The freedom to think is the building block of a free society and integral to the preservation of human rights. It is specifically articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which confers “the right to freedom of thought” and “the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference....”

With intolerance towards racial, ethnic and religious minorities mounting across Europe in the late 1990s, the Church of Scientology International launched a campaign throughout the continent to promote freedom of thought by encouraging people to take a fresh look at society. A series of advertisements, billboards, fliers, and radio spots was punctuated by the single message “Think for Yourself.” Images of famous independent artists, scientists and adventurers — Mozart, Einstein and others — showed how each had made a difference by looking for the truth and keeping his own counsel. The encouragement to “think for yourself” motivated many people to do exactly that — and to reject the mass media stereotypes of minority groups that fuel intolerance.

The opposite of freedom of thought is the effort to control and manipulate populations through propaganda, indoctrination and thought reform — namely, mind control.

L. Ron Hubbard and the churches of Scientology have publicly exposed and fought this despicable practice for more than five decades. In the mid-20th century, in the depths of the cold war era, covert government programmes were developed in the United States and Great Britain to manipulate men’s minds through special drugs and coercive psychiatric treatment. These now infamous “mind control” programmes, run by the American and British intelligence agencies, included implanting destructive ideas or impulses in an individual without his consent. And despite the fact that in 1951 the very existence of “mind control” programmes was a closely guarded secret, one of the first, if not the first, to discover and publicly decry this abuse was L. Ron Hubbard in his book Science of Survival, published that same year.

Those responsible for such abuses retaliated with a massive smear campaign against Mr. Hubbard and Scientology that would last for several decades. In the interim, the Church of Scientology remained undeterred and founded the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) in 1969 in London. CCHR’s mandate was to expose and eradicate human rights abuses perpetrated by psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners against their often-unwitting victims.

In a 1986 report to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Erica-Irene Daes, a UN Human Rights laureate (1993), concluded, “CCHR has been responsible for many great reforms. At least 30 bills throughout the world, which would otherwise have inhibited even more the rights of patients, or would have given psychiatry the power to commit minority groups and individuals against their will, have been defeated by CCHR actions.” Since Ms. Daes wrote those words, the number of such unconscionable and repressive bills that CCHR has prevented from becoming law has risen from 30 to 110.

Today, CCHR has acquired a well-earned reputation as a powerful international human rights watchdog and has 133 chapters in 34 countries.