=== Choma / Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
1. Kenya Haunted By Strange Sect

=== Falun Gong
2. Hong Kong Falungong followers refuse to bow to Beijing
3. 2 Chinese Sect Members Said Dead

=== Islam
4. Christians report Malukus slaughter
5. Hundreds flee Moluccas violence
6. Members of Muslim Cult Sentenced
7. Fundamentalists Gain Small Voice in Egypt
8. Muslims eating during fast to be named on air

=== Mungiki
9. Mungiki members lynched

» Part 2

=== False Memory Syndrome
10. Sects and Lies

=== Hate Groups / Hate Crimes
11. German Parliament Backs Ban on Far-Right Party
12. White Patient Refuses Black Help

=== Other News
13. Amish Man Goes to Jail Over Color
14. Natural Law deputy floats in for visit
15. Toronto church gets around ban on same-sex marriage
16. Pastor says couples do not need church to sanctify marriage

» Part 3

=== Religious Freedom / Religious Intolerance
17. Moscow Court Puts Salvation Army in Limbo
18. God in Ohio motto argued in court

=== Death Penalty
19. Clinton postpones federal execution for six months
20. South seeks death-penalty pause
21. Brakes on Death Row
22. No Death Penalty in Killing of Md. Priest

=== Noted
23. Did Jesus live in India?

=== The Tortoise Around The Corner
24. Shell-shocked church marvels at slow labour



=== Choma / Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

1. Kenya Haunted By Strange Sect
Panafrican News Agency, Dec. 7, 2000
http://allafrica.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Members of a religious organisation whose leaders are believed to be remnants of Uganda's Kanungu doomsday cult, have invaded Lugari district of western Kenya, reportedly causing panic among the residents and concern to the government.

The Kanungu ''Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God'' sect in March masterminded the mass murder of over 1,000 people in northern Uganda.

Members who escaped a government crackdown are suspected to have seeped into Kenya and established massive following under a different name in the western districts of the country.

Police in western province told PANA by telephone they were investigating the religious body which, they accused of inciting followers to burn down houses of non-members, and stopping their children from going to school.
(...)

The sect is also said to be claiming that the World will come to an end 31 December.
(...)

A recent report by human rights groups operating in western Kenya and eastern Uganda, warned that an emerging religious group calling itself ''Choma,'' Swahili for ''burn,'' could be an off-shoot of the Kanungu sect.

The report was released in the eastern Ugandan town of Mbale by Valentiana Moses Aleico of the Uganda Human Rights Group and the group's western Kenya Executive Director, Job Bwonya.

Aleico told journalists that Choma had beliefs and practices markedly similar to those of the Kanungu cult.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

2. Hong Kong Falungong followers refuse to bow to Beijing
AFP, Dec. 6, 2000
http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Every morning at 7 a.m., Hong Kong civil servant Hui Kwok-hung can be found in his local park, practising the slow motion exercises and deep breathing that have become synonymous with the spiritual movement Falungong.

Across the border in mainland China, where Falungong has been banned and denounced by President Jiang Zemin as a heretical cult, Hui could be thrown in jail for admitting he is a follower.

The movement continues to operate legally in Hong Kong. But discreet pressure from the authorities has caused the numbers of public practitioners to dwindle in recent months.

Hui is among those that refuse to bow to Beijing and he maintains that the benefits of following the group's teachings far outweigh any risk involved.

''The benefit of living this way is that you will have a standard to measure your behaviour and actions; truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance,'' he says, outlining the tenets of Falungong's US-based founder, Li Hongzhi.
(...)

''Falungong dont get sick and they constantly seek ways to improve themselves,'' he says, adding that in the two-and-a-half years since he started practising the movement's exercises and breathing techniques he has not felt ill.

According to Li's teaching, each pose or movement during the exercises opens channels of qi, or energy, making practitioners feel stronger and healthier.

''Sometimes I get the symptoms of sickness,'' Hui says, ''but I feel full of energy.''
(...)

Lu Jie, another Hong Kong follower, says her introduction to Falungong helped her overcome chronic insomnia and eczema.
(...)

Another member of Lu's group, which meets every day in a park opposite China's offices here, says a lump on her breast disappeared when she started following Li's teachings.

Such claims may invite scepticism. But, according to documents posted on Li's website, even China's own official research has shown that Falungong followers are healthier than the average population.

