Eatery caught in Scientology pamphlet mix-up
An Auckland restaurant mistakenly stocked Covid-19 pamphlets from the Church of Scientology for its customers without knowing their origin.
The leaflets, How to Keep Yourself & Others Well, feature the colour yellow, not unlike the Government’s unite against Covid-19 campaign.
Inside the pages the topics of general health, cleaning and sanitising, handling illness or its symptoms and outbreaks are all canvassed with basic information.
But a barcode on the back takes readers to a Scientology website.
The pamphlets were yesterday removed from Mexican Cafe in central Auckland on Victoria St West.
General manager Matthieu Ferragati said the owner had not known the pamphlets were created by the Church of Scientology International and he was unhappy the barcode was taking people to the religion’s website. “We are taking them out just because we are not happy about promoting the Church of Scientology at all.”
He also said he could see how the look of the booklets might have confused people about their origin, with the colours being similar to the Government’s campaign.
University of Auckland associate professor Dr Siouxsie Wiles told Newstalk ZB the most reliable websites for information on the pandemic were covid19.govt.nz, www. health.govt.nz and www.who.int.
Wiles said she would be “thinking twice” about booklets from organisations where it was not clear if it could be trusted.
She also warned people to be on the lookout for false information.
A recent study that looked at the top-viewed videos on YouTube that were an hour long found about a quarter of them were full of misinformation, Wiles said.
“Those had been viewed the most times. We know misinformation is spreading very fast and it can be very dangerous.”
Wiles had simple advice for dealing with people handing out leaflets on the street. “You can always just be polite. Just take the pamphlet and then pop it in the recycling bin.”
The Ministry of Health and Church of Scientology were approached for comment.
The Church of Scientology shares the beliefs of founder L. Ron Hubbard, who first described them in the 1950s.
According to its Auckland website, a fundamental premise of the religion includes that people are immortal spiritually with an experience that surpasses a single lifetime and that their capabilities are unlimited.