=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Preparations vital for virus threat

=== Falun Gong
2. A Foe Rattles Beijing From Abroad
3. China Arrests 6 Falun Gong Followers
4. falungong guru tells China persecution will fail
5. China Scientist Alleges Falun Gong Got U.S. Cash
6. Falun Gong Denies U.S. Congress Gave It Funding
7. Jiang Zemin Says Hong Kong to Deal With Falun Gong on Its Own
8. Leader Vows to Protect Hong Kong
9. China keeps up opinion war on Falun Gong

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

» Part 2

=== Scientology
11. The Bavarian Report on Scientology

=== Unification Church
12. Moon to speak at SeaTac Tour: 'We Will Stand' event promotes religious harmony, racial reconciliation
13. Rev. Sun Myung Moon draws crowd to Minneapolis church
14. Local pastors welcome Moon

=== International Churches of Christ
15. Controversial religious group returns to Cal State-Long Beach

» Part 3

=== Islam
16. Taleban's Act Flies in Face of Islam's Tenets
17. Taliban Praises Statues Destruction
18. Statue attacks expose rift in Taliban leadership
19. Moscow courts its million Muslims

=== Buddhism
20. Buddhists protest increasing Christian conversions in Lanka
21. Teen Karmapa Raises Controversy

» Part 4

=== Mormonism
22. Church formally requests use of full name
23. Text of First Presidency letter of 23 February 2001
24. Technology boon for LDS, apostle says
25. Separation of church and career in Salt Lake City

=== Hate Groups
26. Compound to be center of tolerance
27. New Future for Idaho Aryan Nations Compound
28. Aryans want to carry loaded guns in parade
29. Klan Can Join Highway Clean-Up, Court Says
30. Holocaust deniers spread their lies in Middle East

» Part 5

=== Other News
31. 'Rebirthing' bill clears committee
32. French radio says sect members may have been killed by outsiders (Solar Temple)
33. China Sentences Cult Leader to 12 Years in Prison for Raping Women
34. Cult of the chairman (Mao)
35. Checks tightened on sex traffic of voodoo girls
36. Ted Turner apologizes for ``Jesus freaks'' comment
37. White House Defends Religion Program
38. 'God's Top Gun' Has Big Plans

=== Noted
39. The gospel according to Luke (Skywalker)
40. From sin to spirituality? Internet's evolution explored


=== Aum Shinrikyo

1. Preparations vital for virus threat
Daily Yomiuri (Japan), Mar. 7, 2001 (Editorial)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Mad-cow disease that first appeared in Britain and then spread to Germany, Spain and other European countries has created havoc wherever it came to rest. Add to this the foot-and-mouth disease that is affecting pigs, cattle and sheep in Britain, and it is understandable that the rest of Europe is panic-stricken.

On top of this, humans are also being threatened by a resurgence of tuberculosis and Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and the AIDS epidemic.

These diseases are not a fire on the other side of the river for Japan. The government should examine whether the nation's preparations for infectious diseases are sufficient.
(...)

In December, an international conference was held in Okinawa Prefecture to discuss countermeasures for infectious diseases. Governments, nongovernmental organizations and pharmaceutical companies from 18 countries, including the
G-8 nations and Thailand, India, Brazil and Kenya, discussed mutual cooperation and other plans at the conference.
(...)

The United States is paying careful attention not only to travelers but also to the possibility of bioterrorism, involving the use of viruses and deadly germs. In June last year, a U.S. doctors' society warned that the United States' preparations against bioterrorism were inadequate.

The U.S. society said about 450 Web sites on the Internet sell dangerous microorganisms, including anthrax. It warned that only a small amount of anthrax germs can endanger a large city and overwhelm its medical resources.

Despite the Aum Supreme Truth cult's sarin gas attacks a few years ago, the nation does not seem to have taken any precautions in regards to possible similar incidents in the future as no such incident has occurred recently.

The United States has been preparing various measures through such large-scale organizations as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and taking steps to ensure public cooperation by increasing public disclosure of information.

Japan has not taken such measures. This may be because the nation has lost its sense of crisis concerning the risk of future viral outbreaks.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

2. A Foe Rattles Beijing From Abroad
Washington Post, Mar, 9, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING -- In November, Ji Zhudi received a copy of a speech by Li Hongzhi, the leader of Falun Gong, urging followers of the spiritual movement to abandon ''attachments'' and ''forbearance,'' a message she and others like her took as a directive to continue protests against the Chinese government.