In 1998, when Beijing was still trying to get to understand what was behind the movement's rapid growth, Beijing carried out a survey of more than 12,000 followers across China.

The study concluded that they were less likely to be ill and that, when they did get ill, they recovered faster.

The researchers, who included doctors at some of Beijings top hospitals and universities, even estimated that Falungong was saving the state 3,790 yuan (dollars) a year in medical costs for each follower.
(...)

Despite China's crackdown, the Hong Kong authorities have so far ruled out any move to ban Falungong here. But its followers in the territory complain of spies, phone tapping, homes being broken into and other forms of harassment.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. 2 Chinese Sect Members Said Dead
AP, Dec. 7, 2000
http://news.excite.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING (AP) - Two more members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement have died in police custody, bringing to at least 74 the death toll in China's 17-month crackdown on the sect, a human rights group said Thursday.

Wang Huachen, a 32-year-old chemical factory worker, died Nov. 18 in a hospital of injuries he got jumping out of a fourth-story window at a police station in the northeastern city of Huludao, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

Wang jumped after police allegedly beat him for two hours with wooden poles on Nov. 7, the day they arrested him for refusing to leave Falun Gong, the Hong Kong-based center said.

Zhao Jing, 19, was arrested Nov. 23 on a train in the northern province of Hebei while traveling to Beijing with other Falun Gong followers, the center said. Three days later, police notified her family she was dead. Police said she died after falling in an escape attempt, but her companions said they heard her cries as police beat her, the center said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Islam

4. Christians report Malukus slaughter
The Age (Australia)/AFP, Dec. 6, 2000
http://www.theage.com.au/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Muslims have slaughtered 93 Christians since last week on a small island of the Maluku chain for refusing to convert to Islam, a church activist said yesterday quoting a survivor.

''The forced Islamisation of Christians in Kasiui Island has been continuing since last week and by Saturday, a total of 93 people have been killed for refusing to convert into Islam,'' said Sammy Weileruni, a lawyer with the Maranatha Christian centre in Ambon, the Malukus capital.

Mr Weileruni said a man who escaped from Kasiui on a boat arrived in Ambon yesterday and had given him the information.

Kasiui is a small island in the Watubela island group east of Ambon Island.

The man, a teacher, told him that when he left on Saturday, 763 other Christians, fearing for their lives, had accepted to convert to Islam.

The victims were among some 3000 people from four villages on the island who fled into the jungles following a mass attack by Muslims on November 28 in which eight villagers were killed.

The attackers, including Muslims from the neighboring Gorong island group, pursued the villagers. Those they captured were forced to convert or they were killed.
(...)

The Maluku Islands, previously known as the Spice Islands, have been torn apart by almost two years of Muslim-Christian conflict, leaving more than 4000 people dead and over half a million refugees.

The sectarian violence was sparked by a dispute between a Christian public transport driver and a Muslim in Ambon city in January 1999 that quickly degenerated into fights that spread to other islands.

In June, Jakarta imposed a state of civil emergency in the Malukus but has so far failed to rein in the violence. Both sides have accused security forces of taking part.

The Britain-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide said last month that Muslim militant forces, many of them from outside the Malukus, have threatened that ''there will be no church bells ringing in Ambon by Christmas''. Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina said last week that some 1300 militant Muslim reinforcements from Java island were in the islands.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. Hundreds flee Moluccas violence
BBC, Dec. 5, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Hundreds of Christians have reportedly fled a remote island in the Indonesian Moluccas after a massacre by Muslims.

It is believed more than 500 people have been evacuated by ship from the island of Kasiui, east of the provincial capital, Ambon.

The reports came as Christian lawyer, Sammy Weileruni, said nearly 100 people had been killed in late November after refusing to convert to Islam.

Mr Weileruni said the attacks were carried out by members of the Muslim paramilitary Laskar Jihad group.

There was no independent confirmation of his account.

However a government spokesman said the Laskar Jihad had raided two Christian villages on 24 November with bombs and other weapons, killing 54 people, burning two churches and hundreds of houses.
(...)

Mr Weileruni said a man who escaped Kasiui by boat at the weekend told him nearly 100 Christians had been slaughtered.

''The forced Islamisation of Christians in Kasiui island has been continuing since last week and by Saturday, a total of 93 people had been killed for refusing to convert to Islam,'' he added.

Mr Weileruni said the man had told him that more than 760 Christians on the island had agreed to convert to Islam out of fear for their lives.

