Chinese human rights specialist Yu Pinhua said Falun Gong
          practitioners are in fact deprived of the fundamental rights to
          live, develop and think freely by Falun Gong and its fallacies.
          Yu, a member of China Human Rights Society and also a research
          fellow with Jiangxi Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said the
          televised suicidal act by seven Falun Gong practitioners from
          central China's Henan Province, who set themselves on fire, further
          exposes a fact that Falun Gong is a cult, not a religion, nor the
          health-enhancing Qigong because Falun Gong followers, with their
          minds controlled by fallacies of Falun Gong, usually can not have
          the thinking abilities and the sense of normal people.
          While comparing the features of religions with the destructive
          nature of cults in the world, the fallacies of Falun Gong not
          encouraging people with illnesses to see doctors or take medicine
          and that Qigong with the sole purpose to improve health, Yu defended
          Chinese government's decision to outlaw the cult in July 1999.
          "Outlawing the cult Falun Gong is intended to protect the
          fundamental human rights of the general public including those who
          are following the Falun Gong," said the research fellow, who also
          lashed out at western countries for having a double standard on the
          issue of human rights and the treatment of cults.