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...FEEDBACK We invited TIMEasia.com readers to respond to our Falun Gong coverage from the July 2 edition of TIME. Here are their edited responses...
Will Hong Kong follow Beijing's lead and ban Falun Gong? The territory's leaders are sending out mixed signals. Last week, Sir Donald Tsang, head of Hong Kong's civil service, appeared to assert that the government would not outlaw the group. But his words were carefully ambiguous. And just days earlier, his boss, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, stood up before the territory's Legislative Council and declared: "There is no doubt Falun Gong is an evil cult." That statement has been broadly interpreted as a precursor for a tough anticult bill. And if such a bill...
...Despite Tung's role as Hong Kong's top representative, when it comes to matters on which Beijing has pronounced judgment, he consistently toes the party line. In his statement, he said Hong Kong does not need new legislation "at this point" but added: "We must monitor Falun Gong very carefully." Once again, Tung seems to think patriotic behavior means echoing the wishes of China's President Jiang Zemin, who wants Falun Gong quashed. The anticult arguments that Tung and his senior officials have advanced are forced and fallacious. Tung has said the self-immolation in Tiananmen Square of "cultists...
...What similarity is there between Falun Gong and Jones-town or Aum Shinrikyo? Almost none. What happened in Jonestown was mass murder, not suicide: Jim Jones misled his followers into drinking poison and 913 died. As for Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese court has refused the government's request to ban the sect though it has handed down death sentences to two leaders found guilty of the gas attack. The court made the distinction between violators of existing laws and citizens' constitutional freedom to practice faith, however unpopular those beliefs may be to others. To link Falun Gong with these groups...
...have called Buddhists "evil cultists" because some monks had committed self-immolation? Would he have banned Buddhism? Before answering, he and his supporters would do well to ponder the following. Communism is as alien to China as Catholicism was to Vietnam?both are European in origin. By contrast, Falun Gong's teachings, however simplistic and superstitious, are rooted in three ancient Chinese traditions: Qigong, Taoism and Buddhism. Those in China who still profess to believe in communism are as small a minority as Catholics were in Vietnam. Perhaps a few Falun Gong followers did burn themselves to death, thinking they...