According to a UN Declaration; "....each person has the absolute right to believe whatever she or he chooses to believe free from any kind of undue influence and coercion."

In practice unfortunately, many people do experience undue influence and coercion, and I narrowly escaped this treatment myself.

I am 34 years old and happily married with two children. My wife Julie is a second generation Scientologist. I chose Scientology as my religion about 6 years ago. We both have never wavered from our beliefs and find that our lives are benefited in many ways.

A couple of years ago my parents began to seek information about my religion which of course they were entitled to do. Unfortunately, however, they did not seek this information from the Church or its religious literature, but less propitiously from biased self-styled "experts". Unbeknownst to myself and Julie they made a few contacts of this nature, primarily with Tony McClelland of CultAware in Sydney and a Raphael Aron of Gateway Counselling (also known as Cult Counselling Australia) in Melbourne.

Julie and myself were staying with my parents at the time and one day while looking for a household item I came across binders of anti-Scientology material in a cupboard. It was clear from the contents that my parents had been gathering misinformation secretly for some time. I later learned that Tony McClelland had told my parents to keep the fact of their "research" from me and not antagonise me as if they did I would cut ties with them forever. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet this advice from Mr. McClelland had a devastating effect on the communication in our family. We still see each other frequently and talk; but sadly, I have not succeeded in getting the relationship quite back to the easy give and take of the days before McClelland and CultAware intruded.

When I confronted my parents on the material I had found, my father asked me to meet with some people to find out the "true story" about my religion. I declined, and was infact quite fearful both for myself and Julie and our young baby, as although I realised that my parents meant well and were deceived, I had heard about these "meetings with people".

My parents then began to behave in an odd way towards Julie and myself. Everything I said, even in casual conversation, was questioned. I found my mother, to whom I had always been close, questioning quite ordinary comments from me as if she thought they were unusual or that I had changed in some way. I later learned that my parents had been instructed to look for "personality changes".

In my opinion the ring leader behind this was Tony McClelland. At one point I phoned him and told him explicitly that I did not appreciate his interference and asked for it to cease. His response was blasé and to the effect that he would do as he pleased. He continued communication with my parents and it was not until some time later after he asked my parents to "pound the pavement" doing anti-Scientology demonstrations that my father decided that there was something not quite right about Tony McClelland and expressed the view that he was "a bit of a nut".

I was lucky in that my experience could have been much worse. Others have not been so fortunate. We need legislation in Austraila which will effectively stop organisations like CultAware and individuals who would violate the human rights of others by interfering with their chosen religious beliefs. Based on my own experience and research and what I know of the experiences of others, I think anti-hatred laws at a national and state level are definitely warranted.