contacts in the Jewish community, media contacts, and to post on blogs and forums.
For other background on the controversy see:
Daniele Berrin's article at the Hollywood Jew blog of the Jewish Journal: Should the Wiesenthal Center honor Tom Cruise?
William Burke's article at Ask the Scientologist: What's Wrong with the Wiesenthal Center Honoring Tom Cruise?
Jewish blogger Luke Ford has published Michael Barger's extensive backgrounder on the controversy: Controversy over Wiesenthal Center's honoring Tom Cruise as humanitarian
