=== Falun Gong
1. China says Taiwan leader colluding with falungong
2. Falun Gong members speak out

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

=== Scientology
4. Scientology guilty of libel and enjoined in Germany
5. Protecting sources
6. Razzies Scorch the ''Earth''

=== Unification Church
7. News And Notes

=== Raelians
8. House Sets the Stage for Debate on the Cloning of Humans

=== Buddhism
9. Sect 'planned mass suicide'
10. Sri Lanka to 'build' Bamiyan Buddhas

=== Catholicism
11. Faith or folly?
12. Former believer turns his efforts toward exposure
13. More Catholics turning to Mary
14. Pope Makes Appeal for Catholic Zeal

=== Mormonism
15. Mormons in charm offensive

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
16. Battle brewing over Nessie hunt
17. Wizard curse? I've had spell of good luck, says Whelan

=== Hate Groups
18. Man Gets Life for Calif. Hate Crime
19. Saudi Arabia bans Pokemon

=== Rebirthing
20. Video a key piece in abuse trial

=== Other News
21. Teen-age monk confesses to killing nun, police say
22. 'This is the place for a village,' decides a rich sect (Bruderhof)
23. Procter & Gamble Suit Over Satan Rumor Resurrected
24. Southern Baptists ending talks with Catholic Church

=== Science
25. Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator

=== Death Penalty & Other Human Rights Violations
26. Court will hear second mentally retarded case

=== Media
27. Why do we think Christ was white?
28. Purging Flame

=== The Investors Around The Corner
29. Four-year-old beats City expert


=== Hate Groups

18. Man Gets Life for Calif. Hate Crime
AP, Mar. 27, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
LOS ANGELES -- In a courtroom filled with sobbing victims, White supremacist Buford O. Furrow apologized and blamed mental illness for the 1999 shooting spree in which he killed a postal worker and wounded five people.

''I want to try, although it is impossible, to convey my deep sorrow,'' Furrow said Monday, reading a statement before he was sentenced. ''I think about what happened every day and I will grieve for it every day for the rest of my life.''

U.S. District Judge Nora Manella imposed two life sentences without possibility of parole, plus 110 years in prison and payment of $690,294 in restitution.
(...)

On Aug. 10, 1999, Furrow stormed into the North Valley Jewish Community Center, which was packed with children attending day programs, and fired more 70 bullets. Three boys, a teen-age girl and a woman were injured.

He then headed into the San Fernando Valley neighborhood and killed Filipino-American mailman Joseph Ileto, who was shot nine times.

Furrow surrendered in Las Vegas the next day, declaring he had intended to send a ''wake-up call to America to kill Jews.''

Furrow, of Olympia, Wash., had a history of involvement with anti-Semitic groups in the Pacific Northwest, among them the Aryan Nations.

He also had a history of mental problems and had tried to get help without success, his lawyers said when they argued to spare his life.

In court Monday, Furrow insisted he did not harbor hatred for his victims because of race or religion. He said he wished he had been confined to a mental hospital to which he tried to commit himself before the shootings.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. Saudi Arabia bans Pokemon
BBC, Mar. 26, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...anti-semitism...]
Saudi Arabia's mufti, the highest religious authority in the conservative Muslim state, has banned the popular children's play of Pokemon, saying it promotes Zionism and involves gambling.

The religious edict issued over the weekend said the Pokemon video game and cards have symbols that include ''the star of David, which everyone knows is connected to international Zionism and is Israel's national emblem''.

The kingdom's senior cleric, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, protested that most of the cards figure symbols such as ''crosses, sacred for Christians and triangles, significant for Freemasons''.

And he charged that the worldwide phenomenon of Pokemon launced in Japan in 1996 was a bad influence.

''It resembles a game of gambling because of the competition which at times involves sums of money being exchanged between collectors of the cards'' Sheikh Abdul Aziz said.

A Nintendo spokesman said that Nintendo did not design the Pokemon items with religious symbols in mind.

