=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Man arrested after shots fired at AUM-linked residence

=== Falun Gong
2. Banned Chinese Sect Is Spurred On by Exiled Leader
3. Beijing, Falun Gong Trade Barbs
4. China Lambastes Falun Gong Figure
5. Beijing attacks SAR Falun Gong leader
6. Singapore Falun Gong organization says it did not organize gathering
7. Hong Kong, Falun Gong reach compromise on international meeting
8. Xinhua Article on Uproars Produced by falungong

=== Scientology
9. $1.2 million recovered in fund scam

=== Unification Church
10. UPI's de Borchgrave becoming editor at large

=== Buddhism
11. Dream of freedom fades for boy lama

=== Hinduism
12. Nepal turns down appeal from Norwegian missionary
13. India taps Web to manage mammoth festival

» Part 2

=== Islam
14. Bangladesh court bans religious edicts

=== Jehovah's Witnesses
15 Court OKs hospital's bid for transfusion
16. Jehovah's Witness suicide plunge

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
17. Brandi: The Teenage Witch
18. Boy turned into yam is guarded by police

=== Hate Groups / Hate Crimes
19. Extremist Group's Headquarters Raided
20. FBI Raids Brooklyn Jewish Center
21. Judge orders KKK leader to pay news crew
22. White supremacist objects to prison diet
23. Limits of free speech online
24. Yahoo looks for hate
25. MTV to List Hate Crimes Victims

» Part 3

=== Other News
26. Suicide-Cult Tale Spurs NYPD Alert
27. Bizarre cult-suicied threat chills city hall
28. Man Justifies Attack In Ranting Statement
29. Russia registers 9,000 religious groups
30. Students Fail To Prove Yale Violated Religious Rights
31. ISKCON's free meals get kids back to school
32. Santeria Priests Predict Stormy, Lusty 2001
33. Better Future Predicted for Nigeria
34. Rapist, Inspired by Bible, Cuts Off Penis

=== Death Penalty
35. The Death Penalty's Days Are Numbered (Robert Jay Lifton)

=== Noted
36. In Japan, spirituality search can lead to cults
37. Support for people leaving sects
38. Teen virginity pledges surprisingly effective, study says


=== Aum Shinrikyo

1. Man arrested after shots fired at AUM-linked residence
Kyodo (Japan), Jan. 5, 2001
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/

TOKYO Jan. 5 Kyodo - A man believed to be a member of a rightist group was arrested after firing shots Thursday night at an apartment building in Tokyo where followers of the AUM Shinrikyo cult live, police said Friday.
(...)

Four shots were fired at the door of the owner of the building, who lives on the first floor, the police said. Nobody was injured in the incident.

The police suspect Inoue is linked to a right-wing group that launched a noisy campaign in the neighborhood using loudspeaker trucks after the AUM followers moved into the building in December.

Police had searched the rightist group's office in the same ward Thursday morning in connection with the arrest of one of its members who in late December drove a loudspeaker truck at a police officer patrolling near the apartment.

The police have kept the area under watch after a number of followers of AUM got a lease from the owner of the building and moved into apartments on the first and second floors.
(...)

The Setagaya Ward office has rejected the application for domicile registration filed by the AUM followers living in the apartment building.
[...more...]


=== Falun Gong

2. Banned Chinese Sect Is Spurred On by Exiled Leader
New York Times, Jan. 5, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/

HANGHAI, Jan. 4 - Civil disobedience by the Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong shows no sign of slowing in the New Year and may be ratcheting up to a new level.

In a New Year's Day message to followers, posted on the group's official Web site (www.clearwisdom.net), the movement's exiled founder, Li Hongzhi, warned that Falun Gong followers facing persecution could rightfully ''go beyond the limits of forbearance.'' Forbearance is one of the principal virtues promoted by his discipline.

''If the evil has already reached the point where it is unsavable and unkeepable, various measures at different levels can be used to stop it and eradicate it,'' he said, writing from the United States, where he now lives.

That suggests that 2001 will be a year of increased activity among the core of true believers in China who are not in detention or under strict police supervision. The number of those followers is impossible to estimate.

