NSW, Australia: Falun Dafa to sue Sydney Chinese newspaper

2004-05-17 00:22 (New York)

SYDNEY, May 17 AAP - The NSW Falun Dafa Association said today it would sue a Sydney Chinese newspaper claiming it defamed the ancient spiritual movement.

The association will allege that an article in the daily newspaper, known in English as 2ac (2ac), had likened the movement to Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult behind the fatal sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.

Falun Dafa Association of NSW president John Deller said the article had quoted a spokesman for the Sydney Chinese Consulate General as saying the spiritual movement was evil.

The article appeared on December 18 last year.

"It (the article) alleges that Falun Dafa is an evil cult organisation which it simply is not," Mr Deller said.

"It is a spiritual meditation practised by thousands [tens of millions - ed] of people across the world."

The association and Falun Dafa practitioners had been distressed by the article and were concerned it would seriously damage practitioners' reputations, Mr Deller said.

A spokesman for the newspaper's chief editor, Peter Wong, declined to comment on the matter.

But he confirmed a defamation action against the newspaper's publishers, the 2ac Media Group, had been launched.

The initial hearing will be held in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.

AAP smb/sd/drp/bwl