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Speech: Organ Pillaging, Ongoing Crime Against Humanity by Chinese Party-State
Posted by Author on October 3, 2010
By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D.-
Remarks presented during the Conference of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) on Sept. 30, 2010 at the Palais des Nations, United Nations Complex in Geneva.
Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a spiritual discipline which seeks to improve body, character and ethics. It contains features of traditional systems, like Buddhism and Daoism (Taoism), combined with a set of gentle exercises. Its core principles are "truth, compassion and forbearance", which echo those of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths. It today has practitioners in numerous countries.
In China, where it first became public in 1992, Falun Gong grew within seven years to 70-100 million practitioners by the government's own estimate. Some Communist party leaders in early 1999 reacted negatively at seeing citizens from all walks of life, including party members, engaging publicly in a form of exercise, which had a belief system behind it different from Marxism-Leninism. The exercises, moreover, could be done anywhere at any time, singly or in groups, indoors or outdoors. The amorphous nature meant it was impossible for the party-state to control it.
The first vilification of Falun Gong by Party elements seeking to ban it in 1999 led to protests by practitioners, mobilized through cell phones and Internet coordination. A large protest at party headquarters in Beijing enraged then party-state leader Jiang Zemin. For him and others, banning and persecuting Falun Gong became official violence easier to get away with than doing the same to other spiritual communities because Falun Gong in China often lack Western connections. The incitement to hatred against them across China in Party media since mid-1999 has had many tragic consequences, most notably the widespread commercial trafficking in their vital organs. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in China, Crime against humanity, David Kilgour, Human Rights, Law, News, Organ harvesting, Politics, Social, Torture, World | Comments Off on Speech: Organ Pillaging, Ongoing Crime Against Humanity by Chinese Party-State
Canada can help imprisoned Chinese hero Gao Zhisheng
Posted by Author on March 27, 2010
By The Hon. David Kilgour on March 25, 2010, via The Metro Politain, Canada-
Members of Gao Zhisheng's international legal team, on which I am privileged to work, have submitted a petition to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, urging the UN to declare that the Chinese government's detention of Gao violates international law. Our team hopes that the UN will decide accordingly, but also that the Harper government and opposition party leaders will speak out on behalf of this extraordinary human rights lawyer, who 'was disappeared' by the Chinese party-state over a year ago.
China's rise is not happening in a vacuum. China depends on the rest of the world for the ingredients of its growing importance; it looks abroad for natural resources, export markets, and diplomatic legitimacy. Canada, as a significant trade partner and fellow member of the G-20, has an important role to play in shaping the path of Chinese ascension.
But that role must not be defined by trade alone. Prime Minister Harper recognized this after taking office in 2006. "I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide," he said. "But I don't think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values." And, in his first trip to China in December, he reiterated Canada's commitment to being a "vocal advocate and an effective partner for human rights reform" in China.
It is time to put these words into action. The Canadian government can begin by urging China to follow its own laws and release Gao Zhisheng or, at the very least, notify him and his family of the charges he faces.
Gao has been missing since Feb. 4, 2009, when security agents seized him from his ancestral home in Shaanxi province. More than one year later, he has yet to be charged with a crime. No-one has notified his family of the reasons and location of his detention- blatant violations of China's own criminal procedure laws.
Last month, the Chinese Embassy in Washington claimed that Gao is working in Urumqi in China's far West. But authorities have not provided any evidence of this (though a few patently doctored photos surfaced on the Internet); nor have they given any notice to his family. Canada should press China to verify Gao's supposed location and well-being.
To those of us who know Gao and his work, his detention by Chinese authorities was inevitable. His work on behalf of those persecuted for their religious beliefs brought the wrath of the Chinese government upon him. He was convicted in 2006 of "subversion," detained again in 2007 and horribly tortured. Gao's current unconscionable detention is even more terrifying; China experts say that even as Beijing has stepped up its crackdown of political dissidents, its near-complete silence on Gao Zhisheng is chilling and unprecedented.
Over the past decade trade with China it rose by $35.8 billion, or 340 percent. It is no mystery why trade is at the top of the agenda with China. But this is not unique to Canada. China's trade with nearly every country in the world is growing at exponential rates. And so far, nearly every country in the world has used trade as justification for dropping human rights from the agenda with China.
Canada can step into this void by speaking out about Gao Zhisheng. As the Speech from the Throne declared recently, "Our communities are built on the rule of law…Canadians want a justice system that delivers justice." We should also promote justice and the rule of law in China. With the disappearance of Gao and the imprisonment of other leading rights lawyers, Chinese authorities are clearly targeting lawyers, one by one, as key agents of change within China. And so, as with Gao, the authorities are stripping them of their licenses, shutting down their law firms, and imprisoning them.
It might already be too late for Gao Zhisheng. But if we have the courage to tell Beijing that its current culture of impunity cannot last, there may be hope for other rights lawyers, for the rule of law, and for justice to be delivered, in China as it is in Canada. All we need to ask is that China follow its own laws, and respect the rights guaranteed by its own Constitution. Is some amount of trade at stake? Perhaps. But so is the full measure of our conscience.
– The Metro Politain
Posted in Canada, China, Commentary, David Kilgour, Gao Zhisheng, Human Rights, Law, Lawyer, News, Opinion, People, Politics, Social, World | Comments Off on Canada can help imprisoned Chinese hero Gao Zhisheng
Lawyer Nominated for Nobel Over His Work On China Organ Harvesting
By Geoff Kirbyson, The Lawyers Weekly, Canada, March 19 2010 issue –
David Matas might be the only lawyer in Canada trying to follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama.
While the Winnipeg-based human rights crusader and immigration and refugee lawyer has run for political office in the past, it's his nomination for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize that has drawn a link with the most powerful man in the world.
Matas and his research partner, David Kilgour, a federal Alberta MP between 1976 and 2006, have been nominated for their investigation into allegations that Falun Gong followers in China are being murdered for their hearts, kidneys, corneas, livers and other organs.
Matas, 66, says he's honoured by the nomination but not because of the man who precedes them.
'If you look at the history of the Nobel Peace Prize award, there's a wide variety of nominees and backgrounds,' he says. '(The nomination) helps highlight the work that David and I have been doing. It becomes another means of advocacy and promotion to bring attention to the problem and to end the abuse.'
The award's winner will be announced in October and the presentation ceremony will be held in December.
Matas says he estimates China does about 10,000 organ transplants annually, with roughly one-quarter of the organs coming from prisoners on death row and the balance coming from Falun Gong followers. Initially, virtually all of the organ recipients were foreigners, primarily people from Korea, Hong Kong and Indonesia, but China subsequently began giving its own people preferential treatment for the procedures.
Falun Gong is a religious movement based on the teachings of its founder, Li Hongzhi, which uses aspects of Buddhism, Taoism and modern science. The movement, which began in 1992, became immensely popular in China but the Chinese government considered it a cult and cracked down on it more than a decade ago, persecuting, jailing and executing its followers.
Matas says the Chinese government uses the organ transplants to generate revenue. At one point, prices were listed on an official government website while Chinese hospitals promoted the 'business' on their own websites. A kidney, for example, will set somebody back $62,000 while a liver ranges from $98,000 to $130,000, a heart will run you $130,000 to $160,000 and a lung can cost anywhere from $150,000 to $170,000. If you're into volume discounts, a liver-kidney combination can be had for between $160,000 and $180,000.
'(The discount) is an indication that people are being killed for their organs rather than everywhere else in the world where people wait for somebody else to die. Why would you get a discount for a combination transplant except that the organs are coming from the same donor?' he says.
Matas says the most common transplanted organ around the world is the kidney because a donor can donate one and still survive. Except in China, it seems.
'Our conclusion is multiple organs are being harvested (per donor). We've never met or heard of a surviving kidney donor. If there were survivors, you'd think you'd hear about them,' he says. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Canada, China, Crime against humanity, David Kilgour, David Matas, Falun Gong, Genocide, Health, Human Rights, Law, Lawyer, News, Organ transplant, People, Politics, Social, World | 1 Comment »
Authors of "Bloody Harvest" on the nomination list of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
MONTREAL – March 8, 2010 – David Matas, a member of Rights & Democracy's Board of Directors, is on the longlist for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his work investigating the alleged killings of Falun Gong followers for their organs in China.
Mr. Matas was nominated along with former Member of Parliament David Kilgour by federal MP Boris Wrzesneskyi and Balfour Hakak, Chair of the Hebrew Writers Association. Mr. Matas and Mr. Kilgour have issued three reports together on the alleged harvesting of organs from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners. Their latest report, « Bloody Harvest : The Killing of Falun Gong for their organs,» is available online at http://organharvestinvestigation.net/ .
"David Matas' work reminds us that the road to peace and human rights for all is one that is pitted with incredible cruelty and injustice," said Aurel Braun, Chair of Rights & Democracy's Board of Directors. "We are indeed fortunate to have his talents and experience at the service of the Board. "
Each year, around 200 candidates are submitted to the Norwegian Nobel Committee by individuals qualified to nominate, including members of government, past Laureates and university professors in related fields. The names are normally kept secret for 50 years. A shortlist will be determined over the course of March and the winner will be announced in October. The official presentation of the prize takes place on December 10, International Human Rights Day, in Oslo, Norway.
Rights & Democracy also welcomes the nomination of Chinese human rights defender, Liu Xiaobo, author of the call for democratic reforms in China known as Charter 08. Mr. Xiaobo, who was condemned last December to 11 years in prison on charges of subversion, was nominated by 90 Parliamentarians from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The nomination is further supported by two former Peace Prize laureates, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, as well as former Czech President, Vaclav Havel, and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, Herta Muller.
– from Rights & Democracy, Canada
Posted in all Hot Topic, Canada, China, Crime against humanity, David Kilgour, David Matas, Event, Genocide, Human Rights, Law, Lawyer, News, Organ harvesting, Social, World | Comments Off on Authors of "Bloody Harvest" on the nomination list of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
Two Canadian human rights crusaders nominated for Nobel Prize for investigation of China organ harvesting crimes
Posted by Author on February 21, 2010
David Kilgour and David Matas, two Canadian human rights crusaders, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work related to the investigation of organ harvesting crimes against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
In his nomination to the Nobel committee, MP Boris Wrzesnewskyj said awarding the prize to Matas and Kilgour "would help the world realize that liberty, human rights, and the rule of law can be won by determined peaceful acts of conscience."
"I've had the pleasure of meeting and knowing the two Davids for a number of years now, and from my work with them it's quite clear that these are two incredibly courageous men who made the decision not to stand by and observe the horrific injustice—they were going to do something about it," Wrzesnewskyj said in an interview on Tuesday.
