Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, which is based on interviews with two hundred current and former Scientologists, looks behind the myth, the rumours, and the public persona of L Ron Hubbard’s religion.
Libel laws in Great Britain though place the burden with the defendant though, meaning it is up to them to prove that something is true. Given Scientologists’ propensity for reacting robustly against those who disagree with them, publisher Transworld has decided that it is too risky to proceed with publishing in the UK with the potential lawsuits too costly as cases in London average one hundred times more than the European average,.
“Our legal advice was that some of the content was not robust enough for the UK market and an appropriately edited version would not fit with our schedule,” Transworld’s publicity director, Patsy Irwin said of the decision.
Wright is no stranger to investigative reporting. His New Yorker article The Apostate, about Scientology from which this book grew, was heavily disputed by the church and he won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.
Photo: Getty.
