Is Falun Dafa a cult, a religion or neither?
Like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder, say eastern religious studies experts.
"It is essentially a political decision. The difference between a cult and a religion is that a cult is a religion I don't like," says University of Ottawa professor Peter Beyer, who specializes in religion and politics.
The Chinese government banned the practice of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) across China in 1998, calling it an evil religious cult.
Its followers say it is not a religion, but a mix of breathing exercises to promote health, traditional Chinese thinking and moral precepts from founder Li Hongzhi, now in exile in the United States.
"In Chinese, a cult is `xie-jiao,'" says Beyer. "Who decides it's evil teaching? The translation I like is that it's an `unapproved teaching.' That is closer to the Chinese reality."
The arrests and deportations of three dozen western Falun Dafa practitioners after a demonstration in Beijing this week highlighted how the movement has expanded globally.
Zenon Dolnyckyj was one of two Canadians arrested with the group after they unfurled a banner at the peaceful demonstration in Tiananmen Square.
The 23-year-old Thornhill man, who credits Falun Dafa with pulling him from the vortex of drugs three years ago, says he went to China to tell people there the movement "is good, that the whole world knows it, and that they're being lied to."
Sporting a bruise on his left wrist, and gashes on his forearm and elbow after his return home, Dolnyckyj said he was tripped, punched and dragged off to jail by Chinese police.
"If they're willing to do this to me in public," he said, "imagine what they are doing behind closed doors to the Chinese people."
Although Falun Dafa claims millions of followers around the world Ñ with dozens of practice sites in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and other Canadian cities Ñ it has repeatedly said it is not an organized group.
But University of Toronto professor Michael Szonyi, a Chinese religion scholar, says the latest protest marked a shift in tactics by Falun Dafa.
"We don't understand that organization necessarily, but the argument that no organization exists seems rather less convincing now than it was two weeks ago," he says.
"It certainly has some of the characteristics of a religion, a philosophy and a cult. We may find it strange, we may find some of their beliefs objectionable, but it is not really a cult because it doesn't tell believers to injure themselves or the social harmony."
Cindy Gu, a member of Toronto's Falun Dafa community, says there are a lot of misunderstandings about the practice, which preaches the fundamental principles of "truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance."
She says the Tiananmen Square protest was not organized and premeditated, but a spontaneous act by practitioners who were keen to break the information blockade.
"If people in China know the truth, and that all they have been told by their government are lies and defamation, they would not voluntarily participate in the persecution of other Falun Gong practitioners," she says.
Beyer says it is no surprise Falun Dafa appeals to westerners, whose spiritual and religious quests primarily centre on some kind of "advocacy and worldly results."
But how much non-Chinese supporters can help the movement in China is another issue, and as far as the Tiananmen demonstration is concerned, Szonyi says the protesters only proved one thing.
"The movement has a large number of highly committed members who feel quite strongly that it is inappropriate to imprison people and subject them to punishment because of their beliefs," he says.
"The hope of the Chinese government that Falun Gong will simply go away is kind of fruitless.”