Anti-Falun Gong Conference in Ukraine

The Chinese Peoples’ Daily is gleeful over a conference in Ukraine apparently devoted to attacking Falun Gong:

A two-day international roundtable “Information Extremism: The Truth and Falsehood of Falun Gong Cult” ended on Tuesday, or October 14, in Kiev, Ukraine. Participants from various countries were unanimous in the view that the “Falun Gong” is a well-organized evil cult with great destructive power, which has wrought havocs to society and general public; it is a cult organization with an intrinsic tendency of potential violence.

Alas, the journalist’s English-writing skills are less than adequate, and working out who was actually there is rather tricky. For example, the report mentions

Griss Fridrih, president of the Federation for European Sectarian Research…

That’s actually Friedrich Griess of the Fédération Européenne des Centres de Recherche et d’Information sur le Sectarisme (FECRIS).

…Markovic Arnold, director of the Superstition Hotline Clinic in New York City, the U.S.,

That would be Arnold Markowitz of the Cult Hotline & Clinic.

…Bokin, director of the Russian State Religion Relations and Law Studies Institute

That’s Igor Ponkin of the Institute for State-Confessional Relations and Law (ISCRL) (Ponkin, an Orthodox nationalist, was recently in the news calling for goth and emo music to be banned).

A Spanish translation is even worse, giving us “Glis Fuderih”, “Markovich Arnolid”, and “Botin”.

Other “experts” mentioned are (links added) “Lipovskaya Natalya Anatolevna (f), a doctor of national management from the Ukrainian Academy of Customs Science”; “Vershinin Mihail Valerevna, an expert from the State-owned Samara University in Russia”, “Leshinskaya Elena Albertovna (f), a researcher from the Ukrainian Academy of Education Sciences”.

If we take the People’s Daily‘s word for it, the conference appears to have consisted of diatribes against Falun Gong that fully endorse the Chinese government’s perspective that it is “evil” and should be suppressed.

(Hat tip: Cult News Network)

3 Responses

  1. I have a suspicion that there was no such conference at all. At the very least, I would not be surprised if this were the case. It would be good to contact these people, though. I’ve practiced Falun Gong for four years, and for some reason never really had the urge to poison any beggars or engage in any other dastardly deeds I’m supposed to be doing, if you take the People’s Daily’s word for it. Thanks for the links. I can forward them some UN reports on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, and some field work by scholars of Falun Gong, who seem to come to opposite conclusions than the Chinese Communist Party (surprise).

    The English version sure was funny, too, by the way. I never knew the word “northing” before. My Spanish isn’t good enough to detect subtle grammar errors, but I saw that one too. They are a strange lot, the CCP. If they weren’t so apt to cruel torture, they would actually be amusing.

  2. It is very interesting to see how those so-called ‘experts’ are so eager to follow the Chinese regime’s propaganda of defaming Falun Gong. Being used by Chinese Communist politicians, those ‘experts’ become a tool for the dictatorship to suppress people. Unfortunately, those ‘experts’ damage the reputation of those research areas they are involved with.

    I sincerely suggest those ‘experts’ to be clear-minded to research on the topic of Falun Gong, in order to keep their research career clean from political influence.

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