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Falun Gong devotee named refugee

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Kim Mi-Ju, JoongAng Daily:

The Seoul High Court recognized a Chinese woman yesterday as a refugee who can’t live in her homeland because of her belief in Falun Gong, the meditation-based religion banned in China.

The 40-year-old woman surnamed Wang, who has been working in Korea and was involved in promoting the religion, filed the case against Korean Minister of Justice Lee Kwi-nam after the Justice Ministry rejected her request to be acknowledged as a refugee.

Wang came to Korea in 2001 for economic reasons and become a Falun Gong practitioner in 2004.

She was hired as a reporter in the Korea bureau of NTDTV, a Falun Gong-affiliated, Chinese language network based in New York. She is also a vocal critic of Chinese Communist Party.

“There are grounds for Wang to feel afraid of being persecuted by the Chinese government because she has been reporting China’s crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners on NTDTV,” the verdict reads.

“The word refugee not only refers to a person who fled China because of threats but also someone who is likely to be persecuted by the government if she returns because of her active involvement [in Falun Gong practices] in Korea.”

A lower court rejected Wang’s plea because it suspected Wang was using Falun Gong as a way of extending her stay in Korea, especially since Wang didn’t practice Falun Gong in China.

Yesterday’s verdict, however, found Wang’s motive believable. This was the first time a local court acknowledged a Falun Gong devotee as a refugee.

Falun Gong was founded in China in 1992 and boasts more than 100 million practitioners in 60 countries, according to the Falun Gong Information Center. The practice is banned in China and the government has brutally cracked down on its followers.

In 2008, the Seoul Administrative Court gave refugee status to two Korean-Chinese Falun Gong practitioners who fled China, but the ruling was overturned in appeals. In March, the Supreme Court upheld the overturned ruling.

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“There are grounds for Wang to feel afraid of being persecuted by the Chinese government because she has been reporting China’s crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners on NTDTV,” the verdict reads.

“The word refugee not only refers to a person who fled China because of threats but also someone who is likely to be persecuted by the government if she returns because of her active involvement [in Falun Gong practices] in Korea.”

A lower court rejected Wang’s plea because it suspected Wang was using Falun Gong as a way of extending her stay in Korea, especially since Wang didn’t practice Falun Gong in China.

Yesterday’s verdict, however, found Wang’s motive believable. This was the first time a local court acknowledged a Falun Gong devotee as a refugee.

Falun Gong was founded in China in 1992 and boasts more than 100 million practitioners in 60 countries, according to the Falun Gong Information Center. The practice is banned in China and the government has brutally cracked down on its followers.

In 2008, the Seoul Administrative Court gave refugee status to two Korean-Chinese Falun Gong practitioners who fled China, but the ruling was overturned in appeals. In March, the Supreme Court upheld the overturned ruling.

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North Carolina Supreme Court rejects tax-exemption for meditation center

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A spiritual center near Boone where patrons practice transcendental meditation is not exempt from taxes, despite claims that it’s an educational institution, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

The decision reversed the Court of Appeals’ opinion and upholds a ruling by the N.C. Property Tax Commission that the Maharishi Spiritual Center of America is not an educational, scientific or charitable institution that qualifies for a tax exemption.

The center is part of the 7,000-acre Heavenly Mountain resort established by followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Beatles’ guru and founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement.

The resort also includes the campus of Maharishi Spiritual University of America, which is accredited by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors to issue bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in Vedic science. The sciences are the study of consciousness and are based on classical Indian Vedic literature.

The Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion, said it sided with a dissenting opinion by Court of Appeals Judge John Tyson in August.

The appellate court was supposed to review the process used by the tax commission, but otherwise respect its conclusion, Tyson said.

In addition, the judges failed to consider that “the granting of exemption from taxation to some necessarily increases the tax burden on others,” Tyson wrote.

In his own review, Tyson said he concluded that providing some short- and long-term meditation courses, as well as Vedic science and Sanskrit courses, did not qualify the spiritual center for tax exemption.

“Thus, while the spiritual center does offer some educational activity that is not its primary purpose. The record clearly establishes that the primary purpose of the spiritual center is the practice of meditation” by adherents who have been a part of their group for 20 years, Tyson wrote.

The Spiritual Center of America had pursued its county tax exemption since 1997 on property valued at about $6 million.

Watauga County collected about $468,000 in fire and property taxes for the 1999 and 2000 tax years from the spiritual center site.

RickRoss.com: Read an archive of the original article…

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