The Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in San Francisco has written an official letter addressed to members of the city council of Seattle, Washington, dismissing a performance of a Falun Gong-related dance group and asking him not to attend, nor to congratulate the group.

Naturally nobody takes him seriously.

Cisco, the maker of Internet routing gear, customized its technology to help China track members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week by members of the movement.

The lawsuit is based on the Alien Torts Statute, a federal law that permits foreign nationals to bring lawsuits in United States federal court claiming violations of international law

A Falun Gong-linked group that promotes internet freedom says the US state department has offered it $1.5m, in a move condemned by Chinese officials.

Falun Gong, which combines meditation with Buddhist-inspired philosophy, has been banned in China since 1999 for carrying out “illegal activities”.

China on Thursday lashed out at a US House of Representatives resolution that urged Beijing to end its “persecution” of Falun Gong — a religious movement China has outlawed as a religious cult.

The House voted nearly unanimously on Tuesday to call on China to free thousands of members of the movement who are said to be imprisoned and to abolish a government office tasked with fighting the movement.

An Argentine judge has ordered the arrest of China’s former President Jiang Zemin and another top official for “crimes against humanity” in the alleged persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Falun Gong hailed it as a historic human rights ruling on Tuesday, although a lawyer for the group acknowledged it is largely symbolic.

The RNB Religion News Roundup for Friday, Apr. 24, 2009 includes items about Scientology, Aum Shinrikyo, Korean cult leader Jeong Myeong-Seok, the continuing popularity of Aum Shrinrikyo’s jailed cult leader, and China’s on-going ban on Falun Gong.

Also: • A US state must pay benefits to the wife of a Jehovah’s Witness who died after refusing a blood transfusion  • A killer turned pastor upsets his victim’s son  • Nigerian preacher speaks out against witch hunts  • Vampire story gets demoted…

Plus: what do you see? Pareidolia?

A follower of the Falun Gong religious group and a failed asylum seeker did not have his human rights breached when Russian authorities deported him to China, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.

The 74-year-old retired professor, known only as Y, lived in St. Petersburg from April 2003 to May 2007. He had unsuccessfully applied for asylum in Russia on a number of occasions, arguing he would be persecuted if sent back to China.

Members of the Falun Gong sect protested outside the congress of the International Congress of the Transplantation Society.

The sect members claim that China kills its followers in order to illegally harvest their organs.

BEIJING -- Russian expert in sect studies Professor Alexander Dvorkin has tagged Falun Gong as an international cult at a forum in Beijing and said all healthy and righteous forces in the world should unite to combat cults.

The ministry revoked the show’s permit because the Chinese Embassy complained that the organizers — U.S.-based New Tang Dynasty Television station — were supporters of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that Beijing bans as a dangerous cult, said a ministry official.

The letter compared Falun Gong to the Branch Davidians, which engaged federal agents in a standoff over illegal weapons stockpiles that killed 82 members near Waco, Texas, in 1993; and to the Peoples Temple, of which more than 900 members committed mass suicide in Guyana in 1978.

I’ve seen the original documentary and it struck me as fair and well balanced, with Chinese officials given ample opportunity to deny China was “harvesting” organs from imprisoned Falun Gung members for sale to rich and needy foreigners, and to decry Falun Gong as “a cult of evil.”

CBC plans to air a slightly reworked documentary on the Falun Gong on Nov. 20, ending a rift that forced the film’s prime-time English debut to be abruptly cancelled this past week.

The CBC postponed the airing of a documentary about the Falun Gong spiritual movement after receiving calls from the Chinese embassy expressing concern about the film’s subject matter.

A government spokesman reviled Hong Kong authorities Wednesday for barring Taiwanese Falun Gong followers from entering Hong Kong even though they held valid travel documents.