=== Falun Gong
1. Thai Groups Push for Ban on Falun Gong Meeting
2. China Accuses Falun Gong of Breaching Human Rights
3. Falun Gong in Singapore Calls for Probe on Self-Immolation
4. Beijing Recruits Youth to Fight Falun Gong
5. Catholic Bishop Slams ''Evil'' Label for Falun Gong
6. Falun Gong feels the heat
7. 'Psychiatric' Cure for Dissent Is Rising in China
8. Recent Hong Kong events deserve US scrutiny: US official
9. 'Evil Cult' Raises Political Temperature
10. Falun Gong Poses Test in Hong Kong

=== Falun Gong - China's Government-Controlled Media
11. Reports from China's government-controlled media

=== Scientology
12. Nicole's nightmare

» Part 2

=== Buddhism
13. Karmapa's pilgrimage itinerary

=== Catholicism
14. Rare rite consecrates virginity

=== Mormonism
15. Adapting 'Mormon' to Emphasize Christianity

=== Jehovah's Witnesses
16. Abducted girl might see Arizona friend

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
17. Venda Cleric Employing Christians Angers Local Witches

=== Hate Groups
18. Black Muslim Activist Khalid Muhammad Dies at 53
19. German Jews Threaten Suit Over Internet Hate Sites
20. Aryan Lawsuit Changes Keenan Family
21. Skinhead Leader Sets Up Shop in Cedar City Home

» Part 3

=== Other News
22. Police foil terror plot to use sarin gas in London
23. Polygamists Assert Rights At Capitol
24. Student Cult Found In Lira
25. Father to sue NHS trust in sex abuse test case
26. Volusia spiritualists win zoning battle against church
27. The search for a virgin goddess gets harder

=== Death Penalty & Other Human Rights Violations
28. Death row on trial

=== Noted
29. Otherkin Come Out of the Closet
30. Believing in God is not a fad.

=== Falun Gong

1. Thai Groups Push for Ban on Falun Gong Meeting
AFP, Feb. 18, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Thai-Chinese community and Buddhist associations have called on the government to prevent a meeting of some 500 Falun Gong practitioners from going ahead here, a report said Sunday.

Thailand is being used as a staging point for the spiritual group to mount attacks on the Chinese government, they told The Sunday Nation.

''Falun Gong is an evil cult. Their presence here will destabilize Thai society,'' said Norrarat Tangpakorn, president of the Thai-Chinese Journalists Welfare Foundation.

Thai-Chinese Chamber of Commerce deputy chairman Suthee Minchainan told the newspaper that Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi defamed Buddhism by falsifying his birthday to coincide with Buddha's.

''All Buddhists should unite to oppose this movement for the sake of national security and social stability,'' he said.

Wiwat Wechkraisri, representing a Buddhist charity foundation, said Bangkok was chosen for the April 21 meeting because the group was denied permission to hire venues in Singapore and South Korea.

The Thai foreign ministry said Tuesday that China had lodged an official protest with the embassy in Beijing over the upcoming conference which will be attended by both Thai and overseas Falun Gong practitioners.

An official said Thailand was sympathetic to China's stance, but indicated the government would not prevent the meeting going ahead as long as organizers did not break any laws.
(...)

The Sunday Nation said Li is believed to have visited Thailand at least 10 times and that his mother and sister have also spent long stretches in the country.

Li's brother-in-law Sun Senlun is Falun Gong's main representative here, it said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


2. China Accuses Falun Gong of Breaching Human Rights
Reuters, Feb. 17, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
China, battling Western human rights criticism of its ruthless crackdown on the outlawed Falun Gong, said on Saturday another self-immolation by a purported adherent showed it was the movement which breached human rights.

The suicide showed Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi's alleged exhortation to followers ''not to be afraid of dying in order to achieve 'nirvana' is absolute heresy that violates human rights'', the People's Daily said.
(...)

