Falun Gong, the evil cult banned in China, has claimed its first victim in Canada's Pacific city of Vancouver.

Ms. Chen Xiaolin, 29, has been hospitalized for schizophrenia as a result of practicing Falun Gong, her mother told local television this week.

Xiaolin is now recovering after weeks of intensive care at a local psychiatric hospital.

Before her hospitalization, she had refused to see any doctors or take any medicine, believing that cult leader Li Hongzhi would save her life, her mother said.

She refused nearly every request, even to the point of caring for her new-born child. The only thing she wanted to do was to read Li Hongzhi's book "Falun Dafa," according to Xiaolin's mother.

The results have been disastrous. With uncombed hair, she would begin practicing Falun Gong in pajamas without bathing or changing clothes. She eventually ran a high temperature and was taken to hospital in June, her mother said.

Xiaolin was taken so ill that she could not eat or drink because of her ulcers.

Early this year, immediately after her return to Shanghai, where she gave birth to a second baby, Xiaolin was approached by the Falun Gong organization and started to practice the cult in the hope that it might help her in postnatal recovery.

Her relatives in Shanghai noticed that her health was drastically deteriorating after she began practicing Falun Gong. They advised her to see doctors, but met only her refusal.

Worried about worsening consequences, her mother returned with her to Canada, unaware that the cult had already spread abroad.

The mother was surprised when Falun Gong members in Vancouver made many calls urging Xiaolin to join them.

"Only then did I realize that Falun Gong members were much tightly regimented than I thought, with a directory of addresses and telephone numbers of all members," the mother said.

The mother was enraged with continual harassment from Falun Gong, even after her daughter was seriously harmed by practicing it.

Without the rescue efforts by the local hospital, you cannot imagine what might have become of Xiaolin, the mother said.

She categorically denied that her daughter had been insane or had had some other serious mental problems before practicing Falun Gong.

According to Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi, if anything goes wrong with a practitioner, it is because he or she must have been insane or have had a serious illness before beginning to practicing it.

Chen Xiaolin's suffering has aroused wide-spread concern in Vancouver, where many people have contacted her family expressing sympathy and outrage at the evil cult.

"The Chinese government is right in taking resolute steps to crack down on Falun Gong, which is even more harmful than opium," Xiaolin's mother said.

The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs banned the Falun Gong cult on July 22 this year. The organization's evil concepts have led to more than 1,400 deaths and left many others injured since it was launched in 1992 in China without lawful registration.

The government has warned that Falun Gong bears strong resemblance to heterodox groups like Branch Davidian in the United States and Japanese Aum Doomsday cult, which also injured and killed innocent people.