=== Waco / Branch Davidians
1. ATF works on its battered reputation

=== Falun Gong
2. Falun Gong Members' Appeals Denied

=== Zhong Gong
3. Chinese Police Detain Executive Linked to Sprirtual Sect
4. Detained Zhong Gong Leader Files for Release
5. U.S. Lawmakers ''Concerned'' about Sect Leader on Guam

=== Scientology
6. Kicking and Screening

=== Islam
7. Islam's New Face Visible in a Changing Indonesia
8. The Chilling Goal of Islam's New Warriors
9. Religion of Islam
10. Use of Makeup May Have Sparked Slaying, Family Says

=== Mungiki
11. Kenya: President Moi appeals for end to female genital mutilation

» Part 2

=== Mormonism
12. Petitioners Ask LDS Church to Alter Gay Stance

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
13. Mexican Witches Cast Year-End Spells

=== Hate Groups
14. Judge Orders Public Defender To Represent Supremacist
15. Neo-Nazi Youths Arrested in Germany

=== Other News
16. Accused cannibal credits God with release
17. Last child-sex ring defendant released from prison after court action
18. Poacher Guilty; Abandons Religion Defense
19. Indian Guru Blames Staff Disloyalty for Dotcom Bust
20. China clamps down on religious groups
21. Chinese Christians flock to official and underground churches
22. Got meat? Jesus wouldn't have eaten it, billboard says

» Part 3

=== Noted
23. Students' Religious Beliefs Changing
24. Death Knell Tolls for Cults
25. Scholars debate Jesus's birthplace
26. Japanese Town Claims Tomb of Christ

=== Books
27. 'Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?'

=== The Happy People Around The Corner
28. Science Tracks the Good Life



=== Waco / Branch Davidians

1. ATF works on its battered reputation
USA Today, Dec. 28, 2000
http://cgi.usatoday.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Nearly eight years after the botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, led to calls for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to be abolished, the agency has regained its footing through a makeover that has softened its image and redirected its priorities.

The ATF's improved stance on Capitol Hill is most evident in the federal budget for this fiscal year.

Congress -- home to critics who in past years have vilified the ATF for what lawmakers called the agency's unnecessarily aggressive approach to confrontations -- approved a record $773 million for the ATF.

It's the ATF's largest budget ever.
(...)

On the day of the raid, the Branch Davidians were tipped that the ATF was on its way. During a gun battle, four agents were killed, and more than 20 were wounded.
(...)

Since then, the ATF has brought in a former head of the Secret Service and quietly changed its image.
(...)

Instead of focusing on busting down doors in raids -- an activity that led critics to call ATF agents ''jackbooted thugs'' -- the agency concentrates on complex investigations such as one of church burnings in the South in the late 1990s.
(...)

The ATF's problems began long before Waco and stem from its controversial assignments: regulating popular and socially acceptable vices such as alcohol and tobacco, and enforcing the nation's gun laws.

The agency is a lightning rod for gun rights groups and repeatedly has been targeted for shutdown, with some critics suggesting that its duties be divided between the FBI and IRS.

President Clinton, meanwhile, has taken some heat off the ATF by fighting personally with the National Rifle Association, the nation's leading gun rights group.
(...)

The agency's other critics also have quieted down.

John Trochmann, co-founder of the Militia of Montana, says he occasionally hears allegations of ATF abuses, ''but it's not as widespread as it was four to six years ago.''

Several investigations of the Waco incident have cleared the ATF of wrongdoing; so has a federal judge in a lawsuit filed by surviving Davidians. But Congress, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department said ATF agents exercised bad judgment.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

2. Falun Gong Members' Appeals Denied
The Associated Press, Dec. 27, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING -- A Chinese court has rejected appeals by four Falun Gong followers, upholding the prison sentences they were handed for spreading information about the banned group, official media reported Wednesday.

Reports by the Beijing city government's newspaper and television station were the first official word on the fates of Pang You, Mu Chunyan, Chen Suping and Zhang Lixin. The four are among tens of thousands of Falun Gong members who have been detained since China outlawed the group 17 months ago.
(...)

The cases reported Wednesday shed light on the group's resilience and the government's frustrations in suppressing it.

The four whose appeals were rejected had set up a high-tech printing shop in a rural village north of Beijing in August, the Beijing Daily and Beijing Television reported.
(...)

