=== 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


=== Mormonism

22. Church formally requests use of full name
Deseret News (owned by the Mormon Church), Mar. 6, 2001
http://www.deseretnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Reaffirming with members and the media its intent to emphasize the name of Jesus Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has formally requested that the church's full name be used by reporters and church members alike.

And while the church is ''pleased'' with inquiries it has received from a variety of media about using the church's full name in news stories, decisions about how to handle the request are still being considered by news organizations.

In a Feb. 23 letter from the church's First Presidency to some 25,000 congregations worldwide, which was read in many local congregations Sunday, members and leaders were asked to refer to themselves as Latter-day Saints, rather than Mormons, and their church by its full name, or ''The Church of Jesus Christ,'' or ''the church'' in shorter references.

A press release issued Monday called on media outlets to call the church by its formal title, using ''The Church of Jesus Christ'' or ''the church'' on second reference. The terms ''Mormon Church,'' ''LDS Church'' or ''The Latter-day Saints Church'' should be avoided, according to the release.
(...)

The request came following a Feb. 15 story in the New York Times that detailed an interview with Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, who said the church wants to emphasize the fact that Christ is at the center of LDS theology and that the church is called after his name.
(...)

Renai Bodley, news director at Fox 13 News, said her news crew has had ''several discussions in editorial meetings. It's much different in broadcast than print. We only have so much time on air. To say, 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' rather than the Mormon Church - we need to come to a decision, and we're talking about it again today.''
(...)

She pointed out that many Christians believe the term ''The Church of Jesus Christ'' is a universal name for Christianity in general and that some may be offended by its use directed toward the LDS Church. ''There's the whole non-Mormon population to think about, too, when we're being respectful.''
(...)

The Associated Press, which sets the style followed by most of the nation's newspapers, has no plans to make changes.

''AP will review the matter, but for now we plan to stick with our current style, which finds Mormon Church acceptable on all references but also calls for using the full name of the church in any story dealing primarily with church activities,'' managing editor Mike Silverman said.
(...)

The Salt Lake Tribune will stop using ''Mormon Church'' but will continue to use the church's full name and ''LDS Church'' on second reference and has no plans to use the new ''Church of Jesus Christ,'' according to editor James Shelledy.

In a recent column on Beliefnet.com addressing the church's name change, researcher Jan Shipps said she believes the re-emphasis of the church's formal name is an effort to move beyond widespread identification of the church with the geographic and cultural practices of its Great Basin heritage.

''It seems obvious to me that in moving to curtail use of the Mormon label, the church is marking the move away from a past in which being a peculiar people meant being part of an ethnic group whose homeland is located in the Intermountain West,'' she said.
(...)

The church has battled claims throughout its history that it is non-Christian.

The most recent barrage came during the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Salt Lake City in 1997, when leaders of that denomination produced a video detailing how LDS beliefs differ from historic Christianity.

In an effort to emphasize its Christ-centered theology, the church several years ago changed its own name logo, upsizing the words ''Jesus Christ.'' It also adopted a change to the title page of the Book of Mormon, emphasizing that it is ''another testament of Jesus Christ.''

Several books and pamphlets have been published by the church and its publishing company, Deseret Book, detailing the Christian beliefs of the church. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve also recently released a statement of testimony as ''special witnesses of Jesus Christ.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

Contrary to its claims, the Mormon Church has nothing whatsoever to do with the historical, biblical Jesus Christ. Mormonism does not represent historical, biblical Christianity. Theologically, the LDS Church is a cult of Christianity. Considering Mormonism's heretical, aberrant and offbeat doctrines, calling the Mormon Church ''The Church of Jesus Christ'' is blasphemy.

23. Text of First Presidency letter of 23 February 2001
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).
http://www.lds.org/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
As the Church grows across boundaries, cultures and languages, the use of the revealed name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (D&C 115:4), is increasingly important in our responsibility to proclaim the name of the Savior throughout all the world. Accordingly, we ask that when we refer to the Church we use its full name wherever possible. While this official name is not being shortened, the contractions ''The Church'' or ''The Church of Jesus Christ'' are acceptable.

We discourage referring to the Church as ''The Mormon Church,'' ''The Latter-day Saints Church'' or ''The LDS Church.''

When referring to Church members, we suggest ''members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.'' As a shortened reference, ''Latter-day Saints'' is preferred, but ''Mormons'' is acceptable.