Ji, who at 54 has followed Falun Gong since she lost a factory job several years ago in the gritty city of Changchun, traveled to Beijing. She went to Tiananmen Square to unfurl a banner that read ''truth, kindness and forbearance,'' a motto of the Buddhist-like spiritual movement. Police arrested her, beat her and sent her back to Changchun, where she was sentenced to a labor camp for three years.

''Master Li wants us to keep struggling openly with the state,'' Ji said later, after her daughter bought her release by paying authorities $2,500. ''We need to show our goodness by going out onto the street.''

The government's 19-month-old crackdown on Falun Gong has emerged as China's most significant political campaign in decades, leaving an estimated 120 people dead at the hands of security forces and thousands more in jail. While human rights groups and reporters have documented the state's brutal and ineffectual repression, it has been more difficult to determine why Falun Gong followers have persisted so stubbornly and publicly to defy China's ban on the organization.

Recent testimony of Ji and other followers points to the key role played by Li in fomenting the confrontation and in exploiting differences within the Chinese government to befuddle the Communist Party. From the start, Li, a former state grain clerk who leads Falun Gong from a secret location in the New York City borough of Queens, sought to take on Chinese police and continues to urge his followers to confront the security services.

According to Falun Gong practitioners, Li's pronouncements have encouraged a belief that the suffering incurred in opposing China's authoritarian government can elevate followers to a higher level of spiritual existence, which Li describes as ''consummation.''

These accounts, along with interviews with officials and government advisers involved in the crackdown, also help explain the government's fixation on stamping out the group. While the government insists that it opposes Falun Gong because it is an ''evil cult'' that exploits its members, the real source of concern within the central government seems to be the movement's aspiration to become an organization independent of Communist Party control.

In the beginning, Falun Gong practitioners stayed away from politics, asking simply and stubbornly to be allowed to practice their faith. Now, their protests are increasingly political. A leaflet distributed by Falun Gong followers blames President Jiang Zemin for an unhealthy obsession with their movement. And Falun Gong practitioners routinely raise politics and human rights in their conversations with Western reporters.
(...)

Falun Gong spokeswoman Dana Cheng says Li has never directed his followers to do or say anything. But numerous interviews with practitioners in China indicate Li encouraged protests leading up to the movement's spectacular debut on the world stage on April 25, 1999, when 10,000 members surrounded Communist Party headquarters in Beijing.
(...)

Falun Gong's main message is that Earth is the center of the universe, but is inhabited by condemned souls. The goal of what Li calls self-cultivation -- reading Li's writings and practicing relaxation exercises -- is to move to a higher plane of existence, what Li calls consummation. As the crackdown has unfolded, followers have drawn on Li's pronouncements to conclude that the more they are repressed, the faster they can move up the ladder of existence, numerous practitioners said.

In his few statements during the buildup of protests, Li encouraged this spirit, urging followers to continue practicing Falun Gong openly. Since reemerging in October, Li has gone further, saying practitioners will reach consummation faster the more they protest.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


3. China Arrests 6 Falun Gong Followers
AP, Mar. 9, 2001
http://news.excite.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING (AP) - Six people accused of giving out leaflets promoting the banned Falun Gong spiritual sect have been arrested in northeastern China, a state news agency said Friday.
(...)

The six who were arrested printed 68,000 copies of 30 pamphlets in secret in the city of Shenyang, the China News Service said on its Web site.

The report added to evidence of the tenacity of the group despite an often brutal 19-month-old campaign of arrests and public vilification aimed at eliminating the spiritual movement.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


4. falungong guru tells China persecution will fail
AFP, Mar. 7, 2001
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
falungong leader Li Hongzhi has issued a defiant message to the Chinese government warning the brutal crackdown on his movement will fail and lead to mass civil disobedience.

''Never in history has someone who persecuted those with upright faiths ever succeeded,'' said Li's message, describing China's 20-month campaign against the spiritual movement as ''futile''.

The message posted on falungong websites Minghui.org and Clearwisdom.net is Li's first major statement since five people China says were falungong practitioners set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square on January 23.

Appearing to refer throughout the text to the Chinese leadership as ''the evil'', Li said the torture and beating of his followers would turn the entire population against the Communist Party.

''The evil's persecution in China -- which ignores all of its consequences -- will lead people to completely distrust the ruling party and its regime, and to disobey the government,'' it said.
(...)

Li, who lives in exile in New York, said the crackdown had been carried out using the ''most base actions ever in human history''.

