The cake is real
March 15th, 2008 by 
James
Geeky stuff: Canon EOS 3, 35mm lens, Kodak Tri-X 400; Canon EOS 20D, 10-22mm lens; Nokia N95 for video
Highlights from Anonymous’ protest against the Church of Scientology, March 15th 2008. I was shooting in B&W with my film camera which explains the silly mix of B&W and colour images. Forgive me.
Following on from the festivities at the February 10th protest, Anonymous are back to ‘celebrate’ L. Ron. Hubbard’s birthday, which was Thursday March 13th.
Queen Victoria Street
Two Anonymous have arrived 90 minutes early; this appears to be the physical equivalent of “First comment!”
While waiting for arrivals by Blackfriars Station I noticed these.
Cropped version
Anonymous arrive.
Nice City Policeman greets Anonymous outside Blackfriars Station to explain what the City Police are here to do and what they are not here to do.
Anonymous responds with an offering of Fox’s 
.
City Policeman is hypnotised by the gift and accepts. How could he refuse?
Cake for everyone.
Mr Doublecakeanonymous here has a weighted companion cube cake. THE CAKE IS REAL!
Miss Anonymous notices a strange reflection.
Today’s turnout walked all over previous figures. I couldn’t fit everyone in one shot.
This is the first floor of the Church of Scientology’s building. Anonymous gave them a wave and a cheer.
Anonymous placards
Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road is where things got really interesting. The road is a lot narrower than Queen Victoria Street, there is a huge amount of footfall (public passers-by) and Anonymous are concentrated into a much smaller area.
More Anonymous placards.
The memes were out in full force.
Two doors to the right of Scientology’s branch is a branch of KFC. One of the most amusing chants had everyone pointing and went: “THAT IS A CHICKEN! THAT IS A CULT! THAT IS A CHICKEN! THAT IS A CULT!”
Quite fond of stickers is this one.
Cake had successfully made it to Tottenham Court Road. “It’s so moist and delicious”, said one Anonymous while offering cake to me.
Anonymous came, Anonymous protested, Anonymous remained anonymous.
Response
In order to provide a more balanced report on the day’s events this time round, I asked a Policeman if I could enter the building to ask the staff if the organisation had an official response to Anonymous’ protests. The policeman rejected my request however he did go in on my behalf.
A Scientology volunteer came out (to boos) and provided me with an email contact whom I could pose my questions to. Scientology’s statement follows.
Dear James,
Following is our response. I also recommend you go to www.anonymous-exposed.org for more specifics.
ANONYMOUS – HATE CRIMES AND
TERRORISM DIRECTED AT SCIENTOLOGYSince January 17, 2008, “Anonymous”, a group of cyber-terrorists hiding
their identities behind masks and computer anonymity, has targeted the
Scientology religion, its Churches, leaders and parishioners with hate
speech and hate crimes.To inform “Anonymous” members who may be unaware of the criminal acts
committed by their leaders, and to prevent others from being misled by
“Anonymous'” propaganda, a video has been produced to provide the facts.
The video reveals “Anonymous'” repeated incitements to hate and violence.The Church has not interacted with these “Anonymous” individuals nor does
it desire to. However, death threats and threats to plant nitroglycerin
bombs in Churches have made it necessary to take security precautions and
identify members of this group responsible for these crimes.A copy of our documentary can be seen at www.anonymous-exposed.org.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Aftermath
Another peaceful protest from Anonymous. I’m glad I asked for and received a response from Scientology this time round so both sides were able to voice their opinion. Anonymous distributed cake and leaflets to the general public. They made themselves heard. As I approached Tottenham Court Road I saw the general public walking away from the protest clutching Anonymous leaflets, reading them out loud and discussing Anonymous’ beef with Scientology. Anonymous’ message is certainly getting out there.
Looking at Scientology’s response and their claims of threats against them including Nitroglycerin bombs – if you consider their history then I think it is fair to say they suffer from ‘boy who cried wolf’ syndrome. Because of past failures, what they say must be taken with a pinch of salt. It’s hard to trust the words of an organisation that has previously conducted such exercises as ‘Operation Snow White‘ and ‘Operation Freakout‘.
Is Anonymous a collective of Nitroglycerin bomb-threatening eTerrorists? You decide.
Posted in Events | 
30 Comments »
March 16th, 2008 at 2:59 AM
Beautiful job! Kudos to sir, London Anonymous, and Anonymous world wide.
I know for many members of the public the concept of Anonymous, a leaderless group of concerned citizens, is difficult to comprehend. Judging by CoS’ tactics and that planted fake Anonymous video referring to “elite Anonymous” they don’t quite get it either. Anonymous’ loyalty is towards a common goal, not towards its own entity. As such, any message or action that strays from the goals of Anonymous excludes it from Anonymous. Much like a school of fish, if one strays from the school then he or she is no longer Anonymous. It is a means of self-regulation. I hope this clears any confusion up, though of course, if the masses of Anonymous disagree with my statement than I do not represent them.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:05 AM
Fantastic pictures.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:43 AM
Well done. Great post, and it really looks like London has the masses. I’m glad the general public are more aware now, in Sydney Australia we went through hundreds of fliers just walking to the church.
This time, people ASKED for the fliers. I ran out pretty quickly. Numerous discussions were had, and from what I could gather the general public once made aware, had a higher opinion of our cause and most even asked how they could help.
Well done London. Also, the photos with the mass of Guy Fawkes masks is truly beautiful. Some wonderful signage there too!
March 16th, 2008 at 8:51 AM
guys i brought that table for cake, when collapsing it actually FELL APART from the weight hahah <3
I for one love you ALL
your blonde faggot table bringing genious anon friend <3
March 16th, 2008 at 9:07 AM
It’s important to note that the video footage the Church constantly referred to is currently thought to be fabricated by the Church itself. The video they have was claimed to be from youtube but the “copy” they have is simply too high resolution (and widescreen).