We of course will continue to use the word Mormon in proper names like The Book of Mormon or Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and as an adjective in such references as ''Mormon pioneers.''

A copy of this letter should be posted in Church buildings. Further detail on references to the Church and its members will be forthcoming in Church publications.

Sincerely yours,
Gordon B. Hinckley
Thomas S. Monson
James E. Faust
The First Presidency
[...entire item...]

Religion News Report and its publisher, Apologetics Index, will not refer to the Mormon Church as ''The Church'' or ''The Church of Jesus Christ,'' since doing so would aid and abet Mormons in their deception.

24. Technology boon for LDS, apostle says
Deseret News, Mar. 5, 2001
http://www.deseretnews.com
[Story no longer online? Read this]
PROVO - A top leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says that advances in technology continue to help spread the religion's message.

In particular, said Elder L. Tom Perry, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the church's Doctrine and Covenants should be shared with people around the world.

''I say it belongs to the world, not just to Latter-day Saints,'' said Elder Perry, who spoke Sunday at Brigham Young University's Marriott Center.
(...)

Throughout the ages, God has communicated with his children on the earth, Elder Perry said.

The Bible's Old Testament contains the stories of prophets such as Abraham. Through the New Testament, readers learn more of Jesus Christ's ministry and life, he said.

Over time, as these books were copied again and again, many truths were lost from them, Elder Perry said.

But the books LDS members consider to be sacred, such as the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants, contain what was lost, he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

» Lost Books and Latter-Day Revelation

25. Separation of church and career in Salt Lake City
CNN, Mar. 8, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/03/08/saltlake/index.html
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(CNN) -- Ariel Cassady didn't stay in Salt Lake City to ply her career in public relations and contribute her prosperity to the Utah economy. She could have, but chose not to.

Cassady was raised a Mormon in Austin, Texas. And when it came time to go to college, she attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

She had high hopes for her new home.

''I had always heard Utah was going to be some kind of wonderland for me,'' says Cassady, referring to the state's population, estimated at 60- to 70-percent Mormon.

But Cassady, 22, says she didn't find her wonderland. She says Utah members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints were much different from those she knew back in Austin. They were ''radical,'' she terms them, and unwelcoming.

''As much as they tried to be religious and think they have compassion for people,'' Cassady says, ''I found that they were probably some of the most judgmental people I've ever met in my life,'' she says. ''It stank. It was disheartening.''

She compares her time there with George Orwell's book ''1984'' and its Big Brother environment. During her education at BYU, Cassady was put on probation once for having her boyfriend sleep on the couch of her school apartment.

So rather than stay in Utah on graduating with a degree in PR, Cassady packed her bags and went back home. She works for a firm there.

If you tell her story to people familiar with the business and social climate in Utah, some may simply nod in agreement.

Some business leaders, politicians and former residents are saying with increasing clarity that the LDS church and its powerful position in the state may not suit everyone seeking a place to settle down and build a career.

The state has some great outdoors and top-level snow skiing. Also, there's that event known as the 2002 Winter Olympics right around the corner. Mired in a bribery scandal, the state is hoping to rebound with an Olympic Games that attracts business from international quarters.

But a number of community figures say they believe the church may actually short-circuit the expected economic and career benefits of Olympic hosting, cramping Utah's business potential and recruiting power. Church officials say they don't agree.
(...)

Bruce Albertson, CEO of Iomega, recently was featured in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune. Among other issues, he pointed to the perceived Mormon influence on liquor laws, regulations Albertson says promote Utah as a less-than-diverse place to live and play.

''I just wish they wouldn't run other people's lives,'' Albertson told the Tribune. ''If they need to control those places (where alcohol is served) to make sure their church people don't drink, they have a bigger problem.''
(...)

''(The mayor) thinks (the church's reputation) is a deterrent,'' says Ewing. ''How large of a deterrent, we don't know. But we have heard from business leaders, including (Bruce Albertson of Iomega), that it does have a negative effect.''

The debate about whether the church is scaring away business and talent is gaining volume. In reaction to the Tribune's February 19 story on the comments of Iomega's Bruce Albertson, a letter to the editor from reader Steve Provonost -- who, like Cassady, uses an Orwellian allusion in his comments -- was run in the March 7 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.