A former Canadian cabinet minister and Crown Prosecutor, Kilgour was Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa, and Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific. Matas is a human rights lawyer, a member of the Order of Canada, and author of eight books.
Both are recipients of the 2009 Human Rights Award from the International Society for Human Rights, also in recognition of their efforts in investigating the Chinese Communist Party's removal of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners for profit.
Wrzesnewskyj said that as a result of Matas and Kilgour's "selfless efforts" in traveling to 44 countries to raise awareness of the situation, world leaders and global citizens have gained a better understanding of the issue of the illicit harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners' organs in China.
In addition to their publication of two reports, Kilgour and Matas co-authored Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, a 2009 book detailing evidence that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners had been killed by the Chinese regime in the process of extracting their organs for lucrative transplant surgeries.
"They investigated, they produced reports, and now having produced those reports they've continued on a global campaign to inform the world of what was taking place," Wrzesnewskyj said.
Kilgour and Matas have urged countries to discourage or prevent their citizens from going to China for organ transplants. Their investigations found that many rich foreigners seek transplants in China, where a matching donor can be found in mere weeks while in other countries it takes an average of 2.5 years.
"We trade with China and we sometime forget the political system that exists there, the human cost of it, and how destructive it can be," said MP Wrzesnewskyj.
He believes Matas and Kilgour are "absolutely deserving of the rest of humanity saying thanks" because they have shown that "two people can make a difference."
The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony will take place on December 10, 2010 in Oslo, Norway.
– The Epochtimes
Posted in Canada, China, Crime against humanity, David Kilgour, David Matas, Falun Gong, Human Rights, Law, News, People, World | Comments Off on Two Canadian human rights crusaders nominated for Nobel Prize for investigation of China organ harvesting crimes
Canadian Lawyer Nominated for Nobel Prize for His Work on Organ Harvesting Issue in China
Editorial, The Winnipeg Free Press, Canada, Feb. 20, 2010-
Many Winnipeggers could not pick David Matas out of a crowd. His relative public obscurity at home, however, belies the man's international profile for work that has garnered him a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The breadth of Mr. Matas's human rights work has taken him far afield — into the world of international courts, United Nations missions and the prosecution of Nazi war criminals — and into the homes of children plugged into virtual relationships where Internet predators lurk. A founding member of Beyond Borders, he helped fight for the tougher child exploitation laws in Canada.
Much of his work has been championing the rights of immigrants and refugees, battling the abuses and legal chasms that catch up the innocent and controversial alike. One client, Vancouverite Lai Changxing, has been called China's most wanted man. The reputed billionaire is accused by the Communist government of building his fortune on smuggling and on bribing officials. Lai is a lightning rod for those who see Canada's lax immigration law providing safe haven for criminals. Undaunted, Mr. Matas argues Lai could not possibly get a fair trial in a country where officials have publicly stated he deserves the penalty of multiple deaths.
It is Mr. Matas's work with former MP David Kilgour on the persecution of the Falun Gong adherents in China that brings him now to the notice of Norway's Nobel Committee. They have been co-nominated for their 2006 independent investigation of allegations the Chinese state's abuses, imprisonment and torturing of adherents had extended to organ harvesting — resulting in the prisoners' deaths — to serve transplantation tourists.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a bit battered of late. Never granted to Mahatma Ghandi, the world's most famous peace activist, it was the source of wide-spread derision in December when it was bestowed on Barack Obama. The U.S. president, barely minted, was honoured for strengthening international diplomacy and for his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. Even Mr. Obama was surprised.
Mr. Matas faces long odds in getting to the podium at the end of the year. His nomination, however, returns a small measure of gratitude to a humble and deserving man. It may help raise the esteem of the Norwegian prize a notch.
– The Winnipeg Free Press
Posted in Canada, China, David Kilgour, David Matas, Falun Gong, Health, Human Rights, Law, News, Organ harvesting, Organ transplant, People, Social, World | 2 Comments »
China Organ Harvesting Investigators Get Swiss Human Rights Award
Posted by Author on January 20, 2010
NTDTV, Jan. 19, 2010-
The Swiss International Society for Human Rights awarded Canada's former Secretary of State David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas their annual Human Rights prize in Bern on Saturday (January 16).
[David Matas, Human Rights Lawyer]:
"It is the voice of individuals around the world which is most likely to lead to respect for human rights."
The award is for their investigation into allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. Falun Gong is a traditional meditation practice that the Chinese regime has been persecuting for more than 10 years—sending hundreds of thousands to forced labor camps.
Kilgour and Matas' investigative report is called "Bloody Harvest." It shows 52 points of evidence suggesting the Chinese regime has been killing Falun Gong practitioners for their organs to be sold to transplant patients.
They say in 2006, Chinese hospital websites advertised perfectly matched organs and extremely short waiting times for organ transplants—as fast as one to two weeks.
[Dr. Franz Immer, Director of Swiss Transplant]:
"In Europe we wait, on average, two and a half to three years for a kidney, nine to 12 months for a heart or a liver."…… (more from NTDTV)
Posted in Canada, China, Crime against humanity, David Kilgour, David Matas, Health, Human Rights, Law, News, Organ transplant, People, World | 1 Comment »
Organ Pillaging and Falun Gong in China (2): Speech by David Kilgour
Posted by Author on December 3, 2009
By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., Subcommittee on Human Rights, European Parliament- Brussels, Via MWC News, Dec. 2, 2009 – (cont'd)
Our conclusion is that many of the disappeared were killed for their organs, which were sold to transplant tourists. It would take too much time to set out how we came to that conclusion. We invite you to read our report, which is on the internet (accessible at http://www.david-kilgour.com), or our book. Briefly, three of the dozens of evidentiary trails we followed which led to our conclusion are these:
1) Only Falun Gong practitioners in work camps and prisons are systematically blood tested and physically examined. This testing cannot be motivated by concerns over the health of practitioners, because they are also systematically tortured. Testing is necessary for organ transplants because of the need for blood type compatibility between the organ source and the recipient. Crystal Chen, for example, during three years in a camp was medically tested several times, including two blood tests.
2) Traditional sources of transplants-prisoners sentenced to death and then executed, voluntary donors, the brain dead/cardiac alive-come nowhere near to explaining the total number of transplants in China. There is no organized system of organ donations. There is a cultural aversion to organ donation. There is no national organ matching or distribution system in China.
The only significant source in China of organs for transplants before the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners began was prisoners sentenced to death and then executed. The volume of organ transplants in China went up dramatically shortly after the banning of the practice of Falun Gong. Yet, the numbers of those sentenced to death and then executed did not increase.
We estimate that 41,500 organs transplanted over the period of persecution up to 2005 came from Falun Gong practitioners. How we reached this conclusion is explained on page 96 of our book.
3) We had callers phoning hospitals throughout China posing as family members of persons who needed organ transplants. In a wide variety of locations, those who were called asserted that Falun Gong practitioners (known to be healthy because of their exercise regime) were the source of the organs.
Since our report came out, laws and practices in China have changed. A law on transplants in May 2007 required that transplants be performed only in registered hospitals. The Ministry of Health announced that from June 26, 2007 Chinese patients would be given priority access to organ transplants over foreigners. The announcement also banned all medical institutions from transplanting organs into foreign transplant tourists. The government announced in August 2009 that it was launching an organ donation system as a pilot project.
With these changes, however, the crime against humanity continues. The recipients have changed from foreign to local, but the sources remain substantially the same. The government denies that organs for transplants are being sourced from prisoners who are Falun Gong practitioners. Yet, it accepts that organs for transplants are being sourced from prisoners. The only debate we have with the Government is which group of prisoners is the source of organs.
"Non consenting parties"
Sourcing of organs from prisoners is done without consent. Deputy Health Minister Huang Joyful at a conference of surgeons in Guangzhou in November 2006 said in a speech, "too often organs come from non consenting parties". The government of China accepts that sourcing of organs from prisoners is wrong. Huang at the time of the announcement of an organ donor pilot project stated that executed prisoners "are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants". This principle, that prisoners are not an acceptable source for organs, is followed by the Transplantation Society and the World Medical Association.
So what is the rule of law world going to do about the Chinese party-state's abuse of global transplant ethics? Our report and book have a long list of recommendations. Given the shortness of time, I mention here only two.
One possibility is extraterritorial legislation. The 2007 policy giving priority to Chinese patients has cut down on transplant tourism to China, but such legislation would be a useful statement of universal principle. The sorts of transplants in which the Chinese medical system engages are illegal everywhere else in the world. But it is not illegal for a foreigner from any country to go to China, obtain a transplant which would be illegal at home, and then return home. Foreign transplant legislation everywhere is territorial; it has no extraterritorial reach. Many other laws are global in their sweep. For instance, child sex tourists can be prosecuted not just in the country where they abuse children, but often at home as well. This sort of legislation does not exist for transplant tourists who pay for organ transplants without bothering to determine whether the organ donor has consented.
A second recommendation is that any person known to be involved in trafficking in the organs of prisoners in China should be barred entry by all foreign countries.
The attempted crushing of Falun Gong, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and other independent faith groups, human rights lawyers and other civil society and democracy communities in recent years indicates that China's party-state must still be engaged with great caution despite the severe ongoing world economic problems. If it stops the systematic and gross abuses of human rights and takes major steps to indicate that it wishes to treat its trade partners in a mutually-beneficial way, the new century will bring harmony for China, its trading partners and neighbours. Its people have the numbers, perseverance, self-discipline, intelligence and other qualities to help make this new century better and more peaceful for the entire human family. (END)
– By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., Subcommittee on Human Rights, European Parliament- Brussels. Published via MWC News
Posted in all Hot Topic, China, Crime against humanity, David Kilgour, Falun Gong, Genocide, Human Rights, Law, News, Organ harvesting, People, Religious, Report, World | Comments Off on Organ Pillaging and Falun Gong in China (2): Speech by David Kilgour
By Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., Subcommittee on Human Rights, European Parliament- Brussels, Via MWC News, Dec. 2, 2009 –
Thank you for the opportunity to speak about organ pillaging from Falun Gong practitioners in China as a new crime against humanity.
The earlier witness, Gao Wenqian from Human Rights In China (HRIC) in New York, told us in part that the overall human rights situation in China today is worsening. The experiences of another Gao (no relative), Gao Zhisheng, illustrates this phenomenon well.
In 2004, Gao Zhisheng, then one of China's top lawyers and since nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, defended a Falun Gong practitioner who had been sent to a labour camp without any form of hearing. Gao learned that the court refused to hear the case because of "orders from above", so he courageously wrote to the National People's Congress and later sent three letters to the top leadership in Beijing. One of them referred to the "indescribable violence done to kind (Falun Gong) practitioners".
