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Dateline: 04/16/01

By David Emery

"Star Wars" enthusiasts may be thrilled but government officials in Australia and England are balking at an email campaign encouraging fans to declare "Jedi" — as in "Jedi Knights," the zen-like warriors of the film series — as their religion on census forms.

"If there are enough people in the country, about 10 000, who put down the same religion," says a typical message, "it becomes a fully recognised and legal religion."

Not so, say census-takers. They warn that people who do so may be subject to prosecution for entering false information.

Blame New Zealand

It all started as a prank in New Zealand, which held its census on March 6. The anonymous email emerged a week or two before that and gathered momentum so rapidly that soon even those without Internet access had heard about it by word of mouth or news coverage. Some Kiwis reported receiving this message as many as a dozen times:

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