OTTAWA—The authors of a new book on forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience in China are urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to raise the issue with Chinese authorities on his upcoming China trip.
David Matas and David Kilgour, who co-wrote Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, were joined by MPs Borys Wrzesnewskyj and James Lunney at a press conference on Parliament Hill Monday morning to release the new book.
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj and Mr. Lunney were representing the Parliamentary Friends of Falun Gong (PFOFG), an all-party group of MPs and senators lending support to the practitioners of the spiritual discipline who have suffered a decade of persecution in communist China.
“I would encourage the prime minister to bring up the issue,” said Mr. Matas, an international human rights lawyer and 2008 Order of Canada recipient.
“This is not just our concern. It’s also a concern of the United Nations.”
The investigation he conducted with Mr. Kilgour, a former crown prosecutor and former Secretary of State (Asia Pacific), concluded that after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, the Chinese regime started an illicit organ trade that has killed tens of thousands of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners in the process of extracting their organs for sale.
Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas had released two earlier reports on their findings, the first in July 2006 and the second in January 2007.
Since then, the U.N. rapporteurs on torture and on religious intolerance, as well as the U.N. Committee against Torture, have pressed China to explain the discrepancy between its large volumes of transplants and its sources of organs.
David Matas and David Kilgour, who co-wrote Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, were joined by MPs Borys Wrzesnewskyj and James Lunney at a press conference on Parliament Hill Monday morning to release the new book.
Mr. Wrzesnewskyj and Mr. Lunney were representing the Parliamentary Friends of Falun Gong (PFOFG), an all-party group of MPs and senators lending support to the practitioners of the spiritual discipline who have suffered a decade of persecution in communist China.
“I would encourage the prime minister to bring up the issue,” said Mr. Matas, an international human rights lawyer and 2008 Order of Canada recipient.
“This is not just our concern. It’s also a concern of the United Nations.”
The investigation he conducted with Mr. Kilgour, a former crown prosecutor and former Secretary of State (Asia Pacific), concluded that after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, the Chinese regime started an illicit organ trade that has killed tens of thousands of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners in the process of extracting their organs for sale.
Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas had released two earlier reports on their findings, the first in July 2006 and the second in January 2007.
Since then, the U.N. rapporteurs on torture and on religious intolerance, as well as the U.N. Committee against Torture, have pressed China to explain the discrepancy between its large volumes of transplants and its sources of organs.
