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LOCAL Church of Scientology members have welcomed the recent conviction of a US-based hacker from the underground group Anonymous for cyber- attacks against the church’s websites.

A 20-year-old Nebraska man was jailed for a year and ordered to pay $US20,000 ($23,500) in compensation to the church for an internet assault two years ago, when the organisation’s web pages were bombarded with useless traffic from an anonymous message board, causing the sites to crash for 24 hours.

The group launched the attack after accusing Scientologists of internet censorship following the church’s demands that a Tom Cruise video, filmed by the church and posted unauthorised on YouTube, be pulled down. In sentencing the man, the US judge said the cyber-assaults against Scientology were akin to a “hate crime”.

Sydney Church of Scientology spokesman Cyrus Brooks, pictured, said he considered Anonymous to be a “hate group“ targeting church members specifically for their beliefs.

“Scientologists have been harassed, Scientologists have been attacked verbally and otherwise threatened: this is the nature of (Anonymous),“ he said.

“Those that are die-hards, they are just there because they want to make fun of us, they want to ridicule us.“