E/CN.4/1998/6/Add.2 page 16 representatives of the community, “a threat to public order” and as such were said to fall into the category of persons who should be refused entry by the countries that have signed the Schengen Treaty. The Special Rapporteur was informed by the German authorities that the ban was based on the provisions of the legislation on aliens and that the courts would have to decide whether it should be upheld. The Unification Church has also been denied tax exemption, because, according to its representatives, a “lower court” would not agree to hear testimony from experts on the Unification Church, but based its decision on the evidence of a financial official, who had decided that the community was political in nature. State publications giving information on the so-called sects and psycho-groups were said to be defamatory and wrong about the Unification Church and based solely on the opinions of opponents of the community; the representatives of the Unification Church regarded this as a departure from State neutrality. The pamphlets in question, moreover, were circulated in State schools in order to denigrate the Unification Church. The representatives of the Unification Church expressed their concern about the Bundestag Study Commission, which they said was composed of people who were anti-sect and belonged to traditional religions and which was aiming at the adoption of new legislation by which their community, among others, would be regulated and placed under surveillance. Finally, according to its representatives, the Unification Church encountered an atmosphere of intolerance as a result of the behaviour of the major Churches and the State, an atmosphere which was fed by the media. 67. The representatives of Hare Krishna and the Bhagwans also said that they encountered a climate of intolerance because of the factors discussed above and expressed fears about the possibility of limitations on their activities. 68. As far as the Community of Universal Life, Transcendental Meditation and Fiat Lux are concerned, the Special Rapporteur did not have an opportunity to meet their representatives, but obtained information from non-governmental sources, which describe them as psycho-groups. D. Church of Scientology 69. The Special Rapporteur had interviews with representatives and followers of the Church of Scientology and with the German authorities, representatives of religious minorities and other groups and communities in the field of belief and religion and non-governmental organizations, including those for victims of sects and psycho-groups. 70. The representatives of the Church of Scientology stressed that it was a religion and fell within the international definition of a religion formulated in the two studies on religious freedom prepared by the first two Special Rapporteurs of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (United Nations publications, sales Nos. 60.XIV.2 and 89.XIV.3 respectively), by the third Special Rapporteur in his working paper (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1989/32), and by the Human Rights Committee in its general comment 22 of 20 July 1993 on article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 71. They said that the Church of Scientology and its members were the victims of discriminatory measures by the Government and that the German