Gao's permit to practise law was subsequently removed and his office was closed by the government. His wife and daughter were harassed by police. He was imprisoned and tortured during a horrific five-week period and is now being "held incommunicado at an unknown location", according to Amnesty International.
Forced Labour Camps
In doing our final report on organ pillaging from Falun Gong, David Matas and I visited about a dozen countries to interview practitioners sent to forced labour camps since 1999, who managed later to leave the camps and the country itself. They told us of working in appalling conditions for up to sixteen hours daily with no pay, little food, being cramped together on the floor for sleeping, and being tortured. They made export products, ranging from garments to chopsticks to Christmas decorations at times as subcontractors to multinational companies.
The camps, which were created in the Mao era and modeled closely on those in Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Third Reich, allow the party to send anyone to them for up to four years with neither any form of hearing nor appeal. One estimate of the number of the camps across China as of 2005 was 340, having a capacity of about 300,000 inmates. In 2007, a US government report estimated that at least half of the inmates in the camps were Falun Gong. It is the combination of totalitarian governance and 'anything is permitted' economics that allows such inhuman practices to persist.
Take Falun Gong practitioner Crystal Chen, a former assistant to the president of a leading import export corporation in Guangzhou and an amateur actor, for example, who spent three years in a camp. She experienced beatings, being shackled and stretched, and prolonged sleep deprivation. In a detention centre, she was thrown on the floor of her cell and four large men held her down. A water bottle was cut in half to be used as a funnel. A one-pound bag of salt was poured inside the bottle, a small amount of water added. Guards shoved the opening of the bottle against Chen's teeth and tried to pry her mouth open with a dirty toothbrush.
She resisted, knowing the salt could kill her. Chen: "The salt went everywhere into my mouth and up my nose… I vomited salt and blood for days and could not eat. My gums were full of blood, I could hardly talk. They still handcuffed me." A male practitioner, university teacher Gao Xian in, died after being subjected to the same salt torture in the same detention centre.
Chen, now a refugee living outside China, stresses that Falun Gong practitioners, while understandably unsympathetic towards the Party, seek no role in Chinese politics: "only to stop the persecution which has continued for more than ten years… I love China. I'm proud of thousands of years of Chinese civilization and proud of being Chinese… I look forward to the renaissance of genuine Chinese values and dignity, including truthfulness, compassion and tolerance."
Killing of Falun Gong practitioners for their organs
David Matas and I came to the dismaying conclusion that Falun Gong practitioners in China have been and are being killed for their organs on a large scale. We wrote a report that came to this conclusion, which came out in July 2006. There was a second version in 2007. A third in book form was published last month as Bloody Harvest.
Falun Gong is essentially a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline, consisting of principles for living, meditation and exercises which began in China in 1992. Initially the government encouraged the practice as beneficial for health. By 1999, it had grown so popular that the Party became afraid that its own ideological and numerical supremacy were being threatened. The numbers of persons practising Falun Gong across China had grown from virtually none in 1992, according to a government estimate, to 70-100 million. The practice was accordingly banned.
Practitioners were asked to recant. Those who refused and continued the practice and those who protested the banning were arrested. If they recanted after arrest, they were released. If they did not, they were tortured. If they recanted after torture, they were then released. If they did not recant after torture, they disappeared into the Chinese detention and forced labor system. (To be cont'd……)
Speech: Falun Gong As Decade Long Victims of Rule by Terror
Posted by Author on July 17, 2009
By Hon. David Kilgour, via mwcnews.net, July 17, 2009
Falun Gong As Decade Long Victims of Rule by Terror
Media Conference , 130s Centre Block, House of Commons
Ottawa ,16 July 2009
Almost exactly ten years ago, the party-state in Beijing launched its campaign against a government-estimated 70-100 million Falun Gong practitioners. The then determinedly-non-political Falun Gong, which is an exercise community with a spiritual component, soon became the latest in a long list of 'enemies of the party'. Atrocities against Falun Gong supporters continue today across China.
Reigns of terror against Party-selected groups and persons have occurred periodically since Mao Zedong seized power in 1949. In the name of revolution, millions were starved to death, for example, in the Great Leap Forward of 1958; countless others were tortured, abused, executed and deprived of basic human dignity. Probably very few Chinese citizens have been treated more brutally than the Falun Gong.
Organ pillaging from Falun Gong practitioners has been studied in an independent report by legal scholar David Matas and myself ( http://organharvestinginvestigation.net ). The two of us found 52 kinds of evidentiary proof indicating that this crime against humanity is occurring. The Government of China has to date made no substantive response to our report.
Just this month, three lawyers were arrested in China for daring to defend Falun Gong practitioners. The persecution of another prominent attorney, Gao Zhisheng, who defended Falun Gong, continues. He was twice arrested and suffered seventy days of torture. Despite repeated appeals from a range of Chinese and international groups for accounts of his whereabouts and release, Beijing ignores them.
Genocide?
David Matas to the International Association of Genocide Scholars at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, concluded on June 9th of this year:
"Every Chinese embassy around the world participates in this incitement (against Falun Gong). Despite their denials, they have to know about the mass killings of Falun Gong practitioners. The evidence fills human rights reports. There are constant media stories. The information is a click of a mouse away on the internet. Any claim of ignorance would mean that they have wilfully been turning blind eyes to the obvious, not a defense in law. So, in sum, the crime of genocide has been committed against the Falun Gong community, through torture, through organ harvesting and through the incitement that leads to both. The elements of the crime, the mass killings based on identity and the intent to destroy the group, can be established. "
Mr. Matas provided detailed reasons for coming to this legal conclusion, which are available in the Update section of our report website.
China's Gulag
Forced labour is tragically all too common today, but only the party-state of China uses it to punish and suppress fellow citizens. Any Chinese national can be sent to a camp without any form of trial for up to four years upon committal by a police signature. No appeal is possible. Mao in the 1950s closely duplicated the work camp model set up in Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany, which in China alone continues today.
In China, only Falun Gong camp inmates are used as a live organ bank to be pillaged for sales to foreigners or Chinese nationals. Medical testing is required before organs can be matched with recipients, but only Falun Gong prisoners in the camp populations are tested medically on a regular basis. In the estimated 340 camps across China as of 2005, up to 300,000 "workers" toil in inhuman conditions for up to sixteen hours daily without any pay, producing a wide range of consumer products, mostly for export in blatant violation of World Trade Organization rules.
Such practices are fully consistent with Beijing`s rejection of the recommendations advanced by a number of governments, including Canada's, in a Universal Periodic Review by the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year……. Read the rest of this entry »
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New evidence: Admission of Organ Harvesting in China is 'Undeniable,' Say Canadian Investigators
Posted by Author on August 25, 2008
Former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, on August 22, 2008, released a new letter, describing new evidence about continued murder of Falun Gong practitioners in China for their organs.
By Ben Bendig, Epoch Times Staff Aug 24, 2008 –
New evidence of the Chinese regime's practice of harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners has come to light through the admission of a Chinese doctor.
An audio recording of the doctor admitting to having taken part in harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners, together with a state-endorsed documentary in which the same doctor acknowledges taking part in the conversation, is "an undeniable, inculpatory admission of the harvesting of Falun Gong practitioner prisoners for profit," say David Matas, a human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, former Canadian secretary of state (Asia Pacific), in a letter released yesterday.
Matas and Kilgour had their investigators call Chinese hospitals inquiring about organ transplants, specifically if they could get organs from Falun Gong practitioners, the rationale being that Falun Gong practitioners are healthy, owing to their practice.
In one case, Dr. Lu Guoping at Minzu Hospital of Guangxi Autonomous Region said that his hospital used to have organs from Falun Gong practitioners, but didn't any longer. Here is a portion of the transcript:
"Caller: …what you used before, were they from detention centers or prisons?
"Lu Guoping: From prisons.
"C: Oh, prisons. And it was from healthy Falun Gong practitioners, the healthy Falun Gong right?
"LG: Right, right, right. We would choose the good ones, because we will assure the quality of our operations.
"C: That means you choose the organs yourselves?
"LG: Right, right, right."
He later referred the caller to a hospital in Guangzhou, saying that this hospital would have Falun Gong organs.
Where the new evidence comes to bear is that in a documentary released by Phoenix TV, Lu Guoping admits to having received the call, and also to referring the caller to a Guangzhou hospital.
However, he denies what he said, stating in the interview, "I told her [the caller] I was not involved in the surgical operations and had no idea where the organs come from. I told her I could not answer her questions. She then asked me whether these organs come from prisons. I replied no to her in clear-cut terms."
When shown a transcript of the interview on the video, Dr. Lu claims that it is a distorted version of the conversation. However, the documentary makes no mention of an audio recording, and no explanation for how the recording could have his voice saying some things that he admits, and other things he denies saying. Matas and Kilgour, in their report of the new evidence, make the point that the documentary suggests an altered transcript, but because there is no mention in the documentary of the recording, the recording itself is not being disputed.
Matas and Kilgour sum up the evidence: "So here we have on our recording an admission from a doctor that he and his colleagues used to go to a prison to select Falun Gong practitioners for their organs. He does not just say that someone else did this. He says that he and his colleagues used to do this themselves. Moreover, we have a further admission that the voice we have on our recording is the voice of the very person our recording says he is."
One particularly damning aspect of the documentary is that it is available through Chinese consulates and embassies.
"[C]onsequently," Kilgour and Matas state in their letter, concerning the documentary, "it has the sanction of the Government of China. The admission is, accordingly, one which is sanctioned and approved by the Government of China and can not credibly be denied by the Government."
Kilgour and Matas have been investigating claims of Falun Gong organ harvesting since 2006. Some of evidence includes 40,000 transplants that have taken place in China with donors unaccounted for, since the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. Additionally, waiting times for organs in China are on the order of weeks, while in Western countries, the wait can be months or years.
Matas and Kilgour's letter, along with links to the Phoenix TV video (with English subtitles), Chinese and English-language copies of the transcript of the conversation with Dr. Lu, and the audio recording of Dr. Lu, are available at: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/Dr.Lu-Voice-Recording/
– Original: Admission of Organ Harvesting is 'Undeniable,' Say Investigators , The Epochtimes
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Chinese New Year Spectacular is 'Out of This World': David Kilgour
By Rahul Vaidyanath, Epoch Times Ottawa Staff, Jan 15, 2008-
OTTAWA—The Chinese New Year Spectacular presented its final performance in Ottawa on Monday night. Presented by New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV), the show features Chinese classical dance and music emphasizing the positive values of freedom, peace, and beauty.
David Kilgour, former Secretary of State for Asia Pacific, attended the Monday show after arriving from Europe. (photo at right)
"I want to congratulate everybody associated with this show. I wish everybody in Canada could see it. I wish everybody could see it everywhere, especially of course in China."
