NO-HEADLINE

Television advertising for the Church of Scientology, which was until this April banned by the Independent Television Commission, will be screened for the first time this week. The 60-second advertisement will go on air on Wednesday night on the UK Gold and UK Living channels.

The advertisement, which has been approved by the Broadcasting Clearance Centre, features people from different cultures saying "Trust" and concludes: "On the day we can fully trust each other there will be peace on Earth." The move was criticised by the Cult Information Centre and other monitoring groups.

The Church of Scientology was founded in 1954 by the American science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, who claimed to have discovered Dianetics, supposedly the science of mental health. But the church has been accused of using high powered sales techniques to attract followers and imposing mental pressure, claims which it has always denied. Religious groups are banned from advertising on air if their meetings are not open to the public. The ITC accepted that this was not the case with the Scientologists.