State media said a member of the spiritual movement set himself ablaze on Friday in a Beijing neighborhood that is home to several Communist Party leaders.
(...)

Falun Gong said in a statement it could not verify if the man was a member.
''We are extremely sad and shocked to hear (of) the death of a Chinese citizen who was said to have set fire to himself in Beijing. So far, we have no way to verify this person's background,'' the group said.

It restated its tenet that it is against Falun Gong teachings to take human life, and that includes suicide.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. Falun Gong in Singapore Calls for Probe on Self-Immolation
AFP,. Feb. 18, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in Singapore on Sunday called for an independent investigation into the death of a practitioner reported to have set himself on fire in Beijing.

Tian Moon Toon, chairman of the Falun Buddha Society in Singapore, accused the Chinese government of fabricating suicides of Falun Gong members to justify its crackdown on the group, outlawed in China as an ''evil cult.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. Beijing Recruits Youth to Fight Falun Gong
AFP. Feb. 18, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Chinese authorities are trying to mobilize the country's youth against the banned Falun Gong, and has had 12 million young people sign letters against the spiritual sect, state media reported Sunday.

A day after a 25-year-old man, officially described as a follower of the sect, committed suicide by setting himself on fire, authorities had on Saturday young people across the country sign the letters against ''evil cults.''

According to the People's Daily, the youths signed a ''civil convention in the anti-cult struggle'' stipulating that they ''don't believe in cults, don't spread their beliefs and spontaneously fight against them.''

The signature campaign was mounted in 1,500 ''model neighborhoods'' of 100 large cities. Half a million signatures were gathered alone in Shanghai, the country's most populous city, said the mouthpiece of the communist party of China.

The young people also handed out leaflets denouncing the influence of cults, it said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. Catholic Bishop Slams ''Evil'' Label for Falun Gong
Reuters, Feb. 18, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Hong Kong's Catholic church has labelled as ''alarming'' chief executive Tung Chee-hwa's recent comments calling the Falun Gong movement an evil cult, the Sunday Morning Post reported.

''If Falun Gong is accused of causing disorder in Hong Kong society just because of peaceful protests, then such a label can easily be applied tomorrow to the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, to the diocese and to many Christian bodies,'' it quoted Bishop Joseph Zen as saying.

''The fact that Tung Chee-hwa has branded Falun Gong an 'evil cult' is very alarming not only for Falun Gong, but for all of us,'' he said in the report.
(...)

Stephen Lam, information coordinator for Tung, was quoted in the report as saying the Hong Kong leader had been misunderstood.

''He said 'more or less a cult', not 'evil cult'. It is difficult with English and Chinese translations,'' Lam said.
(...)

''Mainstream religions do not condone or promote suicide and self-destruction,'' said Lam. ''We were just referring to Tiananmen Square.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. Falun Gong feels the heat
Japan Times (Japan), Feb. 18, 2001 (Analysis - Harvey Stockwin)
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG -- Former Indian Chief Justice P.N. Bhagwati perfectly illustrated the enormous gulf between the political cultures of India and China when he arrived in Hong Kong recently as part of a United Nations human-rights inspection team.
(...)

All that Bhagwati said was, ''I really don't know why it (Falun Gong) should be so controversial. In my country there are so many cults, we never bother about them. The best way of dealing with cults is to ignore them.''

This is, of course, an obvious truth, not only for India but for any liberal democracy wherein offbeat sects can usually be ignored, at least until they go haywire by promoting mass suicides or releasing sarin gas on the Tokyo subway.

China, to the contrary, can never be as relaxed as Bhagwati suggested. Political power within China is equated with control. Any group that is thought to possibly challenge that control must be crushed.
(...)

In what amounts to a civil-disobedience campaign in all but name, the Falun Gong faithful have been coming forward in Tiananmen Square ever since the banning, presenting themselves for arrest, detention and in many cases harsh imprisonment. Their visible treatment in Tiananmen has been bad enough, with police kicking and clubbing the peaceful demonstrators. Their invisible treatment has almost certainly been worse, with many reportedly dying in confinement.