"Last year, when I saw it in Toronto, I did not think it could get any better. This year, probably everything is a little better," said Kilgour. "The dancing is absolutely fabulous, the last piece was spectacular."
Kilgour elaborated on some of the issues currently facing China and pointed to how the show transports the audience to a China before communist rule.
"I've been reading a lot of books on China in the last year or so, and I think this is the authentic China, the authentic culture."
"What is being used now [in China], as somebody says, is imported from Europe. Last time I looked, Karl Marx was not Chinese," said Kilgour, alluding to the link between the father of communism and the regime that now rules China. "The imported violent philosophy that is still, unfortunately, being used by the [regime in] China is quite foreign to the culture, people, and history of China. This shows what a marvelous culture and tradition the authentic Chinese culture is."
Kilgour also described how the show makes people feel.
"Uplifted, inspired, dazzled," he said. "It's magical what we're seeing here tonight. I've got nothing but respect for the people who've done it. They have put in so much time, I gather, to make the show what it is."
"It's topically spiritual. It's not giving any other message, that's what's wonderful," said Frank Scheme, a freelance photographer who also works part-time with Amnesty International, and who attended the show with Kilgour.
Due to his previous role as Secretary of State for Asia Pacific, Kilgour has traveled extensively throughout Asia and is in a strong position to comment on the unique nature of the show.
"It's absolutely unique, one of the best I've ever seen anywhere in the world, and I've been in more than 100 countries," Kilgour added. "The combination of everything, costumes, music, the live orchestra … The moderators are good, they're funny.
"The dancing is really out of this world, almost everything is out of this world. I would recommend this show to anybody, I have recommended it to many people and I'm glad to see some of them here tonight."
The Chinese New Year Spectacular now leaves Ottawa to play four shows in Montreal before going on to Toronto next weekend.
The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of the Divine Performing Arts shows that will perform in over 60 cities worldwide in 2008. To find a show near you, please visit www.bestchineseshows.com.
– Original report from the Epochtimes
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THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE OF 1932-33, THE HOLOCAUST AND THE FALUN GONG IN CHINA
Posted by Author on November 28, 2007
Notes for Remarks by Hon. David kilgour, J.D, International Symposium on the Crimes of Communism, Kiev, Ukraine, November 14, 2007-
David Matas and I are pleased to be back in Ukraine for the first time since your December 2004 runoff election, when both of us were among the more than one thousand Canadian election observers of your noted-around-the-world presidential election.
The voting stations observed by the international team I was part of were near Luhansk, a 15-hour train ride from Kiev and close to your border with Russia. There were many memorable moments during those days that December, including the genuine appreciation of many residents that observers from abroad were present, but one voter in his eighties will never be forgotten. He came up to some of us at a polling station and said, "When I was a small child, I watched both my parents die of starvation in front of me."
Famine of 1932-1933
Your fellow citizen was, of course, referring to the terrible Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933, which took millions of innocent lives, not because there was any food shortage, but because the Communist dictator Joseph Stalin wanted to exterminate many of your farmers and their families to overcome widespread resistance in this country to his collectivization of agriculture. Food was exported from Ukraine by Stalin's henchmen even as millions of your fellow citizens starved to death.
Far away in Edmonton, Canada, we residents, led by our neighbours of origin in Ukraine, unveiled near our city hall a number of years ago a monument to the victims of the Ukrainian Genocide or Holocaust. There have been many estimates as to the number of millions of victims, ranging up to ten million, but, whatever the most accurate number, this crime against humanity was simply unspeakable and must never be forgotten.
One reason there is still some doubt at least outside Ukraine about the numbers of deaths in those fateful years lies in the gross irresponsibility of most Western journalists, who visited Ukraine during the famine and chose not to report on the human catastrophe they observed. Walter Duranty of the New York Times, dean of the foreign press in Moscow at the time, appears to have been among the worst in putting misplaced loyalty to Stalin ahead of his duty to his readers and profession, but he was hardly alone. One journalist who did report accurately on what was going on, the late Malcolm Muggeridge of Great Britain, lost his job for doing so.
A decade later, in December, 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learned from Jan Karsky of the Polish resistance that thousands of Jews were being rounded up and sent in cattle cars to the death camp at Belzec in eastern Poland. Churchill used Karsky's report to persuade the Allies, including the Russians, to condemn "a bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination" in Germany.
Time unfortunately does not permit me to go into the Holocaust here more fully. Let me only say that the world will never know how many lives might have been saved if the hideous details of both genocides had gotten out sooner. Many observers-including this one- will say that enough was known soon enough about both catastrophes, but, as in the later cases of Rwanda and Darfur, the problem was the absence of robust political will. Tragically, human dignity was not universalized then or now.
Falun Gong in China
This brings me to the independent report which David Matas and I did on what is still happening to the Falun Gong community across China and the importance of raising public awareness about it worldwide in the months prior to the Beijing Olympics in August, 2008. We concluded to our horror that since the latter part of 2000 the government of China and its agencies have murdered thousands of Falun Gong practitioners across China without any form of prior trial, and then sold their vital organs for large sums of money, often to 'organ tourists' from wealthy countries.
Virtually no independent person we know who has read our report, which is available in 18 languages at http://www.organharvestinvestigation.net, is not convinced of the validity of our dismaying conclusion.
None of these deaths would be occurring if the Chinese peoples as a whole enjoyed the rule of law and their government believed in the equal worth and dignity of each one of them. Most human beings across China appear to have no more importance to those still monopolizing power there than does the natural environment, work safety, the lives of African residents in Darfur or Buddhist monks and democracy protesters in Burma. It is the combination of totalitarian governance and 'anything goes' capitalism that allows this new form of evil on the planet to continue across China today.
The propaganda phase of the regime's war began in mid-1999 against a then estimated 70-100 million Falun Gong practitioners across China. The party-state media demonized, vilified and dehumanized them in a manner somewhat similar to that used by the government of Rwanda against its Tutsi community prior to the genocide there in April-July, 1994. Both nationals and some outside China were thus persuaded to think of the community as disruptive to social harmony and even somehow less than human.
Health in China
When observers understand the present state of public health across China as a consequence of three decades of 'pollute anything' capitalism for water, soil and air and the condition of the once-vaunted health care delivery system, they are better able to understand the context of our report. Consider only two of the observations made by journalists Joseph Hahn and Jim Yardley of the New York Times this past summer: only one per cent of China's city dwellers are breathing air considered safe by the European Union; last spring a World Bank study concluded that air pollution is causing premature deaths in the 750,000 persons range a year. The two also noted that many experts have concluded that China "…cannot go green without political change."
On the health care delivery system, my primary source is The Coming China Wars by Peter Navarro, who has a PH.D in economics from Harvard, has published six other books and is a professor at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California. Navarro concludes that the health care system has collapsed: "…sick people are forced to pay for their health care upfront. Those lacking the means to pay are cast out of hospitals and left to die an often slow and painful death. A big part of the problem is the cost of medical insurance-$50 to $200 per year-in a country where the annual per-capita income for the vast majority of the population remains well below $1,000."
With this melt-down of the health care systems, coupled with continued totalitarian governance, I think you can better understand the context for organ pillaging during the past six years. Between 1980 and 2004, the central government also cut funding for health care by more than a half. Doctors, hospitals and pharmacies were converted to "profit centres" and expected to finance their activities through patient fees.
New Organ Transplantation Policy
The Chinese Medical Association recently agreed with the World Medical Association that it will no longer take organs from executed prisoners, presumably including Falun Gong ones, even conceding that international pressure before next year's Olympics in Beijing was the motivation. The CMA's vice-chair, Chen Zhonghua, admitted: "China is worried that if it doesn't take a stand on this some countries may use this issue as a pretext to boycott the Games." Whatever the motivation, it is a step in a more human direction, although many of us would like to know if the pledge has any legal consequence. Will it bind military surgeons, who are doing many of the transplantation operations (we're told that it doesn't)? Will the new policy be abandoned for the huge profits to be made from organ pillaging once foreigners leave Beijing next August?
David Matas and I have spoken in various countries to some of the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners sent to forced labour camps since 1999, who managed to gain release from both the camps and China itself. They speak of working without pay in appalling conditions for up to sixteen hours daily, making export products, ranging from chop sticks to garments to Christmas decorations for multinational companies from the West. This is corporate social responsibility?
What can we all do to stop organ pillaging? Emails to MPs, friends and blogs will certainly keep the pressure on the party-state in Beijing. 'Naming and shaming' the regime with placards in front of its embassies and consulates ought to be effective in the months before next summer's Olympic Games. As the world observed in the case of 'Magnificent Mia' Farrow's comment about "the Genocide Olympics", the Hu-Wen government in Beijing really listens when the success of its Games can be brought into issue. Let's use 'Bloody Harvest' placards too. Let's also support the Global Human Rights Torch relay when it continues to more than 100 cities on five continents. You can get more information about the relay at www.humanrightstorch.org.
The people of Ukraine and the nine other countries represented at this symposium do not need a Canadian to tell them what they lived through under the Communist genre of totalitarianism. Let me therefore close with a list of only some of the more glaring crimes and other failures of Communism in Europe:
* The abuse and much worse of tens of millions of innocent families during almost half a century.
* Continuous economic failure.
* The persecution of faith communities, little realizing that they would play a major role in its eventual downfall.
* Causing proud and hard-working farm producers to give up working their soil by forcing them into collectives, which seized both their land and animals.
* Criminalizing talk about representative democracy in order to protect incompetent, violent and otherwise criminal dictatorships.
* Communism twisted the noble concept of human equality into a shield for the special privileges of party officials, the nomenklatura.
* Communism removed all rights of workers' unions, including the right to exist in any meaningful form and to bargain collectively, demonstrating that nowhere where it governs does it care about the rights of working people.
* It destroyed any concept of the rule of law and independent judges.
* It turned art and culture into a sterile propaganda, thereby forcing many artists and writers into exile.
The general conclusion for all of us wherever we live today seems clear: if human dignity is finally to become indivisible everywhere around the world, the remaining Communist and other authoritarian regimes must be replaced by governments of, by and for their peoples.
