Tag: Falun Gong

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”.

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?

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. Cults harm individuals, families, societies and countries like “cancerous cells” in a healthy body, said Dvorkin, president of the Russian Association of Religious and Cultic Studies Centers in an interview with Xinhua after attending a Sino-Russian Forum on sect studies in Beijing on Thursday. “They would turn individuals into tools of cults, and destroy their families,” he said. “Cults make no contribution