Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Thank you for all the prayers and other strong "cheonsong" conditions that you have been offering over these last few weeks and directed specifically at the hearing yesterday in Germany. Those whom I have talked to who were there all remarked on what a wonderful spiritual atmosphere there was and how much our side could feel confident and supported as a result. Therefore I can safely say that the effect of all of our conditions could be very much felt, even if there is (as expected) not so much concrete result to report just yet. The judges said they would give their judgment in 2 - 3 weeks time.

This report from the Upper Administrative Court in Koblenz is mainly based on a report from Fritz Piepenburg, our German Family Federation Vice President.

Well ahead of time, the room was filled with some 25 brothers and sisters, who came from Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. Mr. Marcus Klein, our lawyer in the other case (taken in the names of True Parents directly), was also present. In the front row on our side sat our lawyer Dr Knittlmayer, Fritz Piepenburg and Dieter Schmidt, Robert Bentele (President of the UC) and Peter May (Vice President of the UC). In the second row sat Christian Hausmann (FFWPU Vice-President) , Mr. Klein and Hildegaard Piepenburg, Fritz's wife. On the other side sat Dr. Giesecke, a very young lawyer representing the government and Mr.Nietsch, a high official from the Ministry of Interior who deals with legal matters. There were also some five young people sitting at the back of the court, whose affiliation we do not know.

The spiritual atmosphere from the very beginning was dominated by our side. The panel of 5 judges included Mrs. Wunsch (the Presiding Justice) two male professional judges and two female lay judges. The impression we got was that the professional judges were pretty much on our side, while the lay judges were perhaps influenced by the negative public image of our movement.

After one of the judges had given the background to the case, the Presiding Justice started by recognizing faces she already knew from 5 years ago (Dr. Knittlmayer, Christian Hausmann and Fritz Piepenburg) while noting that on the other side there were all fresh faces. She then gave some broad hints that the court is taking the decision by the Supreme Court very seriously. She also conceded that times have changed a lot and that even she herself had come to realize more the value of religious liberty and the free practice of it, which had been emphasized in a number of Supreme Court decisions in recent years. She also congratulated Dr. Knittlmayer on having successfully piloted the matter all the way to the Supreme Court and noted that, after 12 years of litigation, our side are still waiting to get our rights and that it was time to bring the matter to a final conclusion. Judge Wunsch then gave an opportunity to both sides to comment on two points - namely the legal framework of the case and the merits of the case.

1) The legal framework While the government argued that Schengen was a mere extension of national security concerns and therefore national law should take precedence in the interpretation of the law relating to Schengen, our lawyer successfully and convincingly argued the other way round. He said that while Germany may have its own security concerns, it still has to comply with the spirit of the Schengen law, once it puts people on the Schengen Information System ("SIS") list. He also informed the court that Germany was the country which had placed by far the greatest number of persons on the SIS - some 30.000 in total - which compared with the 5.000 listed by the country with the next highest number.

Fritz Piepenburg was also given a right of audience and was able to make the point that the realm of Schengen countries is constantly growing and that at this point some 26 European nations are or are about to be affected by the German listing.

The professional judges clearly seemed to be accepting our lawyers line of argument and not that of the government.

2) The merits The Presiding Judge very pointedly posed the question to the government side: "what in your view would have happened if in 1995 Rev. Moon had been granted permission to enter Germany"? In other words, what exactly were the fears of the German government? It should be noted that the posing of this question was a remarkable turnaround from the way the matter had been posed at the 2002 hearing. At that time the onus was put on us to justify the importance of a personal visit by Rev. and Mrs. Moon to Germany. The government's answer was extremely weak - referring to the brochure put out by the Ministry of Family Affairs, whose distribution we had successfully stopped by court injunction some years ago. Apart from this he could not offer any new arguments. Finally the chief justice said that she had wanted to give a chance to both sides to come up with new evidence, but since this had not materialized, she was bringing the hearing to a close.

Dr Knittlmayer was thus confident that the final ruling will go in our favor. The only question is how strongly and clearly it will be so and whether it will be strong enough for the government to realize that concluding the case quickly by withdrawing the listing is in its own best interests.

Thus, it is safe to say that the hearing went about as well as we could have hoped. However, as ever we cannot rest until victory is finally in our grasp. We will need to keep up our strong "cheonsong" conditions until it is. No doubt, once he has returned from Korea and had a chance to digest the situation Rev Song will give us some specific directions as to how he would like us to renew our efforts. We will also prepare a clear media plan and also a lobbying effort by our top allies to persuade the German Government to do the only decent and honorable thing and withdraw the listing sooner rather than later - certainly in good time for True Mother to be able to visit Schengen nations this Summer.

Thank you all once again for your great help and support for the case until now. I will keep you informed of any significant developments!

With warmest personal regards,

Sincerely,

Mark Brann
UPF Secretary General,
Europe One Region