26 Human Rights Groups Call on Australian PM to End Persecution of Faith Group in China

Falun Gong practitioners appeal next to the United Nations in New York City on Sept. 20, 2023. (Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times)

The World Uyghur Congress has sent a joint letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urging him to take action against the “egregious human rights violations” targeting the faith group Falun Gong in China.

Genocide Watch, the Australian Christian Lobby, the Italian Federation for Human Rights, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation are among the 26 international organisations endorsing the appeal.

“We ... are deeply concerned over the ongoing human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners in China, which are in violation of international human rights treaties,” said the letter, which was published on the World Uyghur Congress’s website on June 19.

“We urge the Australian government to take immediate action to address these egregious human rights violations.”

The joint letter calls on Australian PM Albanese to pass a motion calling for an immediate end to the persecution, as well as the unconditional release of all detained Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience, particularly the family members of Australian citizens and residents.

It also urged Mr. Albanese to implement Magnitsky-style sanctions against individuals and entities involved in the persecution of practitioners, and to also raise this issue at the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly.

The Australian Parliament approved the Magnitsky laws in 2021.

Different from regular sanctions, Magnitsky-style laws focus on individual human rights violators—as well as their family members—and can freeze their assets overseas.

The targets of the law can include cyber hackers, corrupt generals, or officials responsible for serious human rights atrocities, and those convicted can be banned from entering Australia.

Mounting Evidence Reveals Scale of Atrocities

The joint letter said it was well-documented by a range of organisations that Falun Gong practitioners were “killed-to-order as the main organ source for China’s state-sanctioned organ transplantation industry.”

In 2019, the China Tribunal concluded that “forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners have been one—and probably the main—source of organ supply.’”

In 2021, 12 U.N. human rights experts also formally wrote to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) about credible evidence of the practice.

The letter noted Australia is “obligated to uphold human rights” under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The appeal follows the European Parliament passing a resolution earlier this year, which “strongly urges the [People’s Republic of China] to immediately end the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and other minorities, including Uyghurs, and Tibetans.”

This year, July 20, also marks 25 years since the CCP launched its state-wide campaign to eradicate Falun Gong.

Michael Gahler, a member of the European Parliament and the Christian Democratic Union, poses for a photo with Ding Lebin, son of a Falun Gong practitioner imprisoned in China, after the EU passage of a resolution condemning the persecution of Falun Gong in China, on Jan. 18, 2024. (Courtesy of Ding Lebin)

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that includes slow-moving meditative exercises and teachings rooted in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

It was first introduced to the public in China in 1992. By the late 1990s, official estimates indicated that 70 million to 100 million Chinese were practicing it.

However, in 1999, the CCP began a brutal suppression of the faith group.

Practitioners, who were noted for their good health and clean lifestyles, became prime targets for forced organ harvesting. This state-sanctioned practice involved the mass killing of detainees in order to sell their organs.

Organ Harvesting Brings CCP $9 Billion Annually

David Matas, an international human rights lawyer who has spent 18 years exposing the CCP’s systematic organ harvesting, estimated that the regime earns about $9 billion annually from the practice.

“The total figure I was getting was $8.9 billion a year. We did our own calculation of volumes by going to hospital websites and adding them up,” Mr. Matas said. “The numbers are large and horrendous.”

Australian Liberal Senator Paul Scarr has also appealed for the Australian government to intervene.

“The essence of it is: when someone is being persecuted for no other reason than their religious beliefs, matters of conscience, then I believe freedom-loving people all over the world have a moral obligation to stand up,” Mr. Scarr told The Epoch Times.

“If there are more voices, if more people are speaking out, the persecution will come to an end sooner, rather than later.”