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 [..]
organisation which it simply is not,” Mr Deller said.
“It is a spiritual meditation practised by thousands 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.
Posting date: 18/May/2004
Original article date: 17/May/2004
Category: Media Report