But the company has promised to investigate the claims that have led to the ban.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Rebirthing

20. Video a key piece in abuse trial
Rocky Mountain News, Mar. 25, 2001
http://www.insidedenver.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Will the video really ''hang'' them?

Two Evergreen therapists go on trial in Jefferson County District Court on Thursday, both accused in the death of 10-year-old Candace Newmaker during a ''rebirthing'' therapy.

Connell Watkins and Julie Ponder taped the session last April 18. The video shows Candace begging for air and pleading for her life. The two therapists are shown shouting back at her, ''Go ahead and die.''

Jurors will be shown the videotape during the first full week of what's expected to be a three-week trial. And they will hear Watkins' remark to investigators, ''The video's going to hang us.''

When the alleged crime is on videotape, just what is there to prove?

''Often the facts are undisputed in a case, whether or not they are on video,'' said Dan Recht, a Denver criminal defense attorney. ''The question is, `What was going on in the person's head? Did they intend to commit a crime?' ''

The 70-minute videotape is the centerpiece of the Jefferson County district attorney's case against Watkins, 54, and Ponder, 40. The tape shows the two women, along with their assistants, Jack McDaniel and Brita St. Clair, performing what they call a rebirthing session with the little girl from Durham, N.C.
(...)

Ponder, Watkins, McDaniel and St. Clair are charged with child abuse resulting in death, a felony punishable by 16 to 48 years. McDaniel and St. Clair, who are married, will stand trial together in September.

For the two therapists' trial, prosecutors will work to prove that they acted with recklessness and criminal negligence. Ponder and Watkins ''consciously disregarded'' a substantial risk, said Steve Jensen, a deputy district attorney.

''Trials are passion plays,'' said former Denver prosecutor Craig Silverman. ''Before the jury convicts someone of a felony, they usually have to be persuaded that the person not only did something wrong but should have known better.''
(...)

Watkins' and Ponder's attorneys have a long list of people who will testify that the two were gifted therapists who dedicated their lives to helping troubled children. Other therapists, parents and even Bill Goble, the Virginia clinical psychologist who referred Newmaker to Watkins, are on the witness list.

Watkins has a large and vocal following and does her ''intensives'' across the country.
(...)

Criminal negligence under Colorado's child abuse laws is defined as a ''gross deviation from a standard of care,'' Silverman said.

''To beat criminal negligence, they're going to have to show that this is a reasonable standard of care, that this is an accepted way of dealing with a problem child,'' he said.

If the judge allows it, the horrors of living with a child who has attachment disorder are expected to be raised by the parents and therapists who support Watkins and Ponder. Parents say living with these children -- some called ''future Ted Bundys'' -- is a living nightmare of abuse, tantrums and even violence.

Watkins' rebirthing and other ''holding'' therapies have been the miracle cure for these troubled children, her supporters say.
(...)

But mainstream mental health providers say rebirthing is bunk, with no scientific research that it's a valid treatment.

''There is just no evidence that this kind of treatment works, that it's in any way helpful,'' said Rhea Farberman, an American Psychological Association spokeswoman.

''Any mental health provider is obligated to first do no harm,'' Farberman said. ''That obviously didn't happen in this case.''
(...)

Newmaker, 47, has been charged with a lesser degree of child abuse resulting in death and will go on trial in November. She is expected to testify in the trial of Ponder and Watkins.

Perhaps her intentions will also be raised at trial. She is a nurse practitioner at Duke University who brought her child to an unlicensed therapist in Colorado for an untested therapy.

Parental rights will be an interesting part of the trial, defense attorney Recht said. He likened Candace's case to a recent one in Grand Junction, in which parents were prosecuted for refusing medical treatment for their diabetic daughter on religious grounds.

''I think it's really fascinating because generally you want the government out of monitoring what parents choose to do or what therapists do,'' he said.

''Then at some point you cross that line and say, `Well, there has to be some regulation and some kind of line has to be crossed,' '' he said. ''But everybody has a different line.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


» Back to menu