Chinese human rights specialist Yu Pinhua said Falun Gong practitioners are in fact deprived of the fundamental rights to live, develop and think freely by Falun Gong and its fallacies.

Yu, a member of China Human Rights Society and also a research fellow with Jiangxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said the televised suicidal act by seven Falun Gong practitioners from central China's Henan Province, who set themselves on fire, further exposes a fact that Falun Gong is a cult, not a religion, nor the health-enhancing Qigong because Falun Gong followers, with their minds controlled by fallacies of Falun Gong, usually can not have the thinking abilities and the sense of normal people.

While comparing the features of religions with the destructive nature of cults in the world, the fallacies of Falun Gong not encouraging people with illnesses to see doctors or take medicine and that Qigong with the sole purpose to improve health, Yu defended Chinese government's decision to outlaw the cult in July 1999.

"Outlawing the cult Falun Gong is intended to protect the fundamental human rights of the general public including those who are following the Falun Gong," said the research fellow, who also lashed out at western countries for having a double standard on the issue of human rights and the treatment of cults.

(People's daily 2001/02/04)