Tom Cruise Meets With Amazon, Now Amazon UK Pulling Scientology Expose From Site - Coincidence?
According to The Register's Cade Metz (whom I worked on a story with in the past), Amazon UK pulled a newly released book written by a former member of the Church of Scientology's most elite sect, the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. Ex-member John Duignan was in the SO for 22 years and his book details his experience in the organization, but now the question is whether anyone will ever get to see the book. Here's the details from The Register:
Amazon UK has barred the sale of a new Scientology exposé penned by a former member of the church's "elite paramilitary group."The British incarnation of the world's most popular etailer is no longer offering The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology, a 318-page tome from John Duignan, who spent 22 years inside the top secret organization.
In a recent post to an anti-Scientology discussion forum, an Anonymous Brit says that after pre-ordering the book, he received an email from Amazon announcing it had been "removed from sale for legal reasons".
Amazon UK has yet to respond to out request for comment. But the book - published on October 7 - is no longer listed on the site. A Google search reveals it was available for sale as recently as October 23.
In the past, Glosslip had exposed other anti-Scientology censorship within the Amazon organization, stemming form negative reviews disappearing about books written by Scientology found, L. Ron Hubbard. After exposing this apparent bias, readers informed us the negative reviews had reappeared, but only temporarily. What the status is of that ongoing problem is unknown.
An independent source revealed to me that Amazon had a meeting last week with executives and Tom Cruise was in attendance. Is it mere coincidence that after that meeting we are seeing this book, which was serialized in the UK's Sun last week is now being pulled from the Amazon UK? Doubtful. Also, it's important to mention that Andrew Morton's book, Tom Cruise: And Unauthorized Biography was not published or available in the UK as Morton's publisher, St. Martin's Press was concerned about the strict UK libel laws and chose not to even make the book available in the there or in any of its various Commonwealth entities.