''Although many people have been beaten to death, beaten to disability or sent to mental hospitals, this has not changed true cultivators' righteous thoughts,'' said Li.

And he said those falungong followers who have renounced their beliefs under torture or pressure were still part of his movement.

''When they return to their senses, they will immediately start doing what a Dafa (falungong) student should do and in the meantime will declare null and void everything they said and wrote when they were not in their right minds.''

Hong Kong falungong spokeswoman Sophie Xiao said the message was Li's most important since his ''Beyond Limits of Forbearance'' of January 1, which China says encouraged followers to commit suicide.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


5. China Scientist Alleges Falun Gong Got U.S. Cash
Reuters, Mar. 7, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING, Mar 7, 2001 -- (Reuters) An elderly Chinese physicist and leading figure in Beijing's fight against Falun Gong has alleged that the U.S. Congress gave millions of dollars to the outlawed spiritual movement, state media said on Wednesday.

The Beijing Evening News quoted He Zuoxiu as telling a meeting of scientists on the sidelines of China's parliament session that Congress had given ''tens of millions of dollars'' to support activities of Falun Gong.

''Hard-core members are professional Falun Gong,'' the newspaper quoted He as telling the science panel of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body to the Chinese parliament, on Tuesday.
''Why do I call them professionals? Because someone gives them a salary. According to my understanding, the U.S. Congress donated several tens of millions of dollars to Falun Gong for activity funds out of ulterior motives,'' He was quoted as saying.
(...)

Premier Zhu Rongji told the National People's Congress, or parliament, on Monday that Falun Gong was a ''cult which has become a tool for domestic and overseas forces hostile to our socialist government''.

But U.S. officials in Beijing said they had never heard any allegations of American funding for Falun Gong, whose leader Li Hongzhi lives in exile in the United States.

He, a member of the China Academy of Sciences and a science delegate to the CPPCC, is famous in China as a crusader against supernatural and pseudo-scientific beliefs that have sprouted as the country shed its traditional communist ideology.

The professor played a pivotal role in China's decision to ban Falun Gong.
It was partly He's criticisms of Falun Gong in an obscure journal that prompted 10,000 protesting members of the group to ring the Communist Party's compound in Zhongnanhai in central Beijing on April 25, 1999.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


6. Falun Gong Denies U.S. Congress Gave It Funding
Reuters, Mar. 9, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h
[Story no longer online? Read this]
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Falun Gong spiritual group on Friday denied allegations by a Chinese scientist and leading figure in Beijing's fight against the movement that the U.S. Congress gave it millions of dollars in funding.

``Falun Dafa (Gong) has not and is not receiving funds from the U.S. government, as every member of Congress and journalist knows and can independently confirm,'' Falun Gong said in a statement.

On March 7, Reuters reported that the Beijing Evening News said physicist He Zuoxiu told a meeting of scientists on the sidelines of China's parliament session that Congress had given ''tens of millions of dollars'' to support Falun Gong.
(...)

Falun Gong's statement called He's charges a ``calculated effort to whip up nationalist sentiment inside China at the expense of foreign relations, paving the way for more forceful measures to be used against Falun Gong practitioners in China.''
(...)

He is a member of the China Academy of Sciences and a science delegate to the CPPCC.

The professor is famous in China as a crusader against supernatural and pseudo-scientific beliefs.

It was partly He's criticisms of Falun Gong in an obscure journal that prompted 10,000 protesting members of the group to ring the Communist Party's compound in Zhongnanhai in central Beijing on April 25, 1999, which led to China's ban of the group.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


7. Jiang Zemin Says Hong Kong to Deal With Falun Gong on Its Own
AFP, Mar. 6, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
HONG KONG, Mar 6, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese President Jiang Zemin has given his endorsement for Hong Kong's leadership to deal with the Falun Gong spiritual movement on its own, but stressed stability was of paramount importance, press reports said.

Jiang's stand was made known before a one-hour meeting with Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa in Beijing on Monday, the reports said.

''I have to make it very clear the Falun Gong is an evil cult. The question in Hong Kong will be handled by Mr. Tung,'' Jiang was quoted by South China Morning Post as saying.

''Stability is overriding. Any countries or societies will have no prospects if they have no stability. Only stability will make the economy develop and prosper,'' Jiang said.
(...)

Commenting on the issue, Hong Kong government information coordinator Stephen Lam said: ''The central government always supports Hong Kong to implement the 'one country, two systems' policy.''

He was referring to the formula which grants Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy.