Chinese authorities say it is under two million - far fewer than the 20 million estimated by one government agency to be practicing the discipline at the height of its popularity in the late 1990's. Mr. Li, meanwhile, continues to claim 100 million adherents worldwide, most of them in China.

China's efforts to crush the movement have reduced its numbers, but have also hardened the resolve of those who remain loyal to Mr. Li.
(...)

Whether Mr. Li's New Year message advocates more militant action than the group's remarkably passive behavior to date is not clear. While his calls to ''defend the Fa,'' or Great Law of Falun Gong, have kept adherents streaming into Tiananmen Square, his doctrine of forbearance has prevented most from resisting the beatings and detention that they invariably receive there.

But his followers' activism has risen over the past six months as Mr. Li's appeals have grown increasingly urgent, even politicized. In September, Falun Gong's official Web site began attacking President Jiang Zemin as the man personally responsible for Falun Gong's persecution, calling him ''the highest representative of the evil force in the human world.''

In the past few weeks, students at Beijing University, traditionally the wellhead of political activism in China, have found Falun Gong fliers left on their dormitory doors or bicycles.

And Falun Gong followers outside China have grown increasingly sophisticated in getting Mr. Li's messages to followers inside, frequently changing the address of its official Web site to circumvent China's Internet censors.

Despite efforts to block Falun Gong Web sites in China, the English-language version of the group's official site - carrying Mr. Li's New Year's message - can currently be seen by Internet subscribers in China.
(...)

Mr. Li, meanwhile, has begun speaking in increasingly apocalyptic terms. He has said the current struggles in China are leading to an apparently transcendent event that he calls the Consummation, in which his disciples will ''leave'' and ''all bad people will be destroyed by gods.'' Those who are left will pay for their past sins with ''horrible suffering,'' he has said.

China has responded to Mr. Li's shift in tone by declaring late last year that Falun Gong had become a reactionary political force bent on subverting China's socialist system. Known dissidents in Shanghai have been warned to steer clear of any contact with Falun Gong followers or face immediate detention.
(...)

The implication is that Beijing is worried that as Falun Gong metamorphoses into a more political movement it could knit together an alliance of dissident networks around the country.

The government has tried to discredit Mr. Li by using his words against him. A New China News Agency report last week said that a dozen followers in China had committed mass suicide to attain Consummation and that dozens more had been prevented from doing so by the police.

The report could not immediately be verified, but Mr. Li has in the past spoken out against suicide as a means of reaching salvation.
[...more...]


3. Beijing, Falun Gong Trade Barbs
The Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

BEIJING -- China on Friday accused the outlawed Falun Gong sect of growing more ''disruptive'' in its protests, days after its leader made a rare appeal to followers to escalate their struggle against Beijing.

An article in several state-run newspapers blamed Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi for inciting members to extreme acts that upset public order and provoked clashes with police.

''Recently, Falun Gong has become more and more disruptive and noisy, fully displaying Falun Gong's true nature as an evil cult,'' the article said.

''Some extreme elements of Falun Gong have even gone so far as to try to commit suicide on Tiananmen Square, to try to make a big impact and soil the image of the motherland,'' the article said.

It also accused the spiritual group of resorting to novel methods to spread its ''illegal propaganda,'' saying police seized 16 pigeons that sect members had intended to release on Tiananmen Square.
[...more...]


4. China Lambastes Falun Gong Figure
The Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

HONG KONG -- Chinese officials have lashed out at a Hong Kong organizer for the Falun Gong spiritual sect, calling him ''a backbone member of the evil cult'' who has incited others into staging illegal demonstrations in Macau.

A lengthy editorial carried by China's state-run Xinhua News Agency singled out Kan Hung-cheung for mobilizing Falun Gong members in Hong Kong to take part in protests in Macau during President Jiang Zemin's visit last month.

''The evil cult of Hong Kong Falun Gong's backbone member, Kan Hung-cheung, encouraged 31 members to lead more followers to gather in Macau,'' the article said. Xinhua accused the Falun Gong adherents of ''inciting troubles and creating chaos'' in an attempt to spoil the anniversary celebration of Macau's transfer from Portugal to China.

Kan on Friday called the comments a ''fact-twisting attack on Falun Gong.''