In an ostensibly public trial on Nov. 11, the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court convicted the four of ''using an evil cult to undermine the law,'' the reports said. Pang was sentenced to eight years in prison, Mu and Chen to seven years and Zhang to three.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Zhong Gong

3. Chinese Police Detain Executive Linked to Sprirtual Sect
Inside China Today/AFP, Dec. 26, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG, Dec 26, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese police have arrested the former top executive of a company that formed part of a business empire run by the outlawed Zhong Gong spiritual movement, a Hong Kong-based rights group said Tuesday.

Feng Linxi, the general manager of Jianghaiyang Co., a company based in northern Shaanxi province that has been closed down, was detained by police in southwestern Chengdu city last week, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Detained Zhong Gong Leader Files for Release
Inside China Today/AFP, Dec. 27, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SAIPAN, Dec 27, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) The detained leader of China's mystical Zhong Gong group has filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking his release from detention in the U.S. territory of Guam, a lawyer confirmed Wednesday.

Zhang Hongbao, 46, founded the religious movement, which translates to the ''China Health Care and Wisdom Enhancement Practice,'' in the early 1990s and reportedly has at least 30 million followers.

Zhang allegedly came to Guam with a fake visa early this year, fleeing persecution in China, and was housed in a ''tent city'' with other illegal migrants.

In late September, the Immigration and Naturalization Service denied Zhang's request for full political asylum, but allowed him to remain on Guam for appeal proceedings.
(...)

Zhang's followers claim his continued incarceration is a result of Beijing's ''political intimidation'' of the U.S. government.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. U.S. Lawmakers ''Concerned'' about Sect Leader on Guam
Inside China Today/Reuters, Dec. 26, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG, Dec 26, 2000 -- (Reuters) Two U.S. lawmakers have written to U.S. authorities to express concern about the detention and treatment of the leader of a Chinese spiritual sect on Guam, a Hong Kong human rights group said on Tuesday.

Zhang Hongbao, leader of the Zhong Gong sect, has been in detention on U.S.-administered Guam island since he went there in January seeking political asylum and he recently ended a hunger strike after eight days, the Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said in a statement.

The center said Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, and Robert Underwood, a Democrat from Guam, wrote to U.S. immigration authorities, including the head of the immigration department on Guam, to express their concern about Zhang.

Along with the better-known Falun Gong spiritual movement, Zhong Gong has been banned in China as an ''evil cult'', accused of ''using feudal superstition to deceive the masses''.

Beijing has accused Zhang of raping followers. His group dismisses the charge as a fabrication.

After six years' exile outside China, Zhang went to Guam in late January to seek political asylum. The island's immigration authorities have since kept him in detention since then and Zhong Gong members say he has been treated ''inhumanely''.

The United States has given him ''protection status'' but not political asylum.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Scientology

6. Kicking and Screening
New Times LA, Dec. 28, 2000
http://www.newtimesla.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Luke Y. Thompson's Top 10 Films of 2000

Special Jury Prize: Battlefield Earth It's easy to make a bad movie. It's hard to make one so brilliantly bad that it succeeds on a whole new level. It helps to be backed by religious fanatics (remember, Plan 9 From Outer Space was made with Baptist money), feature a delusional star who has proved to have no concept of what makes a good film, and be under the impression that an overblown piece of hackwork from a past-his-prime pulp writer somehow qualifies as good literature. Goofy platform boots and Conehead prosthetics also don't hurt. This is a film that deserves regular midnight screenings, and a whole new cult that isn't religious in origin. In the sequel (yes, they're making one!), alien shark-men come to repossess Earth on behalf of the galactic bank. I'm not kidding.
[...entire relevant section...]


=== Islam

7. Islam's New Face Visible in a Changing Indonesia
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 27, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A quarter of a century after the religion's resurgence led to upheaval in the Mideast, a more ambitious and tolerant movement is reshaping lives and the islands' government.
(...)

Long a decidedly secular state, Indonesia is being redefined by a growing Islamic identity. The transition to democracy after half a century of autocratic rule has witnessed an explosion in the number of Islamic schools, businesses, civic groups and media outlets. New Islamic political parties in the country with the world's largest Muslim population now make up a powerful bloc in parliament. The first democratically elected president is a prominent Muslim thinker. And neighborhood Islamic ''banks'' are bailing out poor families hit by Asia's financial crisis.

About 75% of Indonesia's Muslims now want Islam to play ''a very large role'' in society and government policy, according to a groundbreaking survey by the U.S. State Department. And 54% want religious leaders to become more politically active.

Abriyani's Indonesia also reflects a sweeping change within the 50-plus nations of the Islamic world.