Church of Scientology: Abusive husband in battered wives’ skin
March 16th, 2008 at 9:21 AM
Great work! See you in April!
March 16th, 2008 at 10:37 AM
Loving all the slogans. I LOL’ed and LOL’ed. If I could have been in multiple cities at once, I would have been there.
March 16th, 2008 at 11:36 AM
heh, and the Church fails to mention in their video that the white powder incident was investigated by the FBI and they found now indication that Anonymous had anything to do with it, and the bomb threat was found by Anonymous roughly 20 minutes after it was posted to youtube, we then immediately reported it to the FBI, reported it to youtube so it would be removed, and began calling the media to disavow any knowledge or support for violent action.
Interestingly, even though the video had only been up for 20 minutes, the media informed us that they had already been informed of the clip by the Church of Scientology.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:49 PM
Wow, fabulous photos. Nice coverage and hilarious comments. And good on you for braving the CoS to make sure you get both sides of the story. Now everyone can decided for themselves what is fact and fiction.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Great photos, good job! See you at the next one. :)
March 16th, 2008 at 3:44 PM
Just watched that scientology video, do they expect people to believe that. Yesterday was great. See you guys next time
March 16th, 2008 at 4:09 PM
LOL, I love how the police can be bribed with Party Rings. No one can resist their sweet, sweet goodness.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:09 PM
Saw that Scientology propaganda video. What a joke XD! And how one sided! They don’t honestly think anyone wil believe that surely?? Anonymous have proved themselves to be nothing like what they’ve said in the video. Great protesting, I’ll be there in April.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:16 PM
This looks fun.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:38 PM
[…] birthday, so Anonymous threw a party in his honor at Scientology centers around the world. T52 posted some great photos of the gathering in London along with some insightful commentary. Looks […]
March 16th, 2008 at 7:10 PM
[…] http://picasaweb.google.com/IgnatiousjReilly/ScientologyProtestInAtlantaMarch15 and http://www.t52.org/blog/2008/03/the-cake-is-real/, […]
March 17th, 2008 at 12:35 AM
Great photos.
It’s good to see the raid documented so professionally.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:35 AM
Well done London-fags, you’ve really done well this time. I look forward to next month – you’ll see me there, in a full V for Vendetta costume. I wonder what the theme will be…
March 17th, 2008 at 3:26 AM
Great Job London! Great Article too!
March 17th, 2008 at 3:55 AM
I think there’s a typo in that CoS press release. The real site is here: http://www.anonymousexposed.org
March 17th, 2008 at 12:44 PM
Hey! Thanks for all the great coverage, I’m the person holding the Lisa McPherson banner in the 15th pic from the top.
I hope from the protests people see the positive we bring to this, we’re not there to incite violence, but bring awareness to the public. As the first commenter said, anyone who does anything out of line has strayed out of Anonymous.
Then again, the police were very, very happy with us, and did a great job taking care of us and we highly respect them for that.
Bring on Operation Reconnect!
March 17th, 2008 at 8:06 PM
Well, anaonymous helps a lot to attract some more attention on scientology crimes. That’s what’s “needed and wanted”- as would say the guru hubbard – to get that cult either to close its doors, either to wholly reform its methods. The modern world is not near to accept again such totalitariosms as have existed in the past. Freedom is not a promise to do and to violate as scientology does since may 1950.
Europe could have some advance to forbid scientology. Its state is indeed quite bad here, the cult having not been accepted as a religion in most countries, and where it has, there is no long line of public clients entering in the buildings paid millions.
Take a look at Madrid, a 10 millions euros building (16 m dollars to day) has something like 100 people! Worse in Brussels, where the cult bought a 8000 qm2 building, but has not one single staff to put in it to make some work. Not much different from London, where a 26 million large thing is certainly impressive, but gets more anonymous than elsewhere… and this, in a city where Hubbard himself came as much as 57 years ahgo to create a european first organization!
And to conclude, the number of unsatisfied people having gone through that cult can’t diminish. People come in and leave in discontent. That’s the very worse stat of any other group in human story.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:57 PM
Damn you /b/ritfags sure know how to throw a protest. You’ve kicked the rest of our Anon butts around the world in both attendance and enthusiasm. Grr.
I just might have to use up some frequent flier miles and dash over to London for the April protest :-)
March 20th, 2008 at 12:56 AM
I love you lot. Love > 9000.
Great pix. Great commentary. Great turnout.
Atlanta Anon here. (Did not get arrested myself. Success????) Keeper of Anonyferret (long ferret is long).
Your delicious and moist cake looks delicious and moist. DO WANT.
Love the Father Ted references. V. good.
Wah, miss London. It’s my favourite city in all the world. Would relocate in a snap if I could.
Cheers from the US and “praise you”, etc.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:09 PM
Hey James,
I absolutely love your series on the protests.
Keep em cuming.
Greetings from the cold and hungover Austria,
Bernhard
March 22nd, 2008 at 1:29 AM
Awesome documentary yet again, James.
Thanks for continuing to be an inspiration.
x
March 25th, 2008 at 3:20 PM
seems like these protests are spreading all over the world.
i’m eager to see the first fawkes masks in vienna.
great coverage!
chris
July 12th, 2009 at 8:19 AM
[…] I think Anon is a pretty cool guy. eh kills scifags and doesnt afraid of anything. Link This entry was written by Swazzle and posted on 12 July 2009 at 15:19 and filed under Fudge? […]
August 1st, 2010 at 8:54 AM
This pleases us.
September 24th, 2010 at 2:35 PM
wow i like this mask