At first glance they do not have the look of fiends. Their faces appear as normal as anyone else's that you might look upon while walking down the street.

But they are murderers and feel no guilt about killing whatsoever.

The faces belong to two Xinjiang women who strangled an innocent woman in Xianyang, in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

They recounted their evil actions to television audiences on Sunday night, stressing they did not know the woman and had no conflict of interest with her.

Identified as Falun Gong practitioners, they were convinced their actions had actually helped the victim.

It is beyond the imagination of any rational person that murder could be a source of pleasure. But while boldly confessing to having committed the murder, the pair insisted they were practicing philanthropy.

One said: "I did good. I was reclaiming her lost soul. There is nothing to feel sorry about."

Li Hongzhi, the "master" of the Falun Gong cult, has sophisticatedly maintained an ambiguous relationship between his Falun Gong and Buddhism.

While assuring his disciples he will offer higher guidance than Buddha, he rigs his own teachings on the basis of Buddhist scriptures in an effort to consolidate his authority.

"Duren," or "reclaiming lost souls," for one, is borrowed from Buddhism.

But while Buddhists talk about reclaiming the lost souls of the secular masses, they resort to offerings and prayers. They do not kill.

The two murderers, however, said they were inspired by Li Hongzhi's teachings.

"In your eyes I killed a person," one said.

"But we believe that it was a philanthropic act. (We) elevated her to heaven, where she can enjoy happiness."

We view murder as a crime only because we have a different understanding of life and death.

"The average person takes the destruction of the mortal body as killing. For us it is not killing until his or her soul is destroyed," the other said. They never asked whether the victim coveted happiness in the other world that the two believe exists. They never got the victim's consent that she chose to terminate her life in a manner of the killers' choice.

The two murderers' disregard of life, as well as the human norms we live by, again reveals the Falun Gong's intention to impose their own wills on others.

We must lament tragedies in which Falun Gong practitioners kill themselves in order to ascend into a higher world.

But if they, like these two murderers, impose it on anyone but themselves, then it is an intolerable crime and serious threat to society.

(China Daily August 27, 2002)