Now it looks as if the CCP is becoming even more hot and bothered about the ''evil Falun Gong cult.'' The Cultural Revolution-style denunciations of the Falun Gong are reaching a new peak of verbal vitriol, following what China officially maintains was an attempt by five Falun Gong adherents to immolate themselves in Tiananmen Square.
(...)

Now the official tirades against Falun Gong, endlessly echoed in the tightly controlled media, are beginning to look like one more Chinese anti-foreign campaign. The ''evil cult'' is said to be aligned with the anti-Chinese conspiracy that is always alleged to be lurking outside the Middle Kingdom.

China's complete inability to shrewdly ignore the Falun Gong has long been obvious.
(...)

Apart from the havoc it created, China's Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s developed a synthetic style of mass politics, the antithesis of the political pluralism that a huge nation like China really needs. That style, it would seem, is still in vogue.

Just as they did during the Cultural Revolution, the controlled media are currently reporting that all kinds of organizations all over China are avidly denouncing Falun Gong.

In a situation in which everyone is sycophantically trying to please Beijing with the shrillness of their invective, an anti-foreign tilt is virtually inevitable. It will be interesting to see how far it will be allowed to go.

But the emerging anti-foreign content in the anti-Falun Gong campaign is the more surprising, given Beijing's concurrent desire to be chosen as the host for the 2008 Olympic Games, plus its continued negotiation for World Trade Organization membership.

So the suspicion is growing that, as in the Cultural Revolution, so today, an increasingly vitriolic political campaign masks an intensifying power struggle within the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. 'Psychiatric' Cure for Dissent Is Rising in China
Monday, February 19, 2001
http://www.iht.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
China's crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement is focusing new attention on Beijing's practice of imprisoning dissenters in psychiatric hospitals. In the government campaign to discredit Falun Gong, official press organizations here have suggested that believers are mentally disturbed and need treatment.

Hundreds of defiant followers have been forcibly hospitalized and medicated, according to reports from Falun Gong and from human rights monitors. A new report has further stoked alarm abroad by documenting an unexpectedly rich history of questionable psychiatric practices aimed at stifling political dissenters.

''But what's surprising now is the sharp increase in cases,'' said Robin Munro, a British researcher and author of the report, which appeared in the Columbia Journal of Asian Law. He said that the rise was attributable to the government's 18-month-old crackdown on Falun Gong, which Chinese authorities have condemned as a dangerous cult.

''The mental-pathology model is being extended to religious nonconformists,'' Mr. Munro said. He said that was a potentially ominous harbinger as China entered an era of rapid social change.

Leading Chinese psychiatrists, supported by some specialists in the West, counter that fear, saying that the fervent spiritual practices of Falun Gong present a special case.
(...)

Mr. Munro said that official data indicated that China's political use of psychiatric confinement had declined significantly in the 1990s before Falun Gong was banned.

Now, he said, ''the new repression of Falun Gong has sounded a loud warning bell.''

Mr. Munro's report casts attention on a secretive, police-managed system of 20 centers for the criminally insane.

Critics say that these hospitals may harbor the worst examples of political abuse, although they have not generally been used for Falun Gong adherents.

Medical and rights groups abroad are starting a global campaign to condemn psychiatric abuses in China and to push for access to suspect hospitals by outside specialists.

''We hope that outside pressure can end this form of repression,'' said Robert van Voren, general secretary of the Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry, a group of European and American doctors that drew world attention to Soviet misdeeds.
(...)

But many Chinese psychiatrists, supported by some Western experts, insist that comparisons with the Soviet Union are misleading and that malpractice by their profession is uncommon today.

''Our biggest problem is not that normal people are diagnosed as mentally ill, but that ill people are not getting the evaluation and treatment they need,'' said Dr. Tian Zuen, chief of forensic psychiatry at Anding Psychiatric Hospital, run by the Bureau of Health in Beijing.