''If they didn't repress us, there would be no need for us to stand up and tell the truth,'' Kan said. ''As the suppressions were so brutal and inhumane, we have to tell the world.''
[...more...]


5. Beijing attacks SAR Falun Gong leader
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Jan. 1, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/

A Falun Gong leader in Hong Kong was singled out as a ''a core member of the evil cult'' in a lengthy Xinhua editorial last night, a day after the spiritual sect announced it would hold an international meeting in the SAR.

Xinhua said Kan Hung-cheung was a troublemaker who helped organise protests during President Jiang Zemin's visit to Macau for the handover anniversary celebrations last month.
(...)

However, it did not comment on the upcoming international meeting, which has been scheduled for January 14 at City Hall, Central. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department, which runs City Hall, said it has approved renting the venue to the sect. The event is expected to attract about 800 sect members from Hong Kong and overseas.

Last night, Mr Kan said he was not afraid of being singled out. ''[The mainland Government] has called me that before so I am not surprised,'' he said.

''I am not afraid. This has been part of their tactics all along in repressing Falun Gong - by personal attacks, making charges without evidence.
(...)

The Xinhua editorial said the sect would self-destruct by the unjust acts its founder Li Hongzhi encouraged his followers to commit.

It contained a long list of wrongdoing allegedly committed by the sect's members at the urging of Mr Li. This included protests by hundreds of members at Tiananmen Square on Monday. They were immediately arrested and detained, the article said. Witnesses said many were beaten before being taken away.

The editorial also said Falun Gong activities had expanded to other cities in Asia.
[...more...]


6. Singapore Falun Gong organization says it did not organize gathering
The Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2001
http://www.individual.com/

SINGAPORE (AP) _ Singapore's officially registered Falun Gong society on Thursday denied involvement in an unauthorized New Year's Eve vigil in a park that led to the arrest of 15 followers of the spiritual movement in Singapore.

``The society did not organize this activity,'' said Tian Moon Toon, chairman of the Falun Buddha Society of Singapore.

The society was legally registered in 1996 under Singapore law, which places tight rules on organizations and public assemblies.

Tian said it was individual Falun Gong followers in Singapore who organized a gathering in a Singapore park last Sunday night in memory of fellow followers they say died in police custody in China.

Police arrested 15 people, most of them from China, at the vigil. All were charged Tuesday with obstructing a police officer and illegal assembly.
[...more...]


7. Hong Kong, Falun Gong reach compromise on international meeting
BBC Monitoring, Jan. 5, 2001
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/

Text of report in English by Hong Kong iMail web site on 5 January
Falun Gong members reached an ''understanding'' with City Hall representatives that no provocative posters would be put up before the qigong sect was granted permission to hold an international convention at the venue.

The group's SAR [Special Administrative Region] spokesman said this yesterday as he praised the government's decision to permit the booking as open-minded and in line with the ''one country, two systems'' principle.

Kan Hung-cheung said the booking for 14 January was granted without City Hall representatives imposing any special conditions in several rounds of talks. The application was lodged in June last year and granted two months later.

But the two sides had reached a ''mutual understanding'' that the posters would depict only the activities of the Beijing-banned group, and not the bodies of members said to have died while in custody of mainland authorities.
(...)

About 1,000 adherents from Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States are expected to attend the one-day convention in the City Hall concert hall.
[...more...]


8. Xinhua Article on Uproars Produced by falungong
Xinhua (China), Jan. 4, 2001
http://202.84.17.11/english/

BEIJING, January 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A series of uproars recently caused by falungong activists at home and abroad fully reflect the wicked nature of the cult, says China's Xinhua News Agency in an article released Thursday.
(...)

Li Hongzhi, ringleader of the activists, has been extremely active since last October. At two assemblies of the cult in the U. S., he declared that the final chance has come for the activists to reach an immortal spiritual world. In other words, he enticed his followers to continue to confront the China's government by spreading vilification and causing destruction, says the article.
[...more...]


=== Scientology

9. $1.2 million recovered in fund scam
The Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2001
http://www.azcentral.com/

More than $1.2 million bilked from investors has been recovered by federal officials and will be returned to the fraud victims, authorities said Thursday.

Benjamin Franklin Cook III of Arizona was charged last August with 37 counts of racketeering, fraud and theft in connection with an investment scheme run by his company, Dennel Finance Ltd.

