Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2002, Page 63
Child Rape Charge for Mormon Fundamentalist
Tom Green, the man with five wives, 31 children and two more on the way, is set to be
charged with the child rape of one of his wives. Green, 53, a Mormon fundamentalist from
Utah, was jailed for five years last August after being convicted of bigamy and failure to pay
child support. He was tried and found guilty in May and sentenced to five years in prison for
living with five wives at the same time and fraudulently collecting $150,000 in welfare.
(Daily Telegraph, 1/12/02, Internet)
Falun Gong
Academic Supporters Jailed /China
Four Chinese academics from Beijing's elite Tsinghua University, a university staffer, and a
graduate student, all convicted of spreading material on the Internet about Falun Gong,
have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 12 years. (AP, 12/24/01, Internet Elizabeth
Rosenthal. New York times, 12/24/01, Internet Reuters, 12/23/01, Internet))
Overseas Followers Appeal for Support
Falun Gung's overseas followers have stepped up appeals for public support, often evoking
the movement's principles of tolerance and compassion, and hundreds of American
politicians have responded with letters and proclamations, including the mayor of San Jose
and members of California's congressional delegation. But in so doing, U.S. politicians often
unwittingly endorsed a philosophy that is intolerant in many respects and in conflict with the
values of Western democracy.
"They know how to play politics with American elected officials," says Ming Xia, a political
science professor at the City University of New York. He calls Falun Gong "Janus-faced,"
saying that it presents itself in China as a moral revival movement, but in the West as a
movement for freedom of religion and thought.
Orville Schell, dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley, says
that the West's blind embrace of Falun Gong fits into a well-established pattern of viewing
communist China in black-and-white terms, missing the complexities and nuances. "Anyone
the Chinese government opposes gets lionized as righteous."
Falun Gong, a blend of Eastern religious concepts, including Chinese folk beliefs that
resonate with its largely Chinese following, blends philosophy with meditation, moral
precepts, and slow-motion exercises, all aimed to achieve a loftier spiritual plane. The
teachings of leader Li Hongzhi—in exile in the U.S.—include a strong anti-homosexual
element, and the idea that mixed-race or "cross-bred" people are rootless and deviant, the
result of a plot by evil extraterrestrials who populate his expanded cosmology. He teaches
that aliens came in droves during the Industrial Revolution and aim to take over human
souls through science, monitoring people by assigning every computer a number. This does
not seem to bother research chemist Sherry Zhang, or California marketing consultant Alicia
Zhao, also a Falun Gong practitioner, who believe that aliens might exist. (Sarah Lubman,
San Jose Mercury News, 12/23/01, Internet)
The government crackdown on Falun Gong moderated in the second half of 2001, as many
followers left the movement and others hid their belief and practice, but the government's
propaganda war against the group has recently heated up as part of a general tightening up
on media expression of ideas that "threaten social stability." (Reuters, 12/31/01, Internet)
Foreign Protesters Detained /China
An American and a Canadian were detained in early February while protesting China's effort
to blame the banned Falun Gong sect for a fiery group suicide attempt last year. The two
men unfurled a banner on Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing and shouted the
Child Rape Charge for Mormon Fundamentalist
Tom Green, the man with five wives, 31 children and two more on the way, is set to be
charged with the child rape of one of his wives. Green, 53, a Mormon fundamentalist from
Utah, was jailed for five years last August after being convicted of bigamy and failure to pay
child support. He was tried and found guilty in May and sentenced to five years in prison for
living with five wives at the same time and fraudulently collecting $150,000 in welfare.
(Daily Telegraph, 1/12/02, Internet)
Falun Gong
Academic Supporters Jailed /China
Four Chinese academics from Beijing's elite Tsinghua University, a university staffer, and a
graduate student, all convicted of spreading material on the Internet about Falun Gong,
have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 12 years. (AP, 12/24/01, Internet Elizabeth
Rosenthal. New York times, 12/24/01, Internet Reuters, 12/23/01, Internet))
Overseas Followers Appeal for Support
Falun Gung's overseas followers have stepped up appeals for public support, often evoking
the movement's principles of tolerance and compassion, and hundreds of American
politicians have responded with letters and proclamations, including the mayor of San Jose
and members of California's congressional delegation. But in so doing, U.S. politicians often
unwittingly endorsed a philosophy that is intolerant in many respects and in conflict with the
values of Western democracy.
"They know how to play politics with American elected officials," says Ming Xia, a political
science professor at the City University of New York. He calls Falun Gong "Janus-faced,"
saying that it presents itself in China as a moral revival movement, but in the West as a
movement for freedom of religion and thought.
Orville Schell, dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley, says
that the West's blind embrace of Falun Gong fits into a well-established pattern of viewing
communist China in black-and-white terms, missing the complexities and nuances. "Anyone
the Chinese government opposes gets lionized as righteous."
Falun Gong, a blend of Eastern religious concepts, including Chinese folk beliefs that
resonate with its largely Chinese following, blends philosophy with meditation, moral
precepts, and slow-motion exercises, all aimed to achieve a loftier spiritual plane. The
teachings of leader Li Hongzhi—in exile in the U.S.—include a strong anti-homosexual
element, and the idea that mixed-race or "cross-bred" people are rootless and deviant, the
result of a plot by evil extraterrestrials who populate his expanded cosmology. He teaches
that aliens came in droves during the Industrial Revolution and aim to take over human
souls through science, monitoring people by assigning every computer a number. This does
not seem to bother research chemist Sherry Zhang, or California marketing consultant Alicia
Zhao, also a Falun Gong practitioner, who believe that aliens might exist. (Sarah Lubman,
San Jose Mercury News, 12/23/01, Internet)
The government crackdown on Falun Gong moderated in the second half of 2001, as many
followers left the movement and others hid their belief and practice, but the government's
propaganda war against the group has recently heated up as part of a general tightening up
on media expression of ideas that "threaten social stability." (Reuters, 12/31/01, Internet)
Foreign Protesters Detained /China
An American and a Canadian were detained in early February while protesting China's effort
to blame the banned Falun Gong sect for a fiery group suicide attempt last year. The two
men unfurled a banner on Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing and shouted the