Dr. Tian said that while there might be a few examples around the country where people in the criminal system had been committed to hospitals without the required scientific evaluation, the problem ''should not be wildly blown out of proportion.''

Mr. Munro said the problem was ultimately rooted outside psychiatry, in China's repression of independent political speech and organizing. He estimated that at least 3,000 people who were arrested for a ''political'' crime had been referred for psychiatric evaluation since 1980.

''We don't know how many of these people were mentally disordered,'' he said. ''What we know is that the official threshold for doubting the sanity of these individuals is very low.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Recent Hong Kong events deserve US scrutiny: US official
AP, Feb. 18, 2001
http://www.timesofindia.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG: The top US diplomat here says Washington is watching recent controversies over free speech and politics in Hong Kong to see whether they are ''bumps along its new path or portents of difficulty ahead'' under Chinese sovereignty.

Consul General Michael Klosson cited warnings from Beijing about news reporting and local activities of the Falun Gong spiritual sect - as well as the pending departure of the last high-ranking official who had been appointed during British colonial days.
(...)

Klosson said Hong Kong has remained vibrant and free since returning to China in July 1997, but in a speech Thursday in Houston, Texas, he noted several incidents that raised concerns. The consulate has posted the speech on the Internet.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. 'Evil Cult' Raises Political Temperature
The Daily Nation (Kenya), Feb. 18, 2001 (Analysis - Ken Kamoche)
http://allafrica.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
There are those who believe religion and politics don't mix, or that they shouldn't be allowed to mix. On the other hand, religion can and does often assume political overtones which can have far-reaching ramifications for a society. Whether these ramifications are desirable or destructive often depends on what side you're on.
(...)

The controversy that surrounds Falun Gong is that the authorities in China believe it to be more than just a religion. To them it is nothing but an ''evil-cult''.
(...)

The authorities in China are convinced that this ''evil cult'' is a threat to national security and must be crushed at all costs.

In trying to understand the full impact of this emergent social phenomenon, it is worth clarifying what constitutes a cult. Experts see two dimensions: the religious and the social. As for the religious, cults tend to deviate from mainstream religious beliefs and, in effect, set themselves in competition against such religions, offering themselves as a more viable alternative. They often tend to have charismatic leaders who assume god-like status with the claims they either make or encourage about their supernatural powers and the sheer power they seem to exercise on their followers. The teachings of the Falun Gong are considered to be a deviation from orthodox Buddhism.

The social dimension refers to their rejection of popular social practices and conventions. Members of cults are taught, for example, to abandon their families and all aspects of the material world. Cults are known to urge their members to destroy or otherwise dispose of their material possessions and even to eschew medical treatment. Herein lies the danger. There have been too many cases of doomsday cults leading their members into mass suicide or otherwise causing the deaths of innocent people. From the infamous Jonestown disaster in Guyana in 1978 to more recent cases like the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, Aum Shinri Kyo in Japan and the Restoration of the 10 Commandments in Uganda.

It may well be that the majority of the Falun Gong are well-adjusted citizens who just want to get on with their breathing exercises - in which case their persecution is suspect. On the other hand there is always the risk that powerful leaders are manipulating innocent and ignorant followers for selfish political, spiritual or other ends. If that is the case, there is cause for alarm.

Opinion is sharply divided in Hong Kong.
(...)

The Hong Kong authorities appear to understand that any effort to enforce the ordinance to rein in the sect would further escalate the controversy and have far-reaching consequences. Yet, they have to be seen to be sensitive to the concerns on the mainland. It is not an easy balance to strike.

Beijing has reason enough to be concerned. Religious activities, though rare, have had pretty dramatic effects on the political landscape in the past. There have been many religious and quasi-religious uprisings in China in the past, of which some of the most memorable are the Boxers, the White Lotus and Tai Ping which rebelled against the Qing dynasty.