A U.S. Customs Service investigation resulted in a court order this week directing the Church of Scientology to return $1.2 million donated by Dennel Finance.

The church returned the funds to a receiver and has not been accused of any wrongdoing, authorities said.
[...more...]


=== Unification Church

10. UPI's de Borchgrave becoming editor at large
UPI, Dec. 29, 2000
http://www.vny.com/

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- United Press International announced Friday
that Arnaud de Borchgrave is leaving the position of chief executive officer
and president at the end of this year to become the global news agency's
editor-at-large.

''I am anxious to get back to writing and reporting, unencumbered by
executive responsibilities,'' de Borchgrave said. For the time being, the
responsibilities of CEO and president will be assumed by Douglas D.M. Joo,
president of News World Communications, UPI's parent company.
(...)

News World Communications, which also owns and operates publications
established by Unification Church founder the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, purchased
UPI from a group of Saudi investors last May.

Joo is chairman of the board of directors of UPI and president of the
Washington Times. He is also president of Noticias Panamerica Corp.,
publishing the Tiempos del Mundo newspapers in 17 cities in 16 countries
through the Americas. In addition, he serves as president of Crown
Communications, owners of Potomac Television News and Pyramid News Port in
the National Press Building in Washington.
[...more...]


=== Buddhism

11. Dream of freedom fades for boy lama
The Telegraph (England), Jan. 4, 2001
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

A year after fleeing Tibet, Urgan Trinley, the 17th Karmapa, is no closer to finding the freedom he sought and is effectively being held under house arrest at a monastery in northern India.
(...)

Confined in a small, previously uninhabited monastery, the Karmapa is guarded closely by armed Indian soldiers and is unable even to walk the monastery grounds without permission. The young boy is said to be growing increasingly restive and suffering from ill-health.

Tibetan refugees in India are normally free to travel wherever they wish. But confined under the Indian government's Foreigners Act, the Karmapa has been allowed to make only occasional excursions to Dharmasala to attend religious functions and to visit the Dalai Lama.

He has been refused permission to travel to Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, where his predecessor, the 16th Karmapa settled after fleeing from Tibet in 1959. One Tibetan said: ''The bird is allowed to fly for a few hours. Then he's shut in the cage.''
(...)

He is forbidden from giving interviews to journalists, but has told devotees of his increasing frustration at his confinement. He told one recent visitor: ''My main reason for coming out was to fulfil the wishes of my devotees throughout the world, and to preserve and propagate the pure lineage of Buddha's teachings to benefit everyone. But for the moment I am unable to do this.''

As leader of one of Tibetan-Buddhism's four schools, the Karma-Kagyu, the Karmapa is believed to be an emanation of Chenresig, the Buddha of compassion, the 17th incarnation in a line that stretches back more than 1,000 years.

He made history in 1992, when as an eight-year-old nomad, he became the first reincarnated person to be both recognised by the Dalai Lama and subsequently approved by the Chinese government. He was enthroned in Tsurphu monastery in Tibet. But assurances by the Chinese that he would be allowed to travel, and that teachers living in exile in India would be allowed to visit him, were not fulfilled.
(...)

Since arriving in India the Karmapa has found himself entangled in a political knot of Byzantine complexity. The Indian government has made no formal statement on the boy's official status. But there are believed to be security concerns about his escape and his motives for coming to India.

The Karmapa has given a full account of his escape to Indian intelligence officials.
(...)

But the Indian press has continued to speculate that his flight from Tibet was stage-managed by the Chinese or, even more improbably, by the CIA. The Indian government is also said to be anxious about the possible repercussions on its relations with China in allowing the Karmapa to take up his seat in Rumtek.
(...)

Matters are further complicated by the fact that Rumtek monastery is presently the subject of a law-suit, brought by a dissident faction within the Kagyu school who have refused to recognise Urgyen Trinley as Karmapa and are promoting their own candidate, a 17-year-old boy named Thaye Dorje.
(...)

Tall and powerfully built, the Karmapa cuts a commanding figure for a 15-year-old. He has a powerful gaze, all the more compelling for his left eye being slightly larger than the right. It is said that with the large eye he sees the outer world and with the smaller one he penetrates the inner world.

