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Religion News Report - March 19, 2001 (Vol. 5, Issue 337)
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=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Aum Doomsday Cult Shadows Japan
2. Key Members of the Aum Cult

=== Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God
3. Uganda Cult Mass Murder Anniversary
4. Up in smoke or into thin air? Uganda's killer cult leaders a year on

=== Ho-no-hana Sanpogyo
5. Taxman sinks boot into foot cult
6. Bureaus put foot down over Honohana taxes
7. Foot cult leader failed to declare 750 million yen in income

=== Falun Gong
8. Girl Set Ablaze in Tiananmen Dies
9. Exhibition Targeting Falun Gong Begins in Hong Kong
10. Falun Gong puts spotlight on HK civil servants
11. Analysis: US, China still clash on Falun Gong

=== Scientology
12. Threat of Scientologists' Legal Wrath Prompts Slashdot to Censor a Posting
13. Scientologists Force Comment Off Slashdot
14. Slashdot buckles to Scientology loonies
15. Xenu Do, But Not on Slashdot
16. Holy? Or wholly without grounds

=== Buddhism
17. 'Buddha's hair' found in China

=== Islam
18. 400 Afghan clerics decided to destroy statues: Minister
19. Taliban Ways Under Question

=== Catholicism
20. Italy threatens to silence Vatican [Radio]
21. Few confessions

=== Mormonism
22. SLOC and the LDS Church downplay the church's involvement in the Olympics
23. From SLOC Leadership to Liquor, Church Has Long Had a Powerful Olympic Voice
24. Special Treatment for the Church?
25. Non-LDS Religious Leaders Cite Minimal Input
26. Courting Controversy
27. Sex change worshipper sues the Mormons

=== Hate Groups
28. Bertollini sues Coeur d'Alene newspaper
29. Parade foes to put best foot forward
30. Report Links Putin to Anti-Semitism
31. Estee Lauder's latest tangle
32. What's in a Name?

=== False Memory Syndrome
33. Jury awards family millions

=== Faith Healing
34. Senate Panel Backs Faith-Healing Ban When Kids At Risk
35. Mandatory medical aid for sick kids gets committee OK

=== Other News
36. Atheist leader's remains found on Texas ranch
37. China Extends Cult Crackdown to Protestants, Says Rights Group
38. Sect Not Allowed to Build Cult Hall [Universal Church of the Kingdom of God]
39. Man Shot Dead As Bulletproof Magic Fails
40. Moscow police make arrest in multiple murder
41. Poles rethink anti-sect moves after minority church complaints
42. Appeals court says Ohio motto is acceptable

=== Faith-Based & Community Initiatives
43. Conservatives call for ouster of director of faith-based charities


=== Other News

36. Atheist leader's remains found on Texas ranch
CNN, Mar. 15, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- Remains found on a Texas ranch belong to that of missing atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair and other family members, her daughter-in-law said Thursday.

Speaking from the Washington office of the Religious Freedom Coalition, Nancy Murray said the FBI notified the family of its findings a few days ago.

''They apparently found an artificial hip that had a serial number on it,'' said Murray, who is married to William Murray. ''It was one that had been implanted in Mrs. O'Hair several years ago.''

The remains were found earlier this year and the FBI and forensic experts have been studying them for months.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


37. China Extends Cult Crackdown to Protestants, Says Rights Group
AFP, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.insidechina.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BEIJING, Mar 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Police in central China have arrested two leaders of an underground Protestant church in an apparent extension of the ongoing crackdown on ''evil cults,'' a human rights group said Saturday.

Luo Gang and He Ping, of the underground China Evangelistic Fellowship, were arrested on March 12 in Honghu county, central Hubei province, Human Rights in China (HRIC) said in a statement.

Police roughed them up and did not produce arrest warrants, it said.

China's communist government, which only allows organized religion to function under state control, considers the evangelical group an ''evil cult,'' it said.

''These are the first major arrests since the Chinese government began its crackdown on the Falun Gong,'' group spokesman Zhang Dawei was quoted as saying.

While China's official Protestant Church claims about 10 million members, the number belonging to unofficial congregations is likely several times larger.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


38. Sect Not Allowed to Build Cult Hall
Xinhua, Mar. 16, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
PARIS, March 16 (Xinhua)--Paris Mayor Jean Tiberi on Friday decided not to give the Universal Church of God's Kingdom (EURD in French), classified as ``sect'' in a parliamentary report, the permission to build a hall for cult ceremonies.