When Beijing warns that efforts to turn Hong Kong into a base for subversive activities would not be tolerated, they mean it. Hong Kong authorities are paying heed. A few weeks ago when members of the sect set themselves alight in Tiananmen Square, it began to look as though the authorities' and indeed many ordinary people's worst fears were coming true. It seemed like a sign of things to come, the doomsday scenario in which mass suicide would lead to the death of millions. To many observers, such a scenario, while perhaps far-fetched, cannot altogether be discounted, especially when so little is known about the sect and its leadership.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

» Additional Falun Gong News

10. Falun Gong Poses Test in Hong Kong
Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG -- There are perhaps 500 members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in this city of nearly 7 million, and many of them are not very active. The group has no formal office, and uses as its headquarters a small apartment that belongs to a member who happens to be away. When adherents get together, they spend a lot of time practicing breathing exercises.

Until recently, hardly anyone here knew they existed.

But as China ratchets up its campaign to crush Falun Gong, the group's tiny Hong Kong branch has emerged as the latest and most serious test of Beijing's promise to let this former British colony govern itself for 50 years.
(...)

China has described the Hong Kong Falun Gong members as agitators conspiring with China's enemies around the globe to establish an outpost from which to infiltrate the mainland and subvert the Communist Party.
(...)

China has applied pressure on Hong Kong before, but never in such a forceful, direct and public way.
(...)

Last month, concerns about the independence of Hong Kong's judiciary were renewed when Tung's government called on the territory's highest court to seek Beijing's guidance in an immigration case. China overruled the court in a similar case in 1999, sending the signal that Beijing -- and not the judges -- is now the ultimate arbiter of the law here.

The abrupt resignation last month of Hong Kong's No. 2 official, Anson Chan, also worried many. Chan was seen as a forceful advocate of the territory's autonomy and had expressed concern about Hong Kong becoming a place where Beijing-friendly businesses are given special treatment.

Margaret Ng, a lawyer and member of Hong Kong's legislature, said Beijing's attack on Falun Gong adherents here should serve as a reminder of how fragile the city's freedoms are.

''The only thing that protects us is political will,'' she said. ''The moment they want to suppress Falun Gong or any other critics in Hong Kong, they have all the apparatus of the law to do it.''

However, many Hong Kong residents consider Falun Gong's mix of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese breathing exercises to be on the fringe, and might not be alarmed if the group were outlawed.

Eden Woon, director of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, said he believed ''one country, two systems'' would survive. ''It's a difficult issue, but there are always going to be gray areas, and the Falun Gong issue is in one of those areas,'' he said.

But others said the image of Hong Kong police officers arresting members of such a movement for criticizing Beijing would frighten the public.

''Some people say they're weird and maybe even a cult. People don't really support their beliefs,'' said Law Yuk-kai, director of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor. ''But I think people also understand we need to support their rights. They understand if one group can be targeted this way, then so can others.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong - China's Government-Controlled Media

11. Reports from China's government-controlled media

* China's government-controlled media has, in recent days, published dozens
of items denouncing Falun Gong. As these items are essentially press
releases meant as propaganda rather than news reporting, there is little
to be gained by including them in RNR. Those interested may access the
reports via this Falun Gong news page


=== Scientology

12. Nicole's nightmare
Daily Mail (England), Feb. 17, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, perched on the sofa of her father's modest Californian home, there is little to link Astra Woodcraft with Nicole Kidman.

The British-born single mother has never been to a showbiz party, but shares something far more fundamental with the soon-to-be-ex Mrs Tom Cruise.

According to Kidman's friends, the actress, who was raised a Roman Catholic in Australia, has become disillusioned with Scientology - in which Cruise is so active and her desire to distance the couple's two adopted children from the church's teachings is cited as one of the main reasons behind their marriage break-up.

It is a view Astra, 22, understands only too well. She is adamant her two-year-old daughter Kate will not be raised according to the doctrines of Scientology's founder, the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

'I want Kate to have a normal childhood and make her own decisions in life,' she says.
(...)

