MELBOURNE, Australia—The efforts by Falun Gong practitioners in bringing out the news of persecution from China were described by a human rights lawyer as “courageous.”
That is what David Matas, an award-winning Canadian human rights lawyer and a member of the Order of Canada, said of the award-winning film “Unsilenced,” which was screened at Lido cinema in Melbourne on Dec. 8.
Matas is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for his work related to the investigation of forced organ harvesting crimes against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
This came as the world commemorated Human Rights Day on Dec. 10—the day since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted 75 years ago. The anniversary seeks to remind citizens to stand up for human rights, which has continued to deteriorate in communist China.
Matas said that there have been concerted efforts by Falun Gong practitioners in China to break through the firewall and censorship to counter communist propaganda.
“There’s a lot of Chinese people that leave China and are accessible to outside information, and there other courageous efforts that we saw in this film,” Matas said at the panel discussion alongside John Xiao, editor-in-chief of The Epoch Times, Australia bureau on Dec. 8.
“Really, the leverage for change has to come from outside China,” Matas said.
“The people [in China] are too much at risk, even if they know what’s going on, and even if they object to what’s going on, they are putting themselves in danger in trying to change it. Even to articulate the need for change.
“So if we want to see a change in China, we have to be the voice for change.”
The film “Unsilenced” is based on a true story that tells the experience of two young couples from a University and an American journalist stationed in China. While facing brutal persecution for their faith in Falun Gong, the couples willingly sacrificed themselves to bring the truth of the persecution to the international community.
Xiao told the audience, many of whom were moved to tears during the screening, that Falun Gong practitioners’ persistence in telling the truth of the persecution for the past 20-plus years was telling.
“By giving people all kinds of information by different means, at the risk of losing their lives, such as shown from the movie (Unsilenced), as well as losing their loved ones, their [careers], and also even being jailed for the rest of their lives, they still continue to practice the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”
Box Hill Councillor Blair Barker, who saw the film on Dec. 8, said while he had known about the persecution of Falun Gong in China, the scenes of practitioners being tortured in prison were “confronting.”
“I know it’s true because I’ve spoken to people that I represent who have been subjected to that abuse, and it shouldn’t happen anywhere,” Barker told The Epoch Times, adding that he was impressed by the resilience shown by the lead character in the film.
Former chair of the Vietnamese Community in Australia, Bon Nguyen, told The Epoch Times that he knows the propaganda tactics employed by the communist regime, given his experiences in Vietnam prior to coming to Australia.
“The 1.4 billion Chinese people are all victims of the CCP regime, and they all should live in freedom,” he said. “But in order for them to do that, the CCP must fall and become a democratic system.”
“Only then can anyone tell the truth without being persecuted.”
Gerard Flood, Treasurer of the Democratic Labor Party, said Australia and countries around the world should recognise the contribution made by the Falun Gong group.
“Without their leadership, we will be under the shadow of CCP, which endangers people everywhere, including Myanmar, Tibet and Xinjiang,” Gerard told The Epoch Times.
Former Air Force personnel Robert Gray, who also attended the screening on Dec. 8 told The Epoch Times that underground efforts employed by Falun Gong practitioners, such as distributing printed flyers in China, seem to be one the only way to get their message across.
“If you tried to do anything different, you’d be locked up for no reason; you’d be tortured and murdered,” he said.
Forced Organ Harvesting
Since July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has perpetrated “crimes against humanity” against Falun Gong practitioners, of which forced organ harvesting remains one of “the worst atrocities of the 20th century.”In June 2019, an independent China Tribunal led by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who previously led the prosecution of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague, found “beyond reasonable doubt” that forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, namely Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs, has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very significant number of victims.
Matas’ work on the investigation of forced organ harvesting, in collaboration with David Kilgour, an international human right lawyer and former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, was first published in 2006.
Then, a joint collaboration with Ethan Guttman, an investigative journalist, led to the publication of the Kilgour Matas Gutmann Update in 2016.
“There’s a lot of documentation about transplant volumes that are inexplicable in any other way,” Matas told The Epoch Times on Dec. 8.
“You got lots of documentation about transplant tourists. We’ve got lots of witnesses’ evidence … there’s lots of different pieces of it happening. So organ harvesting doesn’t happen one place one time, it’s a sequence of steps.”
Matas said that there is a partial transcript from an investigative phone call of someone alleging to have received an order signed by the now-deceased former-Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, to extract organs from Falun Gong practitioners.
China’s organ transplant industry began to increase dramatically in 2000, coinciding with the ban on Falun Gong.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has denied allegations that it has engaged in organ harvesting, while claiming that voluntary donors enabled the surge to tens of thousands of annual procedures.
Matas said that currently, 19 countries have legislation against transplant tourism.
“But there’s 194 countries. And in Australia, the Joint Commission recommended legislation, and the government accepted the recommendation, but it still hasn’t been documented,” Matas said.
“In Canada, the legislation looks like it’s going to be passed, it got through most of the stages. But the proposed legislation has been kicking around for 10 years.
“And similarly, here in Australia, there’s been proposals, discussions, and nothing happens quickly on this file.
“My sense of it is they’re not opposed in principle. It’s just they’re got other concerns, too busy with other things, and you don’t see the priority of the issue, and frankly, there’s not that many people or make it an issue in these countries.”
Matas said that while Jiang Zemin was instrumental in the persecution, his death does mean that there is little hope of bringing him to justice.
“But there’s still hope,” Matas said.
“[T]here’s lots of other perpetrators around it, there’s still a need for a justice system to bring them to justice—also the atrocities themselves and [Jiang Zemin’s] role in them will be remembered.”
Matas added: “While perpetrators are alive, what’s important is bringing them to justice, but once they’re dead, what’s important is developing, maintaining, making publicly accessible, the historical record and what they’ve done.”
