Fueled by events such as the Waco Siege in 1993 , the murders and suicides associated with the Order of the Solar Temple , and the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo incidents in Japan , German fears and concerns about new religious movements gained in intensity in the 1990s , with Scientology attracting particular attention . Perceptions that Scientology had a totalitarian character were reinforced when Robert Vaughn Young , an American ex @-@ Scientologist and former PR official in the Church of Scientology , visited German officials in late 1995 and wrote an article in Der Spiegel , a widely @-@ read weekly magazine , describing Scientology as a totalitarian system operating a gulag – the Rehabilitation Project Force – for members of Scientology 's Sea Org found guilty of transgressions . From the mid @-@ 1990s onward , press articles , reports and essays on Scientology appeared on an almost daily basis , accompanied by books and television programmes that reached a mass audience .