– Original speech from David kilgour's website
Posted in Asia, China, David Kilgour, Europe, Genocide, Health, history, Human Rights, Law, News, Organ transplant, People, Politics, Social, Speech, World | Comments Off on THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE OF 1932-33, THE HOLOCAUST AND THE FALUN GONG IN CHINA
Joint Letter Responding to Chinese Medical Association Agreement on Organ Harvesting
Posted by Author on October 31, 2007
by Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, David Matas and David Kilgour, and Human Rights Law Foundation, October 25, 2007-
An Open Letter Addressed to the World Medical Association
The recent agreement between the World Medical Association and the Chinese Medical Association (CMA) to end organ sourcing from prisoners in China except for prisoners donating organs to their immediate family members is welcome. We are pleased to see that the agreement covers all prisoners and not just prisoners sentenced to death. This broader terminology means that, in principle, the agreement encompasses also Falun Gong practitioners who are held in detention but sentenced to nothing. Yet it does not remove all our concerns.
A. The CMA is not a governmental entity. Its promise to avoid organ sourcing from prisoners indicates the good will of some Chinese medical doctors. However, it is not binding on the government. The CMA cannot make decisions for the government. The Government sets the rules for associations and not vice versa. The practice of sourcing organs from prisoners, whether prisoners sentenced to death or Falun Gong practitioners, was and is tolerated by the Chinese government. It is only the Chinese government that can stop this practice.
B. Even if it had been the Government of China, which had entered into the agreement instead of the CMA, it is questionable whether the agreement would be effective. The Chinese government has over time issued several laws and regulations prohibiting the selling of organs without the consent of the source. The very repetition of such laws is evidence that these laws are not effective.
The Chinese government has had a history of duplicity in this field. An example is the case of Dr. Wang Guoqi. On June 27, 2001, Dr. Wang Guoqi testified before the Subcommittee on International Operations, Organization, Democracy and Human Rights of the U.S. Congress, that organs for transplants are sourced from prisoners. The Chinese government called him a liar. This position was held until 2005, when for the first time Chinese officials admitted publicly that they indeed harvested organs from prisoners.
C. Liu Zhi, of the CMA's international department, said that the agreement with the WMA has no legal effect. He expressed the hope that the agreement would influence China's 500,000 doctors and government decisions. This statement, in our view, minimizes the effect the agreement might have.
At the very least, the CMA can insist that its own members comply with the terms of the agreement as a precondition for continued membership in their association. The fact that the CMA has not done this indicates a less than wholehearted support for the agreement.
D. The agreement does not address the issues of onus and standard of proof. In many cases in China, medical doctors are supplied an organ and told a source, but make no independent determination whether what they are told about the source is accurate or not.
In this regard, the Professional Code of Conduct of the Medical Council of Hong Kong is instructive. One principle is that, "if there is doubt" as to whether the consent is given freely or voluntarily by the organ donor, the profession should have nothing to do with the donation.
A second principle is that the onus is on the transplant professional to ascertain the status of the donor. The professional is not acting ethically as long as he or she makes no inquiries or only cursory ones. The transplant professional, after investigation, has to be satisfied beyond any doubt before participating in a transplant operation that consent was given freely or voluntarily by the donor.
The agreement with the CMA would not mean very much if CMA doctors could claim respect for the agreement simply by turning a blind eye to practices around them. The agreement needs to ensure that Chinese transplant professionals are respecting the substance of the agreement as well as its form.
E. There is no verification system in place to determine whether or not the agreement with the CMA is being kept. Such a verification system needs to be independent from the Government of China and the CMA itself. There has to be transparent documentation of the sources of organs used by CMA doctors in transplant operations. The CMA should make accessible to the World Medical Association and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as human rights lawyer's organizations, transplantation numbers which involve CMA members, donor names, and the names of the immediate family members who may receive transplants from prisoners.
Regrettably, right now in China there is no publicly available information on numbers of convicts sentenced to death and executed. This information should be publicly available. That would, one would think, be a simple task, now that the Supreme People's Court in Beijing must approve all death sentences. The CMA should ask the Government of China to make this information available.
F. In China, transplant surgery has become essential for financing the medical profession and hospitals. A dramatic decrease in transplant surgeries would impose a substantial financial burden on the health care system. Without an increase in Government funds to the health care system, it is unlikely that hospitals will cease relying on transplant surgery for funding. While sourcing of organs and payment for organs are conceptually distinct, they are linked in fact. The need for funds pushes doctors and hospitals to increasing transplant numbers and using historically available sources—prisoners.
The CMA agreement does not bind doctors who are not members of the CMA. In particular, it does not bind military doctors who are not members of the CMA or military hospitals. Yet, organ recipients recount that military doctors and hospitals are heavily involved in organ transplant surgery.
H. The agreement with the CMA does not change the Chinese infrastructure for organ transplants. China still does not have a public organ donation program. There is still no law allowing for organ sourcing from the brain dead but cardiac alive. According to Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu, ~95% of all organs for transplants come from prisoners. The implementation of the agreement with the CMA, in the absence of an organ donation system and a brain dead law, would mean that organs for transplantation in China would be almost non-existent, an unlikely result.
I. The mere fact that the recipient is an immediate family member of the prisoner does not automatically mean that the prisoner has freely consented to the donation. Our concern about this exception is heightened by the fact that people in China can be sentenced to death for a wide variety of economic and political crimes. We are aware that this exception is found in the World Medical Association's Policy on Human Organ Donation and Transplantation. However, it is not to be found in the ethical principles of the Transplantation Society. In our view, the prohibition without exception, which the Transplantation Society has adopted, is preferable to the prohibition with the immediate family member exception, which the World Medical Association has adopted. The case of China highlights why this exception is problematic.
We note the statement of the former chair of the WMA, Dr Yoram Blachar, who led the WMA delegation to China, that differences between the two sides remained. We urge the WMA to continue to press the CMA on this issue until this appalling practice in China of killing prisoners for their organs ends entirely.
Torsten Trey, MD
Chief Executive Director, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH)
David Matas and David Kilgour, JD
Co-authors of the report Bloody Harvest
Theresa Chu, Carlos Iglesias, Terri Marsh, JD
Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF)
– Original letter from David Kilgour's website
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Whither The Party-state in China Abroad and At Home? Speech by David Kilgour
Excerpts from an address by Hon. David Kilgour, J.D, Speakers Series, St. Mary's University College, Calgary, (Canada), September 27, 2007-
WHITHER THE PARTY-STATE IN CHINA ABROAD AND AT HOME?
Hon. David Kilgour, J.D.
Calgary, September 27, 2007
We Canadians respect and like the people of China for many reasons, including their courage, success with agriculture, culture, hard work and love of education. It is no accident that more than one million Canadians of origin in the Middle Kingdom are reportedly our most highly-educated cultural community. It was an honour to represent those of them living in southeast Edmonton in our national Parliament for about 27 years.
Our differences are with the unelected government of the PRC and its international and domestic policies and not with the human values of the vast majority of Chinese nationals. Paradoxically, it is the friends of the Hu-Wen government who are the China bashers today as they fail to differentiate that government from the real China. The Chinese deserve the right to elect their governments in fair and free elections.
Roles Abroad
Canadian and other media outside China have begun to focus on Beijing's destructive roles in a number of countries. Thanks to books such as James Mann's The China Fantasy, key components of the longtime consensus among many Fortune 500 executives, sinologists, politicians and diplomats are being 'mugged by reality'.
Mann concludes that the party-state in China undermines human values abroad wherever it can get a foot in a door. In the case of Zimbabwe, for example, he reminds readers that it gave Robert Mugabe a honourary degree, economic aid and helicopter gunships despite heading a most brutal regime. For Uzbekistan, when President Karimov ordered a murderous crackdown on protesters, Beijing supported him.
With Russia, during the 1991 coup attempt by military and intelligence officials against Mikhail Gorbachev, China's government-owned media gave extensive and positive coverage to the plotters, barely mentioning Boris Yeltsin or his democratic allies, and was disappointed when the coup attempt failed.
'Bloody Burma'
Many Canadians are watching with horror the unfolding situation in Burma. The Nobel Peace laureate and democracy advocate Aun San Suu Kyi has reportedly now been thrown by the generals into prison after spending most of eighteen years under house arrest after she and her National League for Democracy won a fair and free election. Seven unarmed persons were killed last night; more than a hundred were injured; two hundred were arrested. Buddhist temples are being ransacked and monks beaten.
Permit me to focus briefly here only on the various attempts by the government of China to oppose the most recent effort by the peoples of Burma to achieve the rule of law, democracy and national reconciliation. Its efforts to shore up the generals' junta have included:
Using its permanent veto at the UN Security Council to keep the ongoing Burma tragedy away from the Security Council agenda for more than 15 years. When it finally reached the Council last November, the China representative worked hard to remove it quickly, while providing no help to the long-suffering peoples of Burma;
In January, it vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on the generals to cease persecuting minorities and opposition leaders;
This week, it managed to prevent the Security Council from imposing sanctions of any kind on the junta or even condemning the use of force in Rangoon, allowing the Council only to express "concern"; and
Having its diplomatic envoy in Burma say after meeting the Foreign Minister there recently that Beijing wants "a democratic process that is appropriate for the country." The current government of China clearly opposes democracy in any country.
As another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jody Williams, pointed out yesterday, Beijing's longstanding support for the military junta includes modernizing their army and providing weapons valued at $1.4 billion. Its concern about what is happening in the country currently is really about how its role there might affect its Olympic Games.
In addition to the "Genocide Olympics" in respect of Darfur and the "Bloody Harvest Games" because of its treatment of Falun Gong practitioners, the world now has the "Burma Junta Olympics" to ponder in deciding if it really wants to attend those games. What else will arise between now and next August?
The government of China's interference at the Security Council in respect of Burma is similar to its ongoing efforts there in respect of shielding another military regime in Khartoum. The modus operendi is the same: feign concern about the ongoing loss of civilian lives out of real concern about possible negative fall-out for the Olympic Games, while ensuring that as little as possible is done to block the ambitions of two bloody regimes with which the government of China does much business and has much in common.
Over the past decade, the government of China has provided Sudan's Bashir government with more than $US 10 billion in commercial and capital investment, mostly for oil investments, with crude oil comprising virtually all of Sudan's exports and much of it going to China. Approximately seven percent of China's oil imports currently come from Sudan. According to one source within Sudan, up to 70 percent of the Sudanese government's revenues from oil are spent on arms, a good deal of them from China. Nick Kristof of the New York Times has reported that the government of China has built four small arms factories in Sudan.
A key service provided to Bashir's government is using China's permanent veto at the UN Security Council to protect the Sudanese regime from any robust peacemaking initiatives while the slaughter in Darfur continues. Only following Mia Farrow's op-ed piece in March, 2007, which accused the government of China of assisting in genocide, did China's UN representative join in the Security Council initiative to send 26,000 police and soldiers to Darfur.