A quarter of a century after an Islamic resurgence launched upheavals throughout the Middle East, the centers of activism have shifted. From Indonesia on the Pacific to Nigeria on the Atlantic, from Turkey on the Mediterranean to Pakistan on the Indian Ocean, the most energetic movements today are well beyond the region where the faith was founded by a former Arab trader almost 14 centuries ago.

The activities, goals and tactics of a new generation of activists--increasingly known as Islamists--also differ strikingly. The first generation, popularly known as fundamentalists, made headlines in the 1970s and early 1980s for extremism: Iranian revolutionaries crafted a theocratic state. Fanatics assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. And Party of God zealots introduced suicide bombs to challenge Western influence in Lebanon.

Today's Islamic movement is much more ambitious, energetic and imaginative in how it is changing the lives of the world's 1 billion Muslims--from the transformation of Indonesia, the world's fourth-most-populous society, to political and military brinkmanship in volatile Pakistan to the new model of Islamic democracy in turbulent Iran.

Two years after President Suharto's autocratic 32-year rule came to an end, the sprawling Indonesian archipelago sporadically rumbles with ethnic and religious tension, much of it a product of a brutal past. But in a country where 87% of the population is Muslim, most Islamist activists favor democracy, peace and ties with the outside world.
(...)

The Islamization of Indonesia is so striking in part because of the sheer numbers. Over the next decade, the under-25 generation that makes up more than half the 216 million population will emerge from thousands of new religious schools.
(...)

Many Indonesians, young and old, appear opposed to an Islamic state, whether a religious monarchy as in Saudi Arabia or a theocracy as in Iran. The goal of many Islamists here is to shape the national agenda, not hold power.
(...)

Al Chaidar is a self-described techno-nerd who runs a computer business in Jakarta. He also spent two weeks last year studying the Koran at a pro-Afghan training center in Peshawar, Pakistan, and he now works with a small core of young Muslims who want Islamic law, or Sharia, as the basis of Indonesian law. But he balks at being called a fundamentalist, because he rejects violence.

''We consider ourselves radicals, and there's a big difference. . . . We also like America and the West. I wear bluejeans and drink Coca-Cola,'' Chaidar said.

''And we believe in globalizing. We believe in giving women freedom to decide about Islamic dress. Fundamentalists would punish lesbians and gays. We will protect minorities of all kinds. This is a new face of Islam.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. The Chilling Goal of Islam's New Warriors
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 28, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Religion: In Pakistan, today's militant faithful see the entire world as the battlefield for their holy war.

MURIDKE, Pakistan--Abu Samara was a gangling lad of 14 when he joined the jihad. He was still too much of a boy to grow the beard required of holy warriors. But he wasn't too young to master the weapons of war.

Within weeks, his long, thin fingers were proficient with assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket launchers and the militants' deadliest device: remote-controlled explosives.

Then he volunteered to die.
(...)

The former peasant boy, who at 24 now has a full, untrimmed beard and a head of long, tousled black hair to match, spends most of his time these days in Kashmir, the idyllic Himalayan territory of snowcapped peaks and verdant valleys that has become the world's highest battlefield. His cell of commandos crosses into Kashmir from Pakistan for months at a stretch to carry out suicide missions intended to wrest all of the disputed region from Hindu-dominated India. Most volunteers don't survive more than four years.

Abu Samara is the archetype new ''Jihadi,'' a breed of Islamic warrior whose mission is no longer simply fighting infidels and oppressors in Muslim lands--the kind of campaign that put earlier generations of holy warriors on the map in war zones such as Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lebanon and Chechnya.

The new Jihadis are the most dangerous face of Islam today. In Pakistan, they are the most aggressive among a growing array of activists and organizations replacing or challenging crumbling state institutions. They've already played a major role in transforming South Asia into the world's most volatile region--and Pakistan into what the United States views as the world's most explosive country.

As a result of escalating tension over Kashmir, a U.S. intelligence estimate predicts a 40% to 60% chance of open warfare within the next couple of years between India and Pakistan--two countries that openly tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Yet Abu Samara's mission is not limited to Asia's subcontinent. He's out to change--perhaps even conquer--the world in the name of his faith.

''Jihad is not just about fighting against oppression and occupation. Jihad is about the way you think and say prayers, the way you eat and sleep. It's about creating an Islamic environment. It's about the struggle of life,'' said Abu Samara, a nom de guerre that means ''father of bountiful.''

''Jihad gives life purpose,'' he said. ''Without it, we're useless.''
(...)

In Pakistan, Abu Samara operates out of a secluded compound run by the Center for Islamic Teaching and Guidance, or Markaz al Dawa Wal Irshad, in the countryside beyond Muridke, a half-hour's drive from Lahore. It's one of a growing number of Jihadi camps throughout Pakistan that offers both religious and military training.
(...)