''Since the Police of Paris Prefecture has given an unfavorable opinion (on EURD's application), Paris City Hall announces its final decision to reject EURD's project,'' said the Mayor in a statement.

The decision of the Police is based on security consideration, said the statement.
(...)

EURD, one of the 170-plus sects in France, claims that it has three millions of followers. While not banning sect activities, the French Ministry of Justice has urged all governmental institutions to be vigilant against possible abuses that sects could commit.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


39. Man Shot Dead As Bulletproof Magic Fails
Reuters, Mar. 15, 2001
http://news.excite.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ACCRA (Reuters) - A Ghanaian man was shot dead by a fellow villager while testing a magic spell designed to make him bulletproof, the official Ghana News Agency reported.

Aleobiga Aberima, 23, and around 15 other men from Lambu village, northeast Ghana, had asked a jujuman, or witchdoctor, to make them invincible to bullets.

After smearing his body with a concoction of herbs every day for two weeks, Aberima volunteered to be shot to check if the spell had worked.

One of the others fetched a rifle and shot Aberima who died instantly from a single bullet.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


40. Moscow police make arrest in multiple murder
UPI, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.vny.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MOSCOW, March 17 (UPI) -- Moscow police detained Saturday a teenager from
Tajikistan accused of murdering four people, just hours of firefighters
discovered the victims' corpses in a residential building's basement in
eastern Moscow, the commercial NTV television network reported.
(...)

Earlier in the day, reporters speculated that the killings may have
occurred as part of a Satanist cult's death ritual.

Decapitated corpses, lit candles and garlands adorning the bodies
suggested that the murderer could be a member of a death cult.

However, it turned out later that the police were dealing with a plain
criminal who had difficulty clearly stating his motives.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


41. Poles rethink anti-sect moves after minority church complaints
EWTN, Mar. 16, 2001
http://www.ewtn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WARSAW, (CWNews.com/Keston) - The Polish government is reorganizing its campaign against new religious movements after complaints of harassment from minority churches.

Krzysztof Wiktor, the head of Poland's Inter-Ministerial Team for New Religious Movements, after announcing plans to liquidate the existing team in favor of a new ''Inter-Ministerial Team for Psycho-Manipulative Groups,'' said, ''State policy is undergoing important qualitative changes, which will enable us to avoid charges of violating religious freedom.'' The reform was dismissed, however, as a ''pretense'' by a leader of the country's small Adventist church, who accused officials of helping ''suppress competition'' to the predominant Catholic Church.
(...)

Poland's Inter-Ministerial Team denied in a June 2000 report that religious sects posed a ''big threat to society,'' but called on state institutions to begin training personnel in how to deal with them. A Polish police spokesman, Pawel Biedziak, denied last November that law enforcers were acting under pressure from Catholic leaders, but confirmed that material from Catholic anti-sect groups had been used for instructing groups of officers from each Polish county.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of Poland's 9000-member Adventist church, Andrzej Sicinski, testified that Catholic information centers had also given ''sect training sessions'' to school directors and teachers. Sicinski said dissolution of the existing Inter- Ministerial Team had been expected, adding that he doubted the new team would survive the expected collapse of Poland's center-right government after autumn 2001 elections.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


42. Appeals court says Ohio motto is acceptable
AP, Mar. 16, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Ohio's motto, ''With God, all things are possible,'' is constitutional and is not an endorsement of Christianity even though it quotes the words of Jesus, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Voting 9-4, the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court's 1998 ruling that Ohio's motto is constitutionally acceptable if the state did not attribute the words to their New Testament source.

''We agree -- and we would add that, just as the motto does not have as its primary purpose the advancement of religion, it does not have the primary effect of advancing religion, either,'' appellate Judge David A. Nelson wrote in the majority opinion.

The case went to the full appeals court after three 6th Circuit judges ruled last April that the motto violated the U.S. Constitution as a government endorsement of religion. The full court's decision reverses the three-judge panel's decision.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the motto, which was adopted in 1959, arguing it amounted to state endorsement of Christianity because it was a quotation from Jesus taken from the book of Matthew.

The ACLU can now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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