The specifics of UN Security Council resolution 1769 passed this summer demonstrate how well Beijing continues to protect Khartoum: The hybrid UN/African Union force will have no authority to seize weapons from belligerents, thus probably making it impossible to control the Janjaweed and other militias that have been slaughtering African Darfurians; there is no provision for sanctioning the government in Khartoum in the probable event that it refuses to comply; the watered down command-and-control provisions will inevitably create problems between the African Union commander on the ground in Darfur and the UN Department of Peacekeeping in New York… (to be cont'd)
WHITHER THE PARTY-STATE IN CHINA ABROAD AND AT HOME? (cont'd)
Oppression within China
According to Freedom House, fully half of the world's populations living in "not free" conditions are in China. Free countries are defined by Freedom House as ones where "there is broad scope for open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civil life and independent media…Chinese citizens do not have the ability to democratically elect their leadership or to participate in any political activity outside what is prescribed by the Chinese government. Basic civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion and even personal autonomy are highly restricted."
The same study notes that the government of the PRC imprisoned more journalists than any other country in the world over the past eight years. Only last year, Hu Junta's government silenced the media with new regulations, which jailed outspoken writers and restricted coverage of breaking news. The media across China are now barred from criticizing senior party leaders or their policies, and ones who do not play along on party news content are harassed, fired or jailed. As someone noted, the only thing readers can believe in most dailies in China is the date.
The government of China spends huge sums of money and deploys tens of thousands of police to block citizen access to websites and in monitoring their emails. The foreign companies and consultants who assist them in building and maintaining this "Golden Shield" are violating many of the principles of free speech and corporate social responsibility.
The Chinese penal code currently prescribes capital punishment for 65 offences, including "undermining national unity". The official number of executions in 2005 was 1770 persons- 81% of the known world total. It was probably much higher in number. One must, however, give credit to the government for directing in 2006 that all death penalty appeals must be heard in open court. I'll come shortly to another kind of execution in China for Falun Gong prisoners of conscience-virtually none of which are ever convicted of any offence or go near any court.
Tibetan Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and practitioners of other religions face harassment and much worse. The religious freedom recognized in the constitution is given little heed in practice, with only party-managed spiritual groups being fully tolerated. In Tibet, for example, photos of the Dalai Lama can lead to imprisonment; only boys who sign declarations denouncing him can become monks. In Xinjiang, the predominant Muslim Uighur people have been severely persecuted on the pretext that some are terrorists.
Thousands of North Koreans have fled into China to escape food shortages, religious persecution and the terrible conditions of large forced labour camps. The government of China, however, forcibly repatriates such refugees, well-knowing that they face prison, torture and possible execution because it is a capital offence to flee the Hermit Kingdom. This violates a 1951 UN Convention and its 1967 Protocol that guarantees protection for refugees, both of which were signed by China.
Recently, I saw a photocopy of the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, done by the Canadian John Humphreys in 1946. The adopted version, also accepted by China, outlines each individual's right to freedom of assembly, speech, thought and other rights. Until all the citizens of China enjoy these basic dignities, all thoughtful persons must continue to protest. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
The number of public demonstrations by aggrieved Chinese citizens is growing. The public security ministry admits that that there were 87,000 "public order disturbances" in 2005, up from 74,000 in 2004 and 58,000 in 2003. Their major cause, as Freedom House notes, is the "confiscation of land without adequate compensation, often involving collusion between local government and developers…Environmental destruction as a direct result of rapid development has also been a source of mass protest." I might add an obvious point here that China's use of coal and other energy sources is highly inefficient: for every thousand units of energy, China produces only US$ .70 in additional GDP whereas Japan in contrast adds US$ 10.50.
Gao Zhisheng and family
There are many families who should be mentioned when individual cases arise concerning the dismal state of human dignity across China, but in view of Goa's recent re-arrest in Beijing permit me to identify him and his wife as genuine national heroes. David Matas and I have nominated him for this year's Nobel Peace Prize as a figure in the Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclev Haval and Aung San Suu Kyi tradition.
Gao's recently-published outside China, A China More Just, is as interesting as it is courageous. His parents were so poor that they lived in a cave in rural China. After his father died, Gao had to fend for himself from the age of fifteen. After serving in the army, he studied law by correspondence and managed to pass the practice examination. From the start, he donated part of his time to helping clients fighting injustices and was later named as one of China's best lawyers. When, however, he attempted to defend a Falun Gong practitioner, the government closed down his office and swarms of police began to harass him, his wife and two children constantly.
In August 2006, Gao was arrested and he was eventually convicted of "subversion", bringing a three-year sentence suspended for five years and a suspension of political rights for one year ( i.e. until after the Games are over next summer). Earlier this month, he released a statement (available at david-kilgour.com under 'Gao solemnly denies all charges') in which he explains why he signed a confession. Perhaps even more disturbing than what the police did to him to obtain it is what they did to his wife and two young children. On Sept. 22 nd, Gao released a statement to members of the American Congress (also available on the website.)
Following an independent investigation, David Matas and I concluded to our horror that since the latter part of 2000 the government of China and its agencies have murdered thousands of Falun Gong practitioners across China without any form of prior trial and then sold their vital organs for large sums of money often to 'organ tourists' from wealthy countries.
If any of you doubt the weight of the cumulative evidence in our report, you can access the revised version at david-kilgour.com. Most who have read are convinced of the dismaying validity of our conclusion. Some in national governments of varying political colours, who are no doubt privately persuaded, unfortunately choose to say otherwise in public because to concur that such crimes against humanity are continuing in China would presumably require some different bilateral policies with the party-state in Beijing.
None of these deaths would be occurring if the Chinese people as a whole enjoyed the rule of law and their government believed in the intrinsic worth and dignity of human beings. Most lives in China have no more value to those in power than does their natural environment, work safety, consumer protection, health care for farmers, or the lives of African residents in Darfur or Burmese nationals. In my judgement, it is the toxic and lethal combination of totalitarian governance and virtually 'anything goes' capitalism that allows this situation to continue across the Middle Kingdom today…
Challenging the government of China over its partnership roles in Sudan, Burma and elsewhere probably offers the best hope to save civilian lives internationally. The key task is to inform widely about the government of China's actions.
What would happen, for example, if Canadians of varying ages and backgrounds were to demonstrate in front of the Chinese consulate in Calgary, declaring with banners and placards that the government in Beijing must be held accountable for its complicity in the Darfur genocide and violence in Burma? What if such demonstrations are continuous, and grow, and spread to China's missions in other countries? What would happen if everywhere Chinese diplomats, politicians and business people travel they are confronted by those who insist on making it an occasion for highlighting China's destructive roles internationally and at home? To succeed, the campaign must be creative and focused. It must take advantage of every means offered through electronic communications.
The general lack of effective advocacy initiatives has not been lost on Khartoum's génocidaires. Despite the enormous and consequential successes of the American-led divestment campaign, pressure must be ratcheted up even more. Other Canadian and European companies should follow the lead of Germany's Siemens and Switzerland's ABB Ltd., who have both suspended operations in Sudan. Let's demand the same thing for Burma? Why would the government of Alberta agree recently to sell blocks of oil sands land to a Chinese oil company with close links to the government? The task is daunting but fully achievable, given the moral passion and creative energies of the Darfur and other advocacy communities.
Finally, the last words of the preface from The New Chinese Empire ( 2003) by Ross Terrill of Harvard University, who has spent his life studying and writing about the country: "One day the Communist regime in Beijing will pass away, in part for the reasons Suharto fell, in part for the reasons the Soviet Union collapsed, and we should be prepared…for the dangers and opportunities of that moment. The War on Terrorism has sharpened the issue of democracy in world affairs. Ultimately, terrorism is the antithesis of freedom and accountability. In between lies dictatorship. The 21 st century seems likely to be less kind to dictatorship than was the 20th century."
– Original article from David Kilgour's website
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David Kilgour: Organ Pillaging AND Olympic Games in China
Posted by Author on September 20, 2007
Notes for Address by Hon. David Kilgour, New South Wales Parliament Auditorium, Sydney, Australia, September 7, 2007, published on David Kilgour's website–
ORGAN PILLAGING AND OLYMPIC GAMES
David Kilgour
David Matas and I of Canada concluded to our horror following an independent investigation that since the latter part of 2000 the government of China and its agencies have murdered thousands of Falun Gong practitioners across China without any form of prior trial and then sold their vital organs for large sums of money often to 'organ tourists' from wealthy countries, including APEC member countries. There is no indication that organ pillaging is on any agenda at the APEC heads of government and business meetings here this week.
If any of you doubt the weight of the cumulative evidence in our report, you can access the revised version in seventeen languages from the first item on the header page of david-kilgour.com. Virtually no independent person I know who has read it is not convinced of the dismaying validity of our conclusion. Some in national governments of varying political stripes, who are no doubt privately persuaded, unfortunately choose to say otherwise in public because to concur that such crimes against humanity are continuing in China would presumably require some different bilateral policies with the party-state in Beijing, quite possibly in respect of its Olympic Games in the summer of 2008.
None of these deaths would be occurring if the Chinese peoples as a whole enjoyed the rule of law and their government believed in the intrinsic worth and dignity of each one of them. Most human lives in China have no more value to those in power there than does the natural environment, pensions (only a fifth of workers have them), work safety, health care for farmers, or the lives of African residents in Darfur. In my judgement, it is the toxic and lethal combination of totalitarian governance and virtually 'anything goes' capitalism that allows this new form of evil to continue across the Middle Kingdom today.
One of the members of the Chinese delegation to the APEC conference now in this city is Commerce Minister Bo Xilai. Bo was governor of Lianong province when egregiously brutal tortures and murders of numerous Falun Gong practitioners took place. The Matas-Kilgour report quotes in appendix 18 a woman whose then surgeon husband removed the corneas from the eyes of approximately 2000 practitioners in a hospital in Bo's province while he was governor. There are lawsuits proceeding against him in ten countries, including Canada, and I'm told that he is being served this week in Sydney for another begun in Australia.
The propaganda phase of the government of China's war begun in mid-1999 against a then estimated 70-100 million Falun Gong practitioners demonized, vilified and dehumanized them in the state-controlled media. Many Chinese nationals and others outside China were thereby persuaded to think of the community as disruptive and tragically even somehow less than human.
As Ross Terrill of Harvard University's Fairbank Centre for East Asian Research puts it in his thoughtful 2003 book, The New Chinese Empire: "The Fearful State in Beijing had transformed Falungong from a harmless, health-promoting lifestyle choice of millions of mostly older Chinese into a menace to the "stability and unity" of the Red Middle Kingdom. That loyal and quite senior members of the CCP, some in the army, police and air force, were among the Falungong membership did not undermine the imperative to stamp out a potential, if unwitting, philosophic challenge to the state."