Inside are training fields, obstacle courses and tightropes strung treacherously high between trees to train Jihadis how to cross Kashmir's rivers and ravines. To qualify, militants as young as 12 must be able to carry another fighter across the high wire. There are no safety nets.
(...)

Long rows of large tents quarter new trainees who've exceeded both the compound's limits and the expectations of its 2,200 recruiting stations.

The Center for Islamic Teaching and Guidance was founded in 1986 by Hafez Sayeed, a senior Muslim scholar whose white hair and beard are dyed a deep rust by henna, in keeping with Pakistani tradition. Sayeed cultivates volunteers, most between the ages of 12 and 15, steeps them in Islam, arranges their training in guerrilla warfare and then dispatches them to fight.

His description of the movement's goals sounds benign enough.

''We're Muslims, and we believe Islam is more than a few rituals. It's a religion of peace with solutions to all of today's political and economic problems. It's important for us to spread that message because we want one system in the whole world, which, of course, is Islam. And to make Islam dominant, we must do jihad,'' Sayeed explained. ''Today, Western systems are dominant, but they've failed to deliver, so people are returning to divine systems.''
(...)

But the center's lofty ambitions sound less benign on an evolving set of Web sites it has launched in recent years, the most recent of which is http://www.markazdawa.org.

''The Islamic ruling system does away with all nationalities, tribalistic bonds and races and melts them into Islam,'' boasted a previous site. ''Under the Islamic ruling system, foreign policy is tied with jihad, conquest and the spread of Islam. It destroys borders and physical barriers to lead humanity from worshiping each other to worshiping the Lord of humanity.''

Islam also has its ''own rules'' regarding individual rights, it added, ''in contrast to Western notions of freedom and liberties.''

The movement's conspiratorial, even paranoid, mind-set is reflected in its admonition not to drink Coca-Cola, because, it says, the name reflected in a mirror forms the Arabic words ''No Muhammad, No Mecca.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. Religion of Islam
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 28, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Islam is the world's second-largest religion, after Christianity, and was founded by the prophet Muhammad based on revelation from Allah through the angel Gabriel in the 7th century AD.
(...)

Muslims believe that they are part of a single religious tradition that includes Judaism and Christianity. They fully recognize Abraham, Moses, Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other pre-Islamic figures as part of that single tradition.

Islam literally means ''to submit or obey.'' Muslims believe that they submit to a set of divinely revealed laws upon which social and moral codes that govern everyday life are established.

One of every five people is Muslim. Although Islam began in Arabia, more than half the world's 1.2 billion Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia. The most populous Muslim countries are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria. Only a quarter of all Muslims live in the Middle East. In Europe, Muslims rank as the second-largest religious group in Belgium, France and Germany and the largest in Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina. More than 6 million Muslims live in the U.S., where Islam is the fastest-growing religion.

The two largest sects--Sunni and Shiite--differ little in their basic beliefs about God, prophecy, revelation and the Last Judgment.
(...)

In most countries, the mainstream Sunnis are the majority. They also rule in most countries where Shiites are the majority. Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iran and Iraq are the only Islamic countries with a Shiite majority, although India, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf region have significant minorities. Shiites rule only in Iran.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Use of Makeup May Have Sparked Slaying, Family Says
Los Angeles Times/AP, Dec. 15, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Naima Melody Johnson removed her traditional Muslim headdress and put on makeup last weekend to serve as maid of honor at a friend's wedding. A day later, she was shot in the face and killed.

Officials said Thursday they charged her boyfriend with murder. And Johnson's family says the boyfriend, Kenneth Earl Tyson Jr., may have killed her because he believed that she had violated Muslim tenets.
(...)

Johnson's family said she wore makeup and removed her kamar, a traditional Muslim headdress, during the wedding. The family members said that may have set off Tyson, who they said strictly follows the codes of Islam.

According to the Islamic faith, women are encouraged to dress modestly, though that concept is interpreted differently by different people.

Police have not released a motive for the killing.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mungiki

11. Kenya: President Moi appeals for end to female genital mutilation BBC Monitoring/East African Standard, Dec. 27, 2000 http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
President Moi yesterday called for an end to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the country. He said the rite was outdated and had no role in modern society. He said women were exposed to a lot of pain during delivery and should not continue suffering unnecessarily because of the ritual.
(...)

President Moi accused Mungiki sect of promoting female circumcision and advised peace-loving Kenyans not to support their activities.
[...more...]

» Continued in part 2