The Tai Ji Men case is a spectacular demonstration of how media were used to slander and defame an innocent movement. They can and should also be used to tell the truth.
by Daniela Bovolenta
An article already published in Bitter Winter on May 21st, 2024.
Whether the media play a positive or negative role in issues of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) was discussed on May 8, 2024, in an event titled “Media as Friends and Foes of FoRB—and the Tai Ji Men Case,” co-organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers after the United Nations World Press Freedom Day (May 3). It was part of their regular webinars on the Tai Ji Men case.
The webinar was introduced by Camelia Marin, Deputy Director of the pro-FoRB NGO Soteria International. She celebrated the World Press Freedom Day as one reminding us of the importance of the media and their freedom of expression. However, she said, freedom of expression is not without limits, which come from other human rights, including the right to honor and reputation and FoRB.
It is often the case, Marin explained, that the media slander and discriminate against vulnerable religious and spiritual minorities. She gave the example of how Muslims were portrayed in a popular documentary film in Denmark. A spectacular case of media slander was also the Tai Ji Men case, she added, although the media were largely manipulated when the case was started by Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen and believed his lies. Marin concluded that media professionals should learn that prosecutors should not necessarily be believed, check their sources, and consider the harm false or discriminatory news may inflict on vulnerable minorities.
Marin then introduced a video with a message for World Press Freedom Day by United Nations Secretary General António Guterres. The message emphasized the importance of “environmental journalism” for denouncing ecological crimes. Unfortunately, he said, several “environmental reporters” have been harassed and even killed. They are not, Guterres said, the only journalists at risk.
Marin presented the two speakers of the first session, Karolina Maria Kotkowska, researcher on Esotericism and New Religious Movements at the Center for Comparative Studies of Civilizations, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, and Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist and the managing director of CESNUR.
Kotkowska noted that, since the time majority religions preached against heretics, minority and new religious movements have always been slandered, which often resulted in their persecution. This continues to happen today when groups are stigmatized as “cults,” slandered by the media, and then raided by police or targeted by ill-founded criminal or tax prosecution. She gave the examples of MISA, the Romanian-based Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute, of the Buenos Aires Yoga School in Argentina, and of the Italian community Damanhur, which just as Tai Ji Men after media attacks was hit by tax bills. Immigrants and refugees, she said, are also often misrepresented in the media.
However, Kotkowska added, the media can also play a positive role. She mentioned her visit with other scholars in March 2024 to the headquarters of the Shia-derivative new religious movement Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (not be confused with the Sunni-derivative Ahmadiyya community) in England. In its case, media reports put a halt or mitigated the harassment of refugees who had escaped countries where they were persecuted and were in Türkiye trying to enter the European Union. Also in the case of Tai Ji Men, Kotkowska concluded, media played a negative role in spreading lies in 1996 and 1997. However, today there are specialized media (including “Bitter Winter”) who are increasingly presenting the truth on the Tai Ji Men case.
Introvigne discussed several sociological studies that have shown an anti-religious bias in mainline Western media, directed against all religious and spiritual groups but targeting even more those stigmatized as “cults.” The Tai Ji Men case, he added, shows that this bias also extended to Taiwan. Scholars have explained the bias with the secular and liberal persuasions of most Western journalists. Mentioning a theme that is especially dear to Tai Ji Men, Introvigne suggested that slandering religious and spiritual minorities also evidences a lack of conscience.
Willy Fautré, co-founder and Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, introduced the second session. He presented a video with the inspiring story of an investigative journalist that revealed a huge land and tax scandal in Japan involving prominent politicians and tax bureaucrats.
Fautré also denounced the unholy alliance between ex-members of certain religious movements, who have feelings of vengeance, and the media that are looking for lurid stories. Their cooperation leads to the publication of fake news that cause considerable suffering, as evidenced inter alia by the cases of MISA in Finland and elsewhere, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unification Church/Family Federation in Japan, and of Tai Ji Men in Taiwan.
Fautré then introduced the testimonies of five dizi (disciples) of Tai Ji Men. Eloy Ye, who works in international sales, mentioned the theory of Spanish Catholic priest and philosopher Alfonso López Quintás, that through linguistic manipulation typical of the “post-truth” era media manage to persuade their public that fake news is in fact true. It appears, Ye said, that the phenomenon described by López Quintás was already at work in Taiwan in 1996. Fake news certified by a prosecutor were promoted by the media as true. When courts of law vindicated Tai Ji Men and found them innocent of all charges, the damage had already been done.
Chen Tong-Yu, retired director of a ceramics factory, reported how beneficial was the practice of Qigong with Tai Ji Men to improve his life and character. He then described in detail the Tai Ji Men protest against the Administrative Enforcement Agency’s attempt to auction their sacred land in Miaoli in 2020 on the basis of a fabricated tax bill. The dizi who went to protest noted several irregularities, and that recording, videotaping, or live streaming was prohibited. Several journalists promised to come and cover the protests but, in the end, somebody persuaded them not to show up. Happily, Chen concluded, international human rights media and scholars made sure that the injustice against Tai Ji Men was duly publicized.
Roger Huang, an analytics engineer, was not yet a dizi when the Tai Ji Men case started in 1996 but has heard vivid reports of the events from those who were there. He personally witnessed subsequent events, including the unsuccessful auction of Tai Ji Men’s sacred land in 2020. The fake news, Huang noted, started with Prosecutor Hou (who was never punished but was even promoted by the government). However, the media were also responsible for accepting and spreading them uncritically.
Vivi Lin, a journalist, reported that she joined Tai Ji Men for improving her health but was then increasingly involved in international initiatives and advocacy. She noted that Taiwan is a victim of fake news spread from abroad, but its domestic media also have not solved their problems of inaccurate and biased reporting. In the case of Tai Ji Men, she said, media were interested in Prosecutor Hou’s sensational (but false) stories, and much less interested in a fair coverage of the dizi’s protests.
Kevin Zhong, a software engineer, reflected on what he has learned from Dr. Hong that may be relevant for the theme of the media. Dr. Hong teaches the importance of acting with conscience and of distinguishing clearly between truth and falsehood, good and evil. Zhong had the opportunity of seeing these principles promoted by Dr. Hong in Türkiye, where he traveled with his Shifu in February 2024 for the Eurasian Economic Summit. If practiced by journalists, Zhong said, these values would guarantee a fair presentation of the news. Unfortunately, this did not happen in the Tai Ji Men case.
Marco Respinti, an Italian scholar and journalist who serves as director-in-charge of “Bitter Winter,” concluded the webinar by noting that as moral and law-abiding citizens we take for granted that our good intentions and actions will be acknowledged and represented honestly by the media when they take an interest in us. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. The solution was traditionally found in the slogan “separating facts from opinions.” However, in our post-modern and non-homogenous society what exactly counts as “fact” has become unclear, and opinions are not very interesting as they mostly express subjective emotions or biases. Media should report naked facts as far as possible but also offer their audience criteria to put them in context. The Tai Ji Men case, Respinti concluded, is an example of the evil and suffering that are generated when facts are substituted by slander and defamation, no matter if promoted by a person in authority such as a prosecutor.
The webinar concluded with a video presenting the main aspects of the Tai Ji Men case in a musical form.