The phenomenon recalls the similarly inhuman media campaign unleashed by the government of Rwanda against the minority Tutsi community in that country prior to the genocide there between April and June, 1994
My own experience with Falun Gong practitioners in the almost forty countries David Matas and I have now visited, seeking to raise awareness about what is continues to be done to them in China in order to bring it to a full halt, has been overwhelmingly positive. They really do attempt to live their core principles of "truth, compassion and forbearance", which are by the way shared by most of the world's religions. I recall, for example, sitting in an Athens park a month ago with some of them when someone spotted a Euro coin on the ground. No-one would pick it up because the practitioners felt it was unearned and thus should be left where it was.
One wonders why is it that in only one of the seventy or so countries where practitioners live are they persecuted mercilessly by an unelected regime? Their huge and growing popularity among the Chinese people during the 1990s was clearly one reason, but another was no doubt that the values of those in power in Beijing are clearly at the opposite end of the ethical spectrum from their own.
There has been no independently-reported instance of a Falun Gong practitioner using violence to respond to police and other attacks by officials upon them since July, 1999. The UN Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Novak, concluded following his visit to China a year or so ago that fully two thirds of the persons being tortured across that country were Falun Gong practitioners. How can such a government be hosting next year's Olympic Games?
Matas and I have spoken in various places to a small number of the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have been sent to labour camps since 1999, who managed to leave both the camps and China itself. They worked in appalling conditions for up to sixteen hours daily with no pay and little food, making export products, ranging from garments to chopsticks to Christmas decorations for multinational companies. As this constitutes gross corporate social irresponsibility; the CEOs of multinational companies using forced labour subcontractors within China should be held fully accountable.
Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, wrote in Wealth of Nations that all business must rest on an ethical base and that all transactions must be fully voluntary. Where then is the basis for multinational companies in APEC member countries investing shareholders' money in China today? What is the World Trade Organization (WTO) doing about such obvious violations of its rules by the government of China, contrary to solemn undertakings it made upon joining the WTO six years ago? How can multinationals subcontract for forced labour when only a little effort on their part would indicate that the prisoners of conscience manufacturing their consumer products have rarely been convicted of, or even charged with, any offence? Did we not recently celebrate the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in countries like Britain?
Finally, for those who assert naively that they are not Falun Gong practitioners and thus have nothing to worry about in China, consider what Pastor Martin Niemoller said after his years in Hitler's concentration camps ( I thank our courageous host here in this legislative building, Rev the Hon.Dr Gordon Moyes, MLC, for reminding me of this famous quote):
"They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up."
What can we all do to stop organ pillaging? E-mails to MPs, friends and blogs will help. Probably 'naming and shaming' the party-state in Beijing with placards in front of embassies, consulates and events attended by Chinese officials offer the best leverage in the months leading up to the Olympic Games next August. As the world saw in the case of Mia Farrow's 'Genocide Olympics' comment about Darfur, the regime does listen when the success of its Games might be in jeopardy. Let's use some 'Bloody Harvest' placards.
People of conscience should come out to support the Global Human Rights Torch relay when it comes to more than 100 cities in 35 countries on five continents. You can get more information on the web at www.humanrightstorch.org. Thank you.
– Original report from David-Kilgour.Com : ORGAN PILLAGING AND OLYMPIC GAMES
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New Zealand MPs Discuss China's Bloody Organ Harvest
By Sarah Matheson, Epoch Times Staff in Wellington, New Zealand, Sep 13, 2007-
New Zealand Government officials met with Canadian dignitaries on Tuesday to discuss the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Green MP Keith Locke, Labour MPs Steve Chadwick and Russel Fairbrother, National MP Wayne Mapp, and independent MP Gordan Copeland, met former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia Pacific David Kilgour and International Human Rights Lawyer David Matas in a select committee room at Parliament House.
National MP Wayne Mapp said he hoped to raise China's organ harvesting in Parliament on Thursday.
He said politicians feel there are a number of things they need a higher level of evidence about before they can act.
"One is the scale of the camp system in China, we know it's extensive but we don't know how big it is. Is it small or big?
"The second thing is the number of Falun Gong practitioners arrested without trial.
"The third thing is 3032 people tortured to death for practicing Falun Gong, we need to substantiated that."
Mr Matas replied the details for each victim are in the appendix of the report he wrote with Kilgour called the Bloody Harvest.
Mr Kilgour then asked Mr Mapp if he had read the report. He said he hadn't.
Mr Kilgour asked the MPs to table the report in Parliament. It is a revised report released in January that almost doubles the evidence of their first report.
Mr Mapp replied it would be better if they tabled the Bloody Harvest at a Select Committee meeting.
Auckland City Councilor and member of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) Cathy Casey also attended the meeting with the MPs.
"Last year I had my kidney removed and I know why people would go to China – it's not their fault. There are 300-400 people on waiting lists in New Zealand for a kidney transplant," Dr Casey said.
Auckland's sister city – Guangzhou brought the city around $50 million last year, mainly through international students. Dr Casey said when the new mayor is elected she will ask him to raise the organ harvesting issue with his Chinese counterpart.
"What kind of society is this that we allow these atrocities to happen?" she asked.
MFAT meeting
Mr Matas and Mr Kilgour also met a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) official earlier on Tuesday.
Mr Matas and Mr Kilgour expressed their concern about the looming Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China to the MFAT official, because they said, a large number of goods from China are made in forced labour camps.
The MFAT official replied that a customs inspector in Beijing would ensure that no Chinese products made in forced labour camps would enter New Zealand.
Mr Kilgour said one customs official was "laughable".
Fair Trade not Free Trade
Mr Kilgour asked 250 people at a public forum called Behind the Rise of China at Victoria University, whether they supported a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China. Two people raised their hands in support.
The panelists raised concerns about the organ harvesting of Falun Gong, Internet repression, human rights abuses, the two China's – the one perceived by Westerners and the one the Chinese people see, unsafe products from China, counterfeit goods, and the use of slave and child labour.
Amnesty International campaign manager Gary Reese said unfortunately the use of child labour was on the increase again in China.
"Labour rights are virtually nonexistent in China.
"There is only one union and it is sanctioned by the Government. It is not doing a good job," he said.
Amnesty International estimates 250,000 people are detained in labour camps in China, and a 2006 US State Department report shows that more than 50 percent of the prisoners held in these camps are Falun Gong practitioners.
Mr Matas said getting statistics about executions in China is very difficult because the Chinese regime will not give them to outsiders.
"Amnesty International tabulates deaths from executions by tabulating newspaper reports. And there is no way newspapers document all executions," he explained.
Mr Matas has been involved in investigating the Holocaust.
The Bloody Harvest report is available in 17 languages and provides 33 different kinds of evidence of state-sanctioned organ harvesting in China, Mr Kilgour told the MPs.
Evidence from the Bloody Harvest report
41,500 organs transplanted in China could not be accounted since 2001
There is no donor system in China – executed prisoners supply the Chinese organ trade.
A Chinese surgeon removed the eyes of 2000 Falun Gong practitioners, appendix 18.
Phone calls to 15 hospitals in China to inquire about the use of Falun Gong practitioners organs in transplant operations, appendix 14.
SOURCE: Bloody Harvest: Revised Report Into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. Kilgour, D., and Matas, D. January 31, 2007. http://www.organharvestinvestigation.net
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China Organ Harvesting Report Authors Win Rights Award During APEC
Posted by Author on September 6, 2007
By Shar Adams and Fang Xiao, Epoch Times Australia Staff, Sep 04, 2007-
Two Canadian dignitaries will be the only Westerners among a field of Chinese to receive awards at a human rights ceremony in Sydney this week.
The Honourable David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, and international human rights lawyer David Matas will receive the Guarding Justice Award for their report on illegal organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China and for their continuous efforts to bring international attention to human rights issues in relation to China.
The Asia-Pacific Human Rights Foundation will present the awards at a ceremony in the New South Wales State Parliament on Wednesday September 5, a statement said.
A range of human rights activists in China are to receive awards, including Professor Ding Zilin, who will receive the Casper Award as the representative of the Tiananmen Mothers group.
Professor Ding's only son was killed by the Chinese army as he attended the student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Only 17 years old, her son was shot as he was yelling: "Don't use force against the people," Professor Ding told a CNN reporter.
Since then, Professor Ding has been an advocate for the relatives of those who died in the Tiananmen Square massacre by gathering financial support and collecting and collating evidence about the event.
Another award recipient is Chinese literary critic Mr Liu Xiaobo, who will receive the Conscience Courage Award as the current chairman of the literary freedom group PEN in China.
Safeguarding Citizen's Rights and Resisting Violence awards will also be given to the Heilongjiang farmers Yang Chuanlin and Wang Guilin. Both rural activists were arrested in July this year for helping thousands of farmers protest at being thrown off their land by corrupt Communist Party officials. Mr Yang was also publicly advocating the slogan: "Human Rights wanted, Not Olympic Games". According to Mr Yang's family, he was officially charged with "inciting subversion of state power" on August 23.
The Human Rights Awards ceremony is one of a number of events staged to draw attention to China's human rights violations during the APEC leaders meetings in Sydney. …… ( more details from the Epochtimes' report: China on The Public Agenda During APEC)
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David Kilgour: One Torch, Five Continents, Many Cities, Many Peoples
Speech, by Hon. David Kilgour, J.D., on Human Rights Torch Lighting Ceremony at Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece, 9 August 2007-
One Torch, Five Continents, Many Cities, Many Peoples
by David Kilgour
Standing here at the Constitution Syntagma Square, I'm delighted to be in the city where the modern Olympics were founded in 1896. The Olympic Charter espouses "respect for universal fundamental ethical principles" and the "harmonious development of man with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."
Virtually one year to the day before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, what is the state of dignity among the people of China for whom all of us here tonight and across the world have enormous respect?
Independent international organizations and observers have been saying for several years that human rights abuses by the government of China are worsening as August, 2008 approaches, not improving as it promised in its successful bid to win the right to host the games.
David Matas and I completed the revised edition of an independent study earlier this year, which concluded to our horror that since 1999 the government of China and its agencies in numerous regions of the country have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience (It is available in seventeen languages at organharvestinvestigation.net). Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers and corneas, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices and to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.
This is absolutely not what we expect from any government hosting the Olympics.
Should not the importance of saving human lives-in this case an exercise-spiritual community whose numbers were estimated by a department of the government of China to be in the 70 million range in the late 1990s-override any sporting event, including even the 2008 summer Olympics?
If the killing of Falun Gong practitioners across China does not stop immediately- and we'll all know if it does- people of goodwill everywhere should call for a shunning/boycott of the "Bloody Harvest Games" or the "Genocide Olympics", as Mia Farrow termed them in connection with the government of China's role in Darfur.
