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Raelian cult leader threatens to sue Korea over denied entry
by Soh Ji-young
Korea Times (03.08.2003)/ HRWF Int. (05.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An international cult leader was denied entry to the country on Saturday for his beliefs in human cloning, immigration officials said.
Claude Vorilhon, also known as Rael, was forced to leave South Korea after being detained for nine hours at Incheon International Airport.
The French founder of the Raelian Movement arrived at the airport at around 2:17 a.m. from Toronto, Canada, with his wife, but was prohibited from entering the country by immigration authorities. The Raelian Movement is a religious group that believes aliens landed on Earth 25,000 years ago and started the human race through cloning.
Raels entry ban was enforced at the request of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which feared the leader would promote human cloning activities during his stay. Rael is also the founder of Clonaid, a company which claims it has produced the first human clones.
During an interview with Yonhap News Agency, the cult leader accused the government of treating him ``like a North Korean, and said he will sue the South Korean government and the ministry for violating his human rights.
Saying he currently has no connections with Clonaid, Rael said he cannot understand the move as he has visited South Korea on more than 10 occasions. Rael added he will not return until the South Korean government apologizes for the incident.
To protest its leaders denial of entry, the Raelian Movement said it will mobilize its more than 60,000 global followers to hold protests at Korean embassies around the world. The movements Korean chapter said it will stage protests in front of the Health-Welfare Ministry.
Between now and his departure on August 18, the 56-year-old cult leader was scheduled to give a news conference and a public lecture about human cloning. He was also due to take part in a seminar with about 700 Raelian followers. There are approximately 4,000 Raelians in South Korea.
A former journalist and racecar driver, Rael founded the Raelian Movement in 1973 and Clonaid in 1997.
Cult leaders arrested
The Korea Herald (18.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (20.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Prosecutors arrested five leaders of a religious cult Saturday on charges of beating to death a member of the organization.
The five include a 49-year-old female figurehead, identified only as Song.
They were charged with fatally beating the 31-year-old victim, identified as Lee, for displaying a lack of faith.
The victim's body was found when prosecutors raided a site to construct the cult's shrine in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province last Friday.
The investigators retrieved a total of four corpses in a container at the construction site.
The three other corpses were presumed to have been brought from elsewhere by cult members in hopes of their subsequent resurrection.
Four bodies found at South Korean religious sect
Reuters (16.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (20.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - South Korean police said on Friday they had found four dead bodies at a compound run by a religious sect north of the capital Seoul, possibly murdered as part of a reincarnation ritual.
The religious affiliation of the sect and details of its membership were not immediately known, police said.
"We discovered four bodies inside the compound who appear to have been murdered," said an official at the police station in Shinseo, a town about 30 km (20 miles) north of Seoul and close to the border with North Korea.
"We believe they were killed as part of a religious rite for their rebirth," he said. "We cannot rule out the discovery of more bodies," he said, adding that an investigation was under way.
In 1987, 32 members of a religious cult known as the "Five Oceans" were found dead in a country compound south of Seoul. Police concluded in 1991 that those deaths were the result of strangulation and suicide.
Moon's church preparing to launch a political party
JoongAng Daily (06.03.2003)/ HRWF Int. (11.03.2003) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Reverend Moon Sun-myung, founder of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, better known as the Unification Church, is preparing to establish a political party in Korea.
Kim Bong-tae, chairman of the Youth Federation for World Peace, a Unification Church subsidiary, will be the representative of the new party, to be called the Family Party, a National Election Commission official said yesterday.
Final preparations are underway for 23 district offices around the country. Reverend Moon is scheduled to participate in the founding ceremony at the Little Angels Hall in Seoul on March 10.
The Family Party plans to champion chastity education, policies to create a sound family unit, and the teaching of nationalistic ideology and peace in preparation for divinely-inspired Korean unification, a party official said. Reverend Moon is the founder but will not hold any official position, another party official said. The party is open to everyone. Individuals can participate without having to subscribe to any particular religious ideology.
Clone cult firm raided in South Korea
BBC News (30.12.2002)/ HRWF International Secretariat (08.01.2003) C Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -Prosecutors in South Korea have seized documents from a biotechnology company linked to a controversial sect which claims to have created the world's first cloned baby.
After raiding the offices of BioFusion Tech Inc. in the southern city of Daegu, officials questioned members of staff to see whether they had taken part in the cloning project.
Cloning is not illegal in South Korea, but prosecutors may be investigating whether staff have been carrying out medical research without a licence.
Last week, scientists from Clonaid - a US-based firm linked to the Raelian sect - said that they had helped a woman give birth to a cloned baby girl.
However, the announcement has been viewed with deep scepticism by the scientific community at large - and no proof has so far been put forward.
Raid
"The investigators broke through windows into my house and the offices in Seoul and Daegu to seize documents," BioFusion Tech Inc. spokesman Kwak Gi-Hwa told the AFP news agency.
Mr Kwak said he and the firms president were banned from leaving the country.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency also reported that the prosecutors interrogated a South Korean woman, who had allegedly signed up for the cloning project.
BioFusion Tech Inc. - Clonaid's South Korean subsidiary - has been under investigation since July, after the firm said three South Korean women were taking part in the project and one of them was pregnant with a cloned foetus.
Clonaid began its operation in South Korea this year, and about 5,000 Koreans are believed to follow the Raelian cult.
Human cloning is not illegal in South Korea, and a bill outlawing the practice is currently being debated in the parliament.
But if officials without licences are found to have carried out any medical research, they could face up to five years in jail or $18,000 in fines, according to Yonhap agency.
Alien project
Clonaid is linked to the Raelian sect, whose founder, Claude Vorilhon describes himself as a prophet and calls himself Rael.
The Raelians believe humans are the result of a genetic engineering project run by super-intelligent extra-terrestrials.
Clonaid has been racing against the Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori to produce the first cloned baby.
Mr Antinori has claimed that one of his patients will give birth to a cloned baby in January.
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