Heinrich Boere

Heinrich Boere (born 27 September 1921) is a convicted Dutch war criminal and former member of the Waffen-SS.

Boere was born in Eschweiler, Germany, to a Dutch father and a German mother, but his parents moved to Maastricht when he was two years old. He volunteered for the Waffen-SS in September 1940, only months after the German occupation of the Netherlands. In June 1941 at the age of 19 he left to fight on the Eastern Front. Of his activities there, nothing is known. In December 1942 he contracted pyelonephritis and was sent back to Maastricht.

In 1943, Boere became a member of a 15 man Waffen-SS squad of Dutch volunteers, the Sonderkommando Feldmeijer, tasked with killing members of the Dutch resistance and anti-German citizens as retaliation. Following attacks on German occupational forces and Dutch collaborators, the SS and Police Leader for the Netherlands, Hanns Albin Rauter, ordered the Sonderkommando to retaliate by assassinating civilians presumed to be in some way connected to the resistance.^[2] This operation, codenamed Silbertanne (Silver Fir), was responsible for probably 54 known killings, three of which Boere admitted to committing.^[3]

Boere’s first killing was committed in July 1944 when he and fellow SS member Jacobus Petrus Besteman received orders from the local Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) office in Breda to murder a pharmacist named Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese, father of twelve. Wearing civilian clothes, Boere and Besteman walked into Bicknese’s pharmacy and asked him his identity. Upon a positive reply, Boere fired three shots into Bicknese’s upper body, then Besteman fired several more shots as Bicknese lay on the floor.^[3]

In September 1944, on a Sunday, Boere and Hendrik Kromhout arrived in Voorschoten at the home of Teun de Groot, a bicycle-shop owner and father of five children, who hid fugitives in his shop and was an acquaintance of anti-Nazi activists. As De Groot, still in his pyjamas, fumbled with his wallet to show his ID papers, Boere and Kromhout shot him. They then went to the apartment of F.W. Kusters, forced him into their car, and drove out of town. The pair then falsely claimed that they had a flat tire, stopped the vehicle and shot Kusters.

Scientology in France

In 1978, L. Ron Hubbard was convicted in absentia by French authorities of engaging in fraud, fined 35,000 French Francs and sentenced to four years in prison.^[2] The head of the French Church of Scientology was convicted at the same trial and given a suspended one-year prison sentence.^[3]

Since 1995, France has classified the Scientology as a sect (or cult) as seen in the report of the National Assembly of France.^[4] On this basis, a hostile stance is generally taken against the organization.^[5][6] A 1999 government inquiry committee reporting on the financial aspect of sects^[7] recommended dissolving the Church of Scientology because of swindling, complicity of swindling, abuse of trust, and other nefarious activities. A government report in 2000 categorized the church as an "absolute sect" and recommended that all its activities be prohibited.^[8] The keeping of files containing personal information on all its members (and other practices), are seen to qualify the Church as a totalitarian sect, moreover "extremely dangerous".^[9] The report rejected U.S. criticism of the French government's hostility towards Scientology, saying that Washington's protection of sects was "exorbitant".^[9]

In 2005 the city of Paris passed an official resolution so that unlike in Marseille, celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise would never be made an honorary citizen, specifically because of his affiliation with Scientology.^[10]

The 2006 riots in France came in the midst of a parliamentary commission in charge of examining the influence of sects, particularly on youth, which started its hearings on July 12 2006 and was scheduled to be completed in December that year.^[11] The government sects watchdog (MIVILUDES) subsequently warned that sects were infiltrating the suburbs, increasingly offering aid as a cover for their activities, notably so in a Church of Scientology's communique that "appeared to be taking the credit for calming the situation in one of the riot-hit suburbs."^[12]

Against general public opinion and while he was Finance Minister, current president Sarkozy had received Tom Cruise in Paris in 2004. He is now preparing to change the 1905 law that defines status for the non-profit associations, still against the essential French concept of separation between state and church, which will allow sects to receive money from the state.

Chongqing gang trials

The Chongqing gang trials (Chinese: 重庆打黑除恶专项行动; pinyin: Chóngqìng dǎ hēi chú ě zhuānxiàng xíngdòng; literally "Targeted actions against dark and evil forces in Chongqing") were a series of gang-busting trials in the city of Chongqing beginning in October 2009. Carried out under the auspices of municipal Communist Party chief Bo Xilai, 1,544 suspects were arrested in the months leading up the trials, including nineteen suspected gang leaders, hundreds of gang members, and a number of allegedly corrupt police, government and Communist party officials, including six district police chiefs and the city’s deputy police commissioner, Wen Qiang.^[1] Time described it as "China’s trial of the 21st century".^[2] The crackdown is believed to be the largest of its kind in the history of the People's Republic of China.