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Zenon Panoussis and Karin Spaink, with Xenu, at the 2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award ceremony.
In late 1996, he appeared on the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology and, even though he had never participated in the online battle between Scientology and its critics before and no one knew him, he blatantly posted the copyrighted documents of Scientology known as NOTS ("New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans," or "New OT") to the newsgroup and invited the organization to sue him. Scientology certainly did so. As they had done so in 19951995 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). It has a Golden number of 1, and was the first year of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995- 2005): http://www. org/culture/indigenous . Events January events Ja, lawyers for the organization convinced law enforcement officers to raid Panoussis' home and seize his computer, after which a lawsuit was filed for copyright infringement. Panoussis defended himself in court without legal assistance, and it was quickly learned by both Scientology and its online opponents that Panoussis was very familiar with the workings of the legal system in his home country of Sweden.
In his defense, Panoussis invoked a Swedish Constitutional RightThe Swedish Constitution consists of four fundamental laws ( Swedish: grundlagar : The Instrument of Government ( 1974) The Act of Succession ( 1810) The Freedom of the Press Act ( 1766) The Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression ( 1991) There is also a known as offentlighetsprincipen . This is a provision of the Swedish Constitution that guarantees access to public documents in order to prevent corruption and fraud, and it is considered a basic civil rightCivil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. Examples include the right to vote and anti- discrimination laws. Civil rights movements usually want equal protection of the laws for minorities, in Sweden. (The American equivalent to this law would be the Freedom of Information ActData privacy Nearly sixty countries around the world have national laws on Freedom of Information which set rules on what Government bodies have to reveal to the public. Over forty more countries have pending bills. Canada Canada's Freedom of Information.) Panoussis turned over a copy of the NOTS documents to the office of the Swedish Parliament, and by law a copy of the documents was available for anyone from the public to see, at any time he or she wished.
In the years between 1997 and 2000, Scientology made numerous attempts to remove the NOTS documents from the Parliament offices. Repeated requests to have the documents sealed were denied, and the documents were actually stolen from the Parliament office on two separate occasions. (Spokesmen for Scientology denied that the organization was behind the thefts.) Scientology even convinced the United States CongressThe United States Congress is the legislative branch of the United States federal government. The structure and responsibilities of Congress are defined in Article One of the United States Constitution. The United States Congress is bicameral, meaning tha to get involved in the affair, and diplomatic influence from the offices of various members of Congress was used to attempt to convince the Parliament to remove the NOTS documents.
Panoussis put up a tough defense in court, but the ultimate verdict was against him. He was ordered to pay damages of over $100,000 (American), an amount that he was unable to afford. Panoussis chose to emigrate to The Netherlands instead.
After three years of repeated requests and demands by Scientology to remove the NOTS documents from the public record, in the year 2000This page is about the year 2000. See 2000 AD for the UK comic book, Number 2000 for other uses. 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar), and also the International Year for a Culture of Peace''. Events Y2K passes without the seri Parliament finally enacted a clause of Swedish copyright law to order the NOTS documents sealed away from public view. This move provoked a number of legal scholars in Sweden to issue protests, noting that the move effectively meant that copyright law overruled the Constitution of Sweden. Debate on the matter has not ended as of 2002.