To ensure social
stability, protect the interests of the people and guarantee
the smooth progress of the reform and opening policies and
the socialist modernization drive, cults are hereby banned,
and their activities shall be prevented and punished. In
accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws,
decisions are hereby made as
follows:
1. Cults shall be
resolutely banned, and crimes committed by cults severely
punished according to law. Cults that have been found using
religion, Qigong breathing exercises or other normally legal
activities as camouflage to disturb public order by various
means and endanger people's lives and property and economic
development must be eradicated, and their activities
resolutely punished, in accordance with the law. The
People's Courts and People's Procuratorates, as well as the
public security, state security and judicial administrative
organs must each perform its own functions and coordinate
their efforts to this end. Severe punishment must be meted
out according to law to those who organize and use cults to
hamper the implementation of the state's laws,
administrative rules or regulations, gather unruly mobs,
disturb public order, mislead others in ways that result in
death to them, sexually exploit women, or swindle money or
property by means of superstitious
inveiglement.
2. The principle
of combining education with punishment should be adhered to,
in order to unite with and educate the vast majority of
those who have been deceived by cults, while severely
punishing the handful of criminals who have deceived them,
in accordance with the law. When dealing with cults,
differential treatment should be extended to those who have
participated in cult activities because of unawareness of
the truth and those who have organized and used cults to
conduct illegal activities and deliberately disrupt social
stability. No action shall be taken against those who have
been deceived by the organizers of cults. However, criminal
sanctions to the fullest extent of the law shall be brought
to bear on organizers, plotters, leaders and core members of
cults if their actions are found to have constituted crimes.
Leniency shall be extended to those who have voluntarily
surrendered themselves or who have performed meritorious
services; in such cases penalties may even be exempted, in
accordance with the law.
3.
Publicity and educational activities concerning the
Constitution and the nation's laws should be carried out in
depth and in a sustained way, and scientific and cultural
knowledge further spread among the general public. Banning
cults and punishing cult-related activities in accordance
with the law will contribute to the protection of normal
religious activities and the citizens' freedom of religious
belief. The general public should be helped to fully
understand the nature of cults, which endanger humankind
life and society in general, so that the people will oppose
and resist the influence of cults conscientiously, increase
their legal knowledge and abide by the nation's
laws.
4. The whole of society
should be mobilized and organized to prevent and punish
cultist activities. The people's governments and judicial
organs at all levels should perform their specific functions
conscientiously with the aim of maintaining social
stability, and make the prevention of the breeding and
propagation of cults and the prevention and punishment of
cult-related activities a major and long-term task.
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