Slanting a story by choice of word: Cult vs Sect
Contributed by khang

I noted that ST had edited this Associated Press story by changing the word "sect" to "cult".

US may give cult members asylum
Straits Times 21 feb 00

HONGKONG -- The United States may grant asylum to members of a sect banned in China if there is proof they are being persecuted for their beliefs, an US immigration official said yesterday.

Ms Jean Christiansen, district director of the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service, said asylum-seekers would need to show that they had "a fear of living in China". Asylum, however, would not be granted automatically to anyone claiming to be a sect member, she added.

Ms Christiansen, who was in Hongkong after meeting officials in China, said she had no information on how many members of the Falungong sect had sought asylum. Beijing outlawed Falungong in July last year as a threat to the Communist Party's authority. Thousands of cult members have been detained and sentenced to jail, but adherents continue to defy the government by refusing to stop practising.

Only 13 per cent of the thousands of people from China who apply for asylum in the US each year are successful. -- AP, AFP

The reason this article caught my attention was I had came across the following in a web-site dedicated to cultism:

"In 1998-MAY, the Associated Press decided to avoid the use of the word "cult" because it had acquired a pejorative aura; they have since given preference to the term "sect."

I was interested in how the ST used this word and to what end.