''It stands to reason,'' Provonost's letter reads, ''that any hint of suppression of intellectual and personal freedom can and will have a chilling effect on an economy's ability to attract the best and brightest thinkers. ... With such attitudes common in the outside world, is it any wonder that local high-tech companies are facing an uphill battle recruiting talent from out of state?

''The prevalent head-in-the-sand 'we don't want anyone here who does not agree with us' approach is reminiscent of the cultural insularity of the Deep South during the civil rights struggle.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hate Groups

26. Compound to be center of tolerance
The Spokesman-Review, Mar. 8, 2001
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Coeur d'Alene _ The planned conversion of the former Aryan Nations compound into a human rights center was lauded Wednesday by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who said the state is making real strides on human rights and tolerance.

The Carr Foundation confirmed that it will turn the Aryans' former home near Hayden Lake into a low-key education center.

There, local business groups, college classes and others could explore the history of civil rights, Nazism, hate and tolerance. Neo-Nazi paraphernalia from the defunct hate group will be displayed in a museum located in the structure that the Rev. Richard Butler used as church, where he preached white supremacy.

Other buildings on the 20-acre site will be demolished, and replaced with a human rights classroom that features a history of civil rights in America.

''The days of the Aryan Nations using this facility as a national headquarters for promoting religious and race-based hatred and violence are over,'' said Greg Carr, the Idaho native and former Prodigy Inc. chairman who purchased the site through his foundation this week.
(...)

Kempthorne used Carr's announcement to also tout Idaho becoming the first state in the West to recognize an African American holiday marking the emancipation of American slaves. The governor was joined at a Boise news conference by supporters who have worked two years to win recognition of Juneteenth National Freedom Day in Idaho.
(...)

Kempthorne said the transformation of the site joins the newly recognized June 19 holiday as signs that Idaho is moving forward on promoting tolerance -- despite insensitive racial comments about African Americans, Hispanics, Jews and American Indians made by several Idaho political leaders in recent weeks.
(...)

Carr's $250,000 purchase of the site was just his latest contribution to human rights in Idaho. He's also funding a five-year human rights campaign by the Association of Idaho Cities, backing the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, and supporting other efforts.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. New Future for Idaho Aryan Nations Compound
New York Times, Marc. 7, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) Public officials and people across Idaho say they have been vexed by the presence of a small number of white supremacists who they say have given the entire state an undeserved reputation as a haven for neo- Nazis and other racists. The announcement by Mr. Carr is only the latest, though the most symbolically powerful, step by the state to counteract the message of those groups.

Idahoans, responding to a challenge grant from the 41-year-old Mr. Carr, have already raised nearly $1 million to erect the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise. Mayors and school officials have established human-rights task forces and school curriculum plans and even created a coordinating job that Mayor Steve Judy of Coeur d'Alene once gave the title ''Aryan buster.'' Rallies by the Aryan Nations and other groups have been dwarfed by of protesters.

Yet there is still plenty of evidence of white supremacist groups in Idaho, a state where barely half of 1 percent of its people are black and few Jews live as well, though there is a growing Hispanic population.

Boise's public-access television station is about to run two new white supremacist shows. And the Aryan Nations' leader, the 82-year-old Mr. Butler, is still around. Vincent Bertollini, a former Silicon Valley millionaire investor who moved to north Idaho and became one of Mr. Butler's staunchest supporters, has bought Mr. Butler a small bungalow in the town of Hayden, not far from the old compound.
(...)

Mr. Carr, speaking in a telephone interview from Cambridge, Mass., where he now lives and where he has financed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, said he had paid $250,000 from his personal foundation to the Keenans, who had taken title to the property last month in bankruptcy court and announced their desire to sell it to a group promoting human rights.
''We hope to get the evilness out of there and turn it around to something positive,'' Jason Keenan said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Aryans want to carry loaded guns in parade
The Spokesman-Review, Mar. 8, 2001
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Aryan Nations members who plan to march July 7 in downtown Coeur d'Alene want to carry loaded rifles and handguns, the group's staff leader said Wednesday.

''State law says we have the right to wear sidearms and carry rifles in upright positions,'' Aryan spokesman Shaun Winkler said.

''We plan to exercise that right when we march in Coeur d'Alene on July 7,'' he said. ''State law is on our side on this issue.''

Winkler estimated that 80 to 100 neo-Nazis, Aryans and other white supremacists will show up for the parade.
(...)

