Canadian Press: Falun Gong followers get court order against Montreal paper

Wednesday, December 12, 2001

MONTREAL -- A group of Falun Gong followers has obtained an interim court order against a Montreal-based Chinese-language newspaper.

Justice Danielle Grenier of Quebec Superior Court directed the paper to stop publishing what Falun Gong movement members described as hate literature.

More than 100 Falun Gong adherents from Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa went to court to get the order barring La Presse Chinoise Eastern Inc. from continuing to publish articles that have run as advertising.

Michael Bergman, a lawyer for Falun Gong followers, said Wednesday the articles incite hatred. They were allegedly written by a woman who claims to be a former follower of the spiritual movement.

"It is a fair statement to say that a person of reasonable and common sense would consider that this material constitutes a form of hate literature," Bergman said at a news conference.

Falun Gong drew members in the late 1990s with a combination of slow-motion exercises and [...] the teachings of Li Hongzhi, the movement's founder.

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Bergman said he hopes to establish a direct link with the Chinese government when the case is back in court Jan. 7.

"Many of the allegations in this so-called advertising have been taken literally word for word from material that has been printed on the website of the embassy of the People's Republic of China," he said.

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