Cui, is a devout Falun Gong practitioner and has printed the Asian Pacific Post, an independent award-winning Vancouver weekly, for the past three years.

(On January 8, 2009), Cui held the Asian Pacific Post hostage.

He and other senior members of the Falun Gong group in Vancouver felt that the newspaper’s front page story was detrimental to their cause.

The story was about an elaborate dance production showcasing Chinese culture that is expected to perform in Vancouver this April. The story claims the group has been targeted by the Chinese government because the show’s local presenters are the Falun Dafa Association of Vancouver and New Tang Dynasty TV, a North American broadcaster founded by and affiliated with Falun Gong practitioners.

Cui and his cabal did not like the story’s "balanced" approach. They did not want readers to see the Chinese government’s views of the Falun Gong. They wanted to control the content and said they had a "legal right" to do it.

When Harbinder Singh Sewak, the publisher of the Asian Pacific Post, said no, Cui refused to release last week’s paper from the print shop.

"Outrageous . . . we have always been an independent paper with independent views . . . we don’t allow anyone to control our content, let alone our printers," fumed Sewak, who stands to lose thousands of dollars.

Cui in an e-mailed press statement said: "Unfortunately, news reporters feel that they must ‘balance’ stories about Falun Gong or events they are involved in by adding the bad words or opinions from the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], but in my feeling, between victim and perpetrator there can never be any neutrality or balance."

Cui has apologized but not before saying: "Articles like this one that gives voice to the communist regime make people think that maybe the CCP is justified in their attack and that maybe Falun Gong somehow deserve to be killed or tortured."

The Asian Pacific Post article, entitled "Dancing to their own tune," is a far cry from what Cui says it is. You may think that this is an isolated incident involving one member of the Falun Gong movement who went a little too far. But the e-mails and conversations between the Asian Pacific Post, Cui and other Falun Gong followers involved in this case show a disturbing side to the Falun Gong.

The control they say China exerts on them is the same control they want to exert on others. The freedom they say China denies them is the same freedom they have denied the Asian Pacific Post.