Winkler said he plans to wear a holstered 9mm pistol and carry an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle.

Aryan founder Richard Butler, who has a concealed weapons permit, also will be wearing a sidearm, Winkler said.

''We have no intention of pointing our guns at anyone, and we have no intention of shooting anyone,'' Winkler said. ''We just want to exercise our constitutional rights.''

The Aryan Nations has a city-issued permit for July 7, but the specific route for the Saturday parade hasn't been set.

The permit says no firearms or other weapons are allowed.

The parade will coincide with the annual Aryan World Congress, which will be held at Farragut State Park. The former naval base, near Athol, Idaho, is where sailors were trained for World War II, when the United States was fighting the Nazis.

The Aryans got a state permit for that encampment after losing their compound as a result of a $6.3 million civil judgment.

Winkler said he and others who attend the encampment at Farragut also will have their guns there and intend to fire them at a designated shooting area in the park.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


29. Klan Can Join Highway Clean-Up, Court Says
International Herald Tribune, Mar. 6, 2001
http://www.iht.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WASHINGTON The name of the Ku Klux Klan may soon be displayed along a stretch of Missouri highway, after a decision by the Supreme Court on Monday.

Without published dissent or explanation, the justices decided not to hear Missouri's appeal of a federal court's ruling that allowed the Klan to participate in the state's ''Adopt-a-Highway'' anti-litter program.

The lower court required the state's department of transportation to give the Klan the same right to be involved in the program as other groups have.

Under the terms of the program, which is similar to those in many other states, organizations provide volunteers to pick up trash along a portion of a state road, using state-supplied equipment. Each group's name is displayed on signs posted at the beginning and end of the ''adopted'' stretch of road.

The case, Yarnell v. Cuffley, pitted the Klan's free-speech claims against the argument by state officials that federal anti-discrimination law required them to deny a place in the program to any avowedly racist group.

The state's appeal posed a classic conflict between constitutional values, and the justices appeared to wrestle with the dilemma.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

More about the KKK:
Suggestion: rename highway portions adopted by the KKK after people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

30. Holocaust deniers spread their lies in Middle East
USA Today, Mar. 8, 2001 (Opinion)
http://cgi.usatoday.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Veteran war reporter John Sack recently penned an Inside the Bunker account for Esquire magazine -- not of Adolf Hitler's last days, but of the lives of those who today deny that the Nazis ever intended to annihilate the Jews. Sack presents a sympathetic ''insider's view'' of a California convention of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), the organized front for Holocaust revisionists who deny the reality of Hitler's Final Solution.

Sack's prose is satirical, but his serious purpose is to score the Jewish critics of Holocaust deniers. Though not denying the Holocaust, Sack dismisses the deniers as no more dangerous than devotees of flying-saucer cults. Pictured as harmless Germanophiles, they emerge through Sack's prose as heroic martyrs to the cause of free speech, allegedly under assault by organized Jews.

Perhaps Sack and the editors of Esquire don't take Holocaust denial seriously, but the rest of the world views matters differently.

Many countries are concerned about the resurgence of Nazism and have made it a crime to defame the memory of the dead. Americans may not agree with these laws on free-speech grounds, but we all can applaud last year's declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, which encourages all European states to include the study of the Holocaust ''in all its dimensions'' in the curriculums of their schools.

Unfortunately, however, too many in the mainstream Arab and Muslim worlds teach their children just the opposite: that there was no Holocaust. This is why the supposedly harmless IHR has, for the first time, scheduled a gathering in the Middle East: a conference March 31 through April 3 in Beirut titled, ''Revisionism and Zionism.'' The event is coordinated by Jürgen Graf, a professional bigot who fled Switzerland in 1998 for Tehran after being sentenced by a Swiss court for denying the Holocaust.

From Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus to Gaza to Cairo, the Holocaust-denial ideology has been fused with ''holy war'' gospel by those dedicated to delegitimatize the Jewish people and destroying the state of Israel.
(...)

Today's hate merchants and Holocaust deniers believe that they can reinvent history. Our obligation is to reject their ''big lies'' because, as philosopher George Santayana warned, ''Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

_Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Harold Brackman is consultant on intergroup relations for the Museum of Tolerance._

» Some excerpts from John Sack's article

Sack's article - which is not online - was published in the Feb. 2001 issue of Esquire

» Part 5