In the meantime, I'd urge all of you to support the Global Human Rights Torch Relay of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG). One torch, five continents, many cities, many peoples, let us light the torch and let the bright light of justice all the corners of our world!
– This speech available on David Kilgour's website
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Human Rights Group Lights Torch For Beijing Games Boycott
By Karolos Grohmann, Reuters, Aug 9, 2007-
ATHENS (Reuters) – Hundreds of human rights activists from across the world gathered in central Athens on Thursday to launch a global torch relay urging the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics over China's human rights record.
Beijing has been under fire for what groups say are extensive human rights violations, including against the spiritual group Falun Gong, ahead of next year's Games.
China classified Falun Gong as a cult and banned it in 1999. Since then the group has campaigned from abroad against what it says is brutal persecution of its followers in China.
Organizers of the event in the central Syntagma square, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), said Beijing was involved in systematic "organ harvesting" from jailed Falun Gong members and other dissidents.
"We want to put enough pressure on China to stop killing its people and selling livers and kidneys to people around the world," former Canadian junior foreign minister David Kilgour told Reuters.
Kilgour, co-author of a report on Chinese "organ harvesting," said the International Olympic Committee was turning a blind eye to violations of its own charter.
IOC President Jacques Rogge on Monday fended off criticism saying the Games were a force for good but were no panacea.
"That's garbage," said Kilgour. "Jacques Rogge should know what the Olympic charter states. It talks about human dignity."
The global human rights torch relay will stop over in 25 countries and more than 100 cities in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, organizers said.
Among the speakers were former Olympic athletes, including the 2006 Olympics luge bronze medalist Martins Rubenis from Latvia.
"The Chinese Communist Party has not fulfilled the promise to adjust the situation of human rights," Rubenis said.
Beijing marked the one-year countdown to the Games on Wednesday with spectacular celebrations in Tiananmen Square.
– Original report from Reuters
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Boycott 2008 Beijing Olympic, Say Olympians and Activists
Posted by Author on August 9, 2007
By Jan Jekielek, Epoch Times Staff, Aug 09, 2007-
ATHENS— Just hours prior to the opening of the Human Rights Torch Relay in Athens on August 9, activists and olympians called for the world to boycott the Beijing 2008 Olympics, citing a clear message: The Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot co-exist in China.
(photo: David Kilgour speaks at a press conference prior to the opening of the Human Rights Torch Relay in Athens on August 9, as 2006 Winter Olympics Bronze medallist Martins Rubenis, official Ambassador of the Relay, looks on.– Jan Jekielek/The Epoch Times)
"This torch relay is aimed at urging the international community to boycott the Olympic games in Beijing, as we believe that hosting … [them] would be a travesty of the Olympic spirit and a direct violation of the Olympic charter," said Charles Graves, leading member of the Committee to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG). Graves is also Secretary-General of the NGO Interfaith International and a regular U.N. advisor.
The HR Torch Relay, initiated by CIPFG, is aimed at exposing and stopping the worst human rights violations in China, and will run parallel to the official Olympic Torch Relay, which began on August 8.
Graves was joined at the press conference by two Olympians: Jan Becker, an Australian swimmer in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and 2006 Winter Olympics Bronze medallist Martins Rubenis, official Ambassador of the HR Torch Relay.
"I believe the Olympic Games have always been a symbol of high moral standards, a natural striving of harmony between physical strength and spiritual force of human being," said Rubenis.
"The Communist regime of China has no right to represent the highest principles of the Olympic movement."
Jan Becker is shocked that simply because she started practicing the Falun Gong spiritual discipline, she has been forbidden by Chinese authorities from attending the 2008 Games. Furthermore, she believes that Olympic athletes are being asked to censor their opinions as the Games approach.
"Here in Australia I believe that the athletes have been threatened. If they talk about Falun Gong … they will be dropped from the team. Now this has come out through a person who knows somebody who's an athlete in training. They're not going to say much because they'll be dropped from the team," she said. She says she hopes some Australian athletes will go public with this information, but acknowledges that the prospect of going to the Olympics may be too strong for such an action.
Also at the conference was David Kilgour, co-author of the major report on organ seizure from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience in China. Kilgour focused on the organ harvesting issue, while also outlining a series of other violations currently taking place there.
"If the killing of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience across China does not stop immediately, and we'll all know it if it does, people of goodwill everywhere should immediately call for a boycott of the Bloody Harvest Games," said Kilgour.
Press conference speakers agreed that a boycott in itself is not the main issue. The activists' stated goal is to use the threat of boycott to pressure Beijing into stopping some of the worst human rights violations happening in China today.
"The government of China is extremely sensitive on the Games; that's why they acted on Khartoum [a reference to Beijing sending an envoy to Sudan at the urging of Steven Spielberg], that's why I hope that they will act on this killing of Falun Gong practitioners, said Kilgour.
Kilgour highlighted an August 7 letter sent to numerous China human rights activists as well as politicians, signed by forty prominent writers and scholars from China. It demands that Beijing 2008 Olympic slogan be modified to "One World, One Dream, and Universal Human Rights," and that Chinese leaders stick to this provision, immediately giving "amnesty to all prisoners of conscience" as a start.
"We need support of all the medias, to let the world know what is happening, and this is the only way the athletes are going to find out," said Becker.
Additional reporting by Nicolas Schols and Stephen Smith
– Original report from the Epochtimes : Boycott Beijing 2008, Say Activists
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Press Release: Opening Ceremony of Global Human Rights Torch Relay on August 9
Press Release, http://www.nieuwsbank.nl, 09-08-2007-
Olympics and Crimes Against Humanity Cannot Coexist In China
ATHENE, 2007/08/08 — Initialized by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) and supported by many organizations and individuals, the Human Rights Torch Relay will officially have its opening ceremony to light the first flame on August 9, 2007 in Athens, Greece.
More than 100 cities from 30 countries will join the torch relay after the ceremony, calling on the international communities to focus on brutal violations of human rights and the Olympics spirit by the Chinese Communist regime, in order to stop such crimes and not let the 2008 Olympic Games become "Bloody Harvest Games".
For years, the Chinese Communist regime has been persecuting people in China, such as Christians, Catholics, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners. The crimes of torture and genocide they have committed against humanity have been condemned worldwide. The 2008 Olympics were offered to Beijing for the regime to improve its crude human rights record.
However, instead of stopping its persecution, the regime has made use of the Olympics to further repress people in China, damaging the Olympic spirit of peace and human dignity.
Moreover it also supports crimes outside China, particularly the genocide in Darfur, which has been well exposed by the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and actress Ms. Mia Farrow, who consequently dubbed the 2008 Olympics the "Genocide Olympics".
Greece, as the origin of Olympics, will receive many politicians, human rights organizations and Olympians as well as representatives of Chinese human rights defenders to attend the press conference and/or the ceremony, including:
Mr. Martins Rubenis, Mrs. Jan Becker, Olympic medal winners;
Hon. David Kilgour, former Canadian Parliament member and one author of the investigation report, which verifies ongoing organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China;
Mr. Michael Ghiolman III, Ghiolman Yachts Travel Aviation, President of Environmental – Ecological – Cultural and Development Society, whose grandfather and grandfather's brother helped to organize the first Olympic Games in 1896;
Mrs. Melanie Fleck, Austrian Singer;
Dr. George Karahalios, prominent Mass Media Communicator & Lobbyist;
A Traditional Greek Music Band
Press conference:
King George II, 3 Vas Georgiou A' St 105 64, Athens
Time: 12:00pm – 1:30pm, 9th August 2007
Opening Ceremony:
Syntagma Square, Athens
Time: 20:30 pm – 22:00pm 9th August 2007
The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) is an international non-government organization established in 2006 when the brutal crime of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China was exposed to the public. It consists of over 300 members from four continental delegations around the world, from politicians to doctors, from lawyers to religious groups.
The European delegation is chaired by Baroness Caroline Cox, member of the House of Lords (UK).
CIPFG since its set up has been requesting the Chinese regime to stop the persecution of Falun Gong, and allow the independent investigation by the international community inside China. However no response from the regime has been received.
On May 30, 2007, CIPFG announced in Canada the statement-Olympics and Crimes Against Humanity Cannot Coexist In China.
On June 8, CIPFG wrote to the Chinese leaders Mr. Hu Jintao and Mr. Wen Jiabao, to ask them to stop the persecution by August 8, 2007, otherwise CIPFG would call for a worldwide boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
The Human Rights Torch Relay, initialized by CIPFG, has been widely joined and supported, by for example Network for Human Rights in China (Denmark), International Society for Human Rights (Germany), Doctors Against Organ Harvesting (USA), Canadian Students for Darfur, and especially large numbers of people in China who recently sent out the message to ask for "No Human Rights, No Olympics".
Contact Greece:
Fotini Bakatsia, Tel +30-6973 579932,
Kostas Tsolis, Tel +30-6947 421621
Email: cipfg_greece@cipfg.net
Contact Holland:
W. Stuifbergen, Tel 070-3456851 fax: 010-4613979
Dhr. M. `t Hoen, Tel 06-44173026 fax: 010-4613979
Email: olympischespelen@cipfg.nl
www.cipfg.org
www.boycottccpolympic.org/ol/en/ol2.jsp
– Original report from http://www.nieuwsbank.nl : Global Human Rights Torch Relay
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Human Rights Challenge to Beijing Olympic Games Heats Up
Glen McGregor, CanWest News Service, Via Vancouver Sun, Canada, August 08, 2007-
OTTAWA – At the birthplace of the Olympic movement, a former Alberta Liberal MP will ignite Thursday what he hopes will become a global movement to boycott next year's Summer Games in Beijing.
Calling the 2008 Games the "Bloody Harvest Olympics," David Kilgour is inviting the media to Athens to cover a Global Human Rights Torch Relay. Once lit in Athens, the torch will travel through 100 cities around the world.
The year-long relay is designed to draw attention to allegations of crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese government against practitioners of Falun Gong.
The relay comes as China faces increasing scrutiny over human rights in the runup to the Olympics.
On Wednesday, China expelled three Canadians who had been detained after unfurling a banner on the Great Wall in protest over the occupation of Tibet.
Canada's Green party called on the government to exert diplomatic pressure on China to keep the Games from being tarnished by human rights violations.
While Thursday's torch-lighting is unlikely to spark a widespread boycott of the Games, it will help establish Kilgour's reputation as a leading voice for Falun Gong practitioners in their campaign against the Chinese government.
Followers describe Falun Gong as a peaceful belief system that preaches compassion and tolerance. China considers it a dangerous cult that has led devotees to resist needed medical attention and, in rare cases, to self-immolate in protest.
CanWest News Service
– Original report from Vancouver Sun
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