OTTAWA—A spiritual group claiming persecution in China gathered on Parliament Hill on Wednesday to urge Prime Minister Stephen Harper to speak on their behalf when he attends the upcoming APEC summit in Australia.
Because Harper spoke out on China's human rights record at last year's APEC summit, hopes are high among Falun Gong adherents that he will go one step further this year and call for an end to the persecution of the meditation group in China, now in its eighth year.
At a press conference today on the Hill, Falun Gong practitioners conveyed the severity of their plight, presenting a strong body of evidence supporting their claim that the persecution represents "human rights violations of the worst order" in China today.
Anticipation that the PM will help is most pronounced among those living in Canada who have relatives in Chinese forced labour camps—camps that are notorious for torture and ill-treatment. There are 16 imprisoned practitioners in China with family ties in Canada.
The group also draws hope from the fact that last November, Harper told reporters his government will not forsake "important Canadian values" by reducing criticism of China's human rights record to advance trade relations with Beijing.
Along with Amnesty International Canada's Alex Neve and NDP MP Wayne Marston, Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC) president Li Xun was joined at the press conference by imprisoned practitioners' family members Yao Lian and Shen Yue.
Yao's husband, Ma Jian was violently arrested at his Beijing Office in February and sentenced without trial to two and a half years in forced labour camp, Yao said. Yao also practices Falun Gong and has herself been detained and sent to "brainwashing class" multiple times.
Shen Yue appealed for the release of his mother and three aunts. He recounted how his mother had been previously imprisoned and suffered sexual abuse, beatings with electric batons, and forced feeding while in custody.
"I am really worried about my mother," he said, especially in light of a Canadian investigation report concluding that the Chinese government harvests Falun Gong practitioners' organs for "huge profits."
Li called on Harper to urge Chinese leader Hu Jintao to halt the persecution, release all prisoners, and especially stop the "killing and bloody organ seizing from Falun Gong practitioners."
Organ Seizures Continuing
Last July, Winnipeg-based international human rights lawyer David Matas and former Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) David Kilgour released their first report on the theft of organs from Falun Gong practitioners in China. In January this year they published "Bloody Harvest," a revised report outlining increased evidence that illicit organ harvesting is continuing on a large scale.
"Their vital organs, including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas, were virtually simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries," stated the report.
Kilgour and Matas found that the source of organs used in 41,500 transplants in the six-year period between 2000 and 2005 was unexplained. The persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999.
Prominent Ottawa Rabbi Dr. Reuven Bulka, Chairman of the Organ Donation Committee of the Kidney Foundation for Eastern Ontario, has called the harvesting of human organs "a human-rights breach of the worst order" that demands a global response.
As president of the Canadian chapter of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), in May Bulka declared the coalition's position that "The Olympics Games and crimes against humanity cannot coexist in China."
CIPFG launched a global torch relay earlier this month in Athens to raise awareness of China's human rights abuses and call for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
'Cruelty and Brutality Defy Description'
FDAC's Li says Falun Gong is the "most severely and extensively persecuted group in China today." Before the crackdown in 1999, 70-100 million people—as many as one in ten Chinese citizens—were practising Falun Gong, according to Beijing's estimates at the time.
"The campaign of hate and oppression is of such a vast, unprecedented scale that it extends to every facet of Chinese society and every country, including Canada," said Li.
Li said that in a March 2006 report, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, stated that 66 per cent of the victims of alleged torture and ill-treatment in China were Falun Gong practitioners. Another U.N. Special Rapporteur, Asma Jahangir, commented in an earlier report that "the cruelty and brutality of [alleged acts of torture in China] defy description."
The 2006 U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in China said: "Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in reeducation-through-labor camps."
Li noted that FDAC has verified cases of more than 3,000 practitioners who have been tortured to death, excluding the victims of organ harvesting. He said most atrocities and killings go unreported because of the communist regime's information blockade, and because anyone found reporting these cases can be charged with the severe crime of "leaking state secrets."
Kilgour said the "worst abuses" in China continue to be inflicted upon Falun Gong practitioners. "No government which continues to kill its own citizens to sell their organs can expect to host any Olympic Games in peace."
Professor Charles Burton of Brock University produced a widely publicized report last year for the Canadian government concluding that the annual Canada-China bilateral human rights dialogue has been completely ineffective.
He says that although China is concerned about its international image, it's not enough to cause the existing government to comply with the universal norms of human rights, as "that would undermine the current basis for their power." "It's a one-party dictatorship and not based on respect or the entitlements of rights for individual citizens," he said.
'Principled Action'
FDAC has written to Harper calling for his "principled action."
"The discussion on human rights in China cannot be complete without a forceful, unequivocal, and publicly stated protest against the persecution of Falun Gong, and in fact the evidence shows that Falun Gong should be the central focus," said Li.
Neve expressed hope that Harper will "in whatever way he can" raise the issues "one on one with Hu Jintao and perhaps other Chinese officials"—issues surrounding Falun Gong, Uighurs, Tibetans, democracy activists, independent voices on the Internet, human rights defenders and others.
Moreover, Harper should rally other countries to achieve a "much stronger, united international voice" in dealing with human rights concerns with China. "The meeting in Sydney is a critical opportunity," said Neve.
Following the rally, FDAC spokesperson Lucy Zhou said over 17,000 Canadians have signed a petition or written to Harper over the last two weeks in support of Falun Gong's appeal.
Encouraged by Harper's outspokenness on human rights in China, FDAC hopes that at the APEC summit he will "strengthen this commitment by raising a strong voice on the Falun Gong issue."
A Canadian Press article in January 2006 reported that Falun Gong was the third most frequent subject of correspondence to the Prime Minister's Office in 2005, said Li.
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