Her views are shared by Teresa Summers, 42, who works for the Florida-based Lisa McPherson Trust, an organisation which vehemently opposes Scientology.

Theresa was a Scientologist for 20 years, working for the Sea Organisation in a Scientology school, though she did not have degree or formal teacher training.

'I didn't teach. The children had worksheets and I just checked them and helped them look up a word if they had difficulty with something,' she says.

If her pupils still had difficulties, they would be sent to attend 'ethics' sessions at which they would be hooked up to a machine called a 'learning accelerator', similar to a type of lie detector.

The children would hold two electrodes while answering questions. The meter detects small amounts of electronic resistance and an unbalanced needle would indicate the children did not understand something.

Other tests undertaken in 'ethics' sessions include a bizarre questionnaire which the Daily Mail has obtained.

Designed for six to 12-year-olds, the questions include: 'Have you ever decided that you did not like a member of your family?' 'Have you ever refused to obey an order from someone you should obey?' and 'Have you ever broken something belonging to someone else?' Such questions could disturb impressionable minds.
(...)

When Astra was five or six, she started going to church for 'auditing', a form of counselling which is the basis of Scientology's teachings.

'It was like a drill where I was told: ''Look at the wall, walk to the wall, touch the wall, walk away from the wall.'' Other times I would be told to follow someone's hand movements with my eyes.

'It was supposed to calm you down and help you see the world clearly, but really it was hypnotic.' But if Astra thought this odd, more was to follow when the family moved to Florida and Lesley joined the church's strictest religious order, the Sea Organisation.

Members dedicate their whole life and the next billion years, because they believe in reincarnation - to Scientology. Their mission is to convert the world.
(...)

'My school teacher was not a trained, certified teacher but a Scientology ''supervisor''. We had no lessons but worked straight out of books and instruction sheets,' she says.

Lawrence explains: 'Hubbard believed we had all lived before and attended school, so he didn't put too much emphasis on a formal education.'
(...)

One ofmy tasks was to persuade people who wanted to leave the Sea Organisation that they should stay.

If they refused I had to order them to do hard labour and make them sign ''confessionals'' saying it was all their fault they were leaving.' In such a prematurely responsible environment it comes as little surprise that Astra's next venture was to marry. At just 15 she wed fellow Sea Organisation employee Jason Merrill, in the Silver Bell chapel in Las Vegas.
(...)

However, after just a few months of marriage, Astra became disillusioned with her limited life and the strict teachings of the religion.

'I couldn't tell anyone how I was feeling, not even my husband, because he would be obliged to report me and I'd be ostracised. You are taught to think there is something wrong with you if you are not happy in the organisation.' Scientology teaches its adherents to file reports on members who are acting against the church.

Such people are deemed to have brought shame on their families and are sent to 'ethics' sessions, where they are questioned for hours about their thoughts and forced to make 'amends,' which can include manual labour.

Finally, Astra extricated herself from the movement in 1998, but not before she confessed to a list of petty crimes to avoid being declared a Suppressive Person.

Other Scientologists are ordered not to speak to such outcasts, who are declared enemies, and Astra didn't want to lose contact with her family.

Her crimes included 'stealing' leftover food and a pair of tights, forgetting to return a borrowed shirt and trying marijuana at 13.

'I signed the confession because I didn't want to lose contact with Mum, Gran, my sister and brother,' she says.

In a written response to the Mail's investigation, the church of Scientology refuted Astra's claims as 'fabrication', describing her as a 'disaffected former member' out to extort money.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

While it claims to promote high ethical standards, the Church of Scientology is well-known for its harrassment of critics. In fact, the Scientology organization is increasingly acting like a hate group. Among its favorite practices is so-called ''Dead Agenting,'' of which the cult's comments about Ms. Woodcraft are a prime example.

» More about dead agenting
» More about the Scientology cult
» More more about Scientology's hate and harassment practices, see

» Part 2