''Like other issues, Falun Gong question will be dealt with by the government in accordance with the Basic Law and other Hong Kong laws,'' said Lam. The Basic Law is Hong Kong's post-handover mini-charter.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


8. Leader Vows to Protect Hong Kong
AP, Mar. 7, 2001
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Hong Kong's political leader said Tuesday he won't let the meditation sect harm Hong Kong but insisted he is not under pressure to act against the group.

Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said he would make sure Falun Gong does not repeat any of the troubles it has allegedly caused on the mainland, where authorities have outlawed the group as an ``evil cult'' that they say has pushed some followers into suicide.

Tung said he met with Jiang on Monday as the Chinese National People's Congress began its annual session - and that Jiang had made it clear that ``Hong Kong Falun Gong is an issue for Hong Kong.''

Tung has said the territory must ``closely pay attention to all the activities and behaviors of Hong Kong Falun Gong.''
(...)

A Falun Gong spokeswoman in Hong Kong, Sharon Xu, said she continues to believe Beijing is pressuring Tung.

``All the claims that the Chinese authorities have made against Falun Gong have never been through any investigation by an independent third party,'' Xu said.
``So to say that it causes harm or made people commit suicide or harm others - it's completely untrue.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. China keeps up opinion war on Falun Gong
USA Today, Mar. 6, 2001
http://cgi.usatoday.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING -- Despite a brutal crackdown and a tireless propaganda campaign, the Chinese government continues the war for public opinion against the spiritual movement Falun Gong.

Ask people here in China's capital what they think of Falun Gong and their views usually match their government's word for word. They praise their leaders for cracking down on the ''evil cult'' the way Japan prosecuted the sect responsible for a poison gas attack in a Tokyo subway in 1995 and the U.S. government smashed the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993.
(...)

But even as the Chinese government's campaign against the group makes headway at home, it is damaging the country's reputation abroad at a crucial time:

* Olympic officials last month toured Beijing to decide whether to award the city the 2008 Games; China's capital lost a chance to host the 2000 Games to Sydney, Australia, partly because of criticism of repression of political dissidents and independent religious groups. A decision is due in July. ''If the government fails to get a peaceful resolution (of its conflict with Falun Gong), there is no way we will get the Olympics,'' says Dai Qing, an independent Beijing journalist.

* The Bush administration plans to push a resolution this month at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva condemning China's human rights record. Secretary of State Colin Powell specifically criticized the China's rough tactics against Falun Gong.

It's getting worse, report says
In its annual human rights report released last week, the U.S. State Department said China's record deteriorated further in 2000. The report condemned China's crackdowns on underground Christians, Tibetan Buddhists and the Falun Gong spiritual movement and harsh treatment of political dissent.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported recently that 112 Falun Gong followers have died in police custody in China since the crackdown began.

Chinese officials defend their record. ''China has its own human rights values. It is somewhat different from Western culture,'' Beijing Deputy Mayor Liu Jingmin says.

Why is China so determined to break Falun Gong? The country's communist rulers keep a tight grip on civil society, distrusting organized groups they can't control. Falun Gong is a big one. By some estimates, it outnumbers the 60 million strong Communist Party in China and attracts followers from within the party.
(...)

Falun Gong translates roughly into ''practice of the wheel of law.'' Followers believe that the group's founder, Li, has installed in their abdomens an invisible wheel that expels bad energy and draws in good energy. By living moral lives and doing a set of five simple exercises, followers believe they can improve their health. They believe the exercises help distribute good energy throughout the body.

Falun Gong gatherings tend to be low-key affairs. Followers gather for an hour or two of daily exercises and then go home or off to work. Most of the practitioners in Victoria Park don't even know each other's names. Some followers meet in the evenings to read and discuss Li's teachings.

They say the practice produces powerful results. They tell stories of the sickly regaining their health and the grouchy finding good humor and civility after turning to Falun Gong. Some say they no longer need medical treatment. But they deny the Chinese government's charge that Li's teachings dangerously discourage them from seeing doctors when they are sick.

Outside China, Falun Gong members tend to be middle-class and educated. Inside China, many are struggling. A large number lost their jobs and benefits as China shut down inefficient state-run factories. They turned to Falun Gong to improve their physical and mental health. Others are searching for something to believe in at a time when many Chinese are obsessed with money. ''There's a spiritual void in the country,'' says U.S. journalist Danny Schechter, author of Falun Gong's Challenge to China. ''I see (Falun Gong) as a reaction against materialism more than a reaction against the government.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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

10. 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


» Part 2