But the cramped conditions at Gyuto, and the restrictions on his movements have had a marked affect on his spirits and his health. Visitors have noticed a palpable change from the optimistic figure who arrived in India a year ago. He is unable even to exercise outdoors without permission, and he has been particularly susceptible to colds and illness.

Most of the Karmapa's time is spent with his teachers, engaged in a strict regime of study and meditation.
(...)

Occasionally he summons a master painter of thankas (religious murals) from a nearby Buddhist arts institute and describes his dreams, which are interpreted and painted for posterity. The images are kept a closely guarded secret.

He has also been fulfilling the Karmapas' traditional duty of identifying through divinations where other newly-born incarnations of high lamas are to be found. Despite his incarceration, the Karmapa has told visitors that he is ''still trying to think positively'', and that he understands the delay in India making any decision on his movements.
(...)

Tenzin Namgyal, the general secretary of the Karmapa's labrang, or administration, believes that, if the Indian government did not intend to grant the Karmapa asylum, it ''would have turned him back immediately''. The 15-year-old's charismatic presence and his reputed brilliance as a scholar has led to speculation that he will assume an important role in public life as a figurehead for the Tibetan cause in the event of the Dalai Lama's death.

According to Tibetan Buddhist teachings, as a Bodhisattva, or enlightened being, the Karmapa's sole purpose is said to be to ''liberate all sentient beings''. For the moment at least that aim is beyond his grasp. ''It is'', he says, ''like trying to touch the sky''.
[...more...]


=== Hinduism

12. Nepal turns down appeal from Norwegian missionary
The Norway Post, Jan. 5, 2001
http://www.norwaypost.no/

Nepal's Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of the jailed Norwegian missionary Trond Berg (36).

It may now take three to six months before the case is heard before a local court.

Berg was jailed in Nepal at the end of October, accused of illegal proselyting, charged with trying to convert a Hindu to Christianity, by offering him a sum of 40,000 rupies (NOK 5,000). If sentenced, Berg risks up to six years in jail.

Foreign Office spokesman Karsten Klepsvik says the Norwegian authorities have done more than usual in their efforts to obtain Berg's release.
(...)

Berg claims the accusations against him are based on lies. In a letter to the Christian newspaper Magazinet, Berg writes that false evidence was brought against him in court.
[...more...]


13. India taps Web to manage mammoth festival
Reuters, Jan. 3, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) -- Indian officials will use Internet kiosks, online registrations and e-mail this month to manage an ancient Hindu festival expected to be the biggest-ever mass gathering of humans.

''Maha Kumbh Mela,'' or the grand pitcher festival, is a chaotic mish-mash of holy baths in the River Ganges, congregations of saints and seers and devout rituals carried out by tens of millions of people.
(...)

For officials, the 42-day event which takes place once every 12 years has always been an organizational nightmare.

But the Internet could make a difference this year.
(...)

More than 70 million people are expected to take a holy bath at the confluence of the Yamuna and Ganges rivers at Allahabad during the festival beginning on January 9.
(...)

The Guinness Book of World Records described the last ''Maha Kumbh Mela'' in 1989 as the ''largest ever gathering of human beings for a single purpose.''

Smaller versions of the festival are held every three years, in three other towns along the holy Ganges river.

The holy baths are meant to wash away sins, and take place at the spot where heavenly nectar is believed to have been spilt during a celestial war between gods and demons.

The government of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where Allahabad is located, has made www.webdunia.com, which is the leading Hindi-language Internet portal, the official site of the festival.

Webdunia officials said the portal will offer separate channels for government officials, media and the public to access vital information and communicate with each other.

The festival is historically known for people getting separated from their kin in the milling crowds. Many Hindi movies have lost-and-found themes of families separated during the ''Kumbh Mela.''

Webdunia will this year have 20 Internet kiosks spread over the 50 square km (19 square mile) area of the festival to register and identify pilgrims looking for others.

The pilgrims, many of whom would be illiterate and most of them unfamiliar with computers, will be assisted by employees of Webdunia, which will have some 80 people working at the festival.
(...)

Webdunia will also offer free newsletters and separate paid-for content to the media.
[...more...]


» Part 2