But a former Indonesian diplomat Des Alwi, now a community leader in the Banda islands to the south, said he had not heard anything about forced conversions.

He suggested the violence was carried out in revenge after a recent Christian attack on a speedboat travelling from Ambon to the island of Saparua.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. Members of Muslim Cult Sentenced
Source: Associated Press
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Six members of a Muslim fundamentalist cult were sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for their roles in an abortive attempt to overthrow Malaysia's government.

The six were among 29 members of the Al-Ma'unah cult being tried in Kuala Lumpur's High Court. In response to a prosecution offer of leniency, the six pleaded guilty Monday to charges of making preparations to wage war on Malaysia's king, a crime punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment.
(...)

The previously unknown Al-Ma'unah cult sprang into public view in July when members dressed as military officers talked their way past sentries at two armories and stole more than 100 assault rifles, machine-guns and rocket launchers.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. Fundamentalists Gain Small Voice in Egypt
Washington Post, Dec. 7, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
CAIRO, Dec. 6 -- For 50 years, successive Egyptian governments have tried to limit or extinguish the Muslim Brotherhood, declaring it illegal, arresting members and trying to capture its moral appeal by making concessions to Islamic strictures.

But when Egypt's parliament convenes next week, the security apparatus will have to confront the fact that, despite its efforts, politicians sympathetic to the outlawed organization will make up the nation's largest opposition party.
(...)

At a time when popular anger over Palestinian deaths in Israeli-occupied territories has displaced concern over fundamentalist-generated instability in Egypt, the small group in parliament could stage the most pointed arguments yet in favor of liberalizing political activity in Egypt and allowing the Brotherhood's brand of political Islam to be expressed more openly.
(...)

No opposition group has an easy road in Egypt, where most power rests with the military-backed president, and the elected legislature has little authority to challenge the executive. Brotherhood members, forced to run as independents because their organization is technically forbidden under Egyptian law, face particularly difficult prospects. Although the group has been part of political life since the 1920s and has been central to the growth of fundamentalism throughout the Middle East, its original radicalism, and its role in inspiring violent offshoots such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in more recent times, have led Egypt and other governments to try to keep it in check.

Brotherhood members insist they are pursuing a moderate and nonviolent path and will use the upcoming parliamentary session ''to prove that they are working professionally and objectively and scientifically, like we are committed to doing,'' said Brotherhood spokesman Mamoun Hodiebi.

''We do want an Islamic system. . . . But you can't force people into religion. It makes them hate it,'' he said.

Hodiebi described what he contends should be an effort to combine Islamic values with a more open parliamentary government. That, he said, would avoid the strict rules that have arisen in Saudi Arabia forbidding women to drive, for example, while relying on Koranic law in areas where the Muslim holy book is precise, such as in the laws on inheritance.

Egypt under Islamic rule, he said, would not look like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Still, the Brotherhood's history of radicalism and violence--coupled with the fact that Egypt, which is 10 percent Christian, is staking its future on a competitive, secular economy--has kept the government convinced that the organization must be tightly controlled.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Muslims eating during fast to be named on air
Independent/Sapa, AFP, Dec. 6, 2000
http://www.iol.co.za/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Kuala Lumpur - Muslims caught eating in public in Malaysia's Kedah state during the Ramadan fasting month will have their names and addresses announced on public radio, an official said on Wednesday.
(...)

Fadzil Hanafi, Kedah's Islamic committee chairperson, said previous penalties, such as fining the offenders in court or driving them around in a hearse, had failed to embarrass them.
(...)

According to Islamic teaching, all able Muslims are required during Ramadan to abstain from food, water, sex and vices such as smoking during daylight.

Slightly over half of Malaysia's 23 million people are Muslim Malay, and Islamic squads conduct daily checks to nab Muslims eating in public.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mungiki

9. Mungiki members lynched
Daily Nation (Kenya), Dec. 7, 2000
http://www.nationaudio.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Two members of the Mungiki sect were yesterday morning lynched in Thika town.

They were reportedly in a gang that had attempted to break into a house in the Kiandutu slums at around 5 am. The incident followed a series of robberies and rape cases residents attributed to the sect.

To counter the terror gang, villagers formed night vigilante groups to patrol the area.
(...)

Tension was high after rumours spread that the sect was plotting to avenge the killings.
[..more...]

» Part 2