Calls for action against live organ harvesting of Falun Gong

Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are said to die each year in China. Evidence reportedly indicates these prisoners are also victims of having their organs harvested by force. Calls for action are being voiced from various corners of the world.

Stop using illicit Chinese organ transplants: experts

‘BLOODY HARVEST’:More than 88% of Taiwanese who go abroad for their transplants go to China, where forced harvesting from executed prisoners is reportedly common

Foreign medical and legal specialists yesterday discussed legislative developments in their home countries on regulating organ transplants abroad and urged the Taiwanese government to recognize the seriousness of the organ-harvesting crimes perpetrated in China and to legislate against organ transplants using illicit or unknown organ sources.

China’s Forced Organ Harvesting is “a crime against humanity”- EP Hearing

[Leonidas Donskis, EP Human Rights Subcommittee Member]:
“People who are behind this are criminals. This is a crime against humanity.”

At this hearing (Religious Persecution by China: A Horror Story)—held at the European Parliament in Brussels on January 29—doctors, politicians and human rights defenders discussed how prisoners of conscience in China are persecuted, tortured, and in some cases, killed for their organs.

Video Interview: Details of China Human Organ Harvesting – David Kilgour, David Matas

Chinese Version of ‘Bloody Harvest’ Released in Taiwan

The two authors of the book Bloody Harvest, who were also 2010 Nobel Peace Prize nominees, attended the launch for the Chinese translation of Bloody Harvest, held at the Legislative Yuan (the national legislature) in Taiwan on June 28.

Each of the two authors, David Kilgour, who was the former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), and David Matas, the award-winning international human rights lawyer, spoke.

David Kilgour said that since 2006 he and David Matas had traveled to four continents and more than 40 countries, breaking through various obstacles to collect evidence, and arrived at the conclusion that large-scale live organ harvesting from Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) practitioners did happen and continues even today.

U.N. Rights Body: China’s forced Disappearance of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng violates international law, Gao should be released immediately

(Reuters) – China’s best known rights lawyer, missing for nearly a year, is being detained in violation of international law, a United Nations human rights body said in a statement made public on Monday, and it called for his immediate release.

Researchers Unravel Horrors in China- Five years on, forced organ harvesting continues

The story was hard to stomach— gruesome, at the very least. What started as a rumor, however, would later unfold into a campaign of brutality and horror perpetrated by the Chinese regime.

International human rights lawyer David Matas was in his office when the story broke in March 2006. It flowed into his e-mail box along with the flood of human rights updates he reads daily.

It told the story of a woman under the pseudonym “Annie,” whose husband suffered nightmares, as he suffered for the terror he had inflicted on more than 2,000 people.

International Women’s Day: Violence against Women A Chinese Communist Party Tool of “Transformation”

New York— A 25-year old kindergarten teacher unable to walk after being sexually assaulted with a broom in a Hebei labor camp (news). A once-brilliant Tsinghua University student driven to insanity by sexual abuse and rape (news). A woman from Hunan in her eighth month of pregnancy given a forced abortion and then sent to a prison camp for six years.

These are three of the reports the Falun Dafa Information Center received in the last year from friends and relatives of female Falun Gong practitioners in China. They represent only a small sample of abuses inflicted by the Chinese authorities on women who practice Falun Gong.

Source of Organs for Transplants a Mystery in China- No voluntary donations in Nanjing City for a year

Each year 1.5 million people in China need an organ transplant, but no one wants to donate. This was shown in a recent study reported by the Yangtse Evening Post. After one year, a pilot organ donation program in Nanjing City found zero volunteers.

The Feb. 24 piece in the Post said Nanjing was one of the ten cities chosen for the 2010 pilot because of its rapidly expanding population of 6.3 million. Not only were there no takers last year, but over the past 20 years there were only three voluntary donations, the article said.

Why I Protested Hu Jintao at the White House- Former News Reporter’s Account

By Wenyi Wang-

On April 20, 2006, I interrupted remarks by China’s paramount leader Hu Jintao at a press conference at the White House with a simple protest: I shouted and held up a banner.

In my protest I shouted two phrases in Chinese. I first shouted “Stop the persecution of Falun Gong.” I did so to try to stop an atrocity then unfolding in China. We had learned that the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners in China was accelerating.

Doctor warns medical community about China’s organ harvesting

By Melissa Evans Staff Writer, Dec. 22, 2010 –

For Dr. Eric Jay Goldberg, an international organ transplant expert, the math doesn’t add up.

In the United States, those who need kidney transplants wait between three to five years for donor match to surface; for those who need a liver, the wait is about seven years.

But for paying customers, China will perform kidney transplants in a week, and can find a liver in about a month.

“You would have to have thousands and thousands of donors to satisfy that demand,” said Goldberg, who spoke Wednesday at a medical center in Torrance. “China can hardly account for that kind of supply.”

Speech: Organ Pillaging, Ongoing Crime Against Humanity by Chinese Party-State

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.

Speech: Preventing Organ Transplant Abuse in China

By David Matas-

The following remarks were delivered at a United Nations Conference called “Advance Global Health” in Melbourne, Australia, on Aug. 31.

David Kilgour and I have concluded (first in a report released in July 2006 and updated in January 2007, and then in a book titled Bloody Harvest, released in November 2009) that Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in China in the tens of thousands so that their organs could be sold to transplant patients. I invite you to take a look at our report, which is online, or read our book to see how we came to that conclusion. Falun Gong is a simple set of exercises with a spiritual foundation that started in China in 1992 and was banned in 1999.

This abuse in China has to be of concern to the global community because it is a grave human rights violation which should concern all humanity, but also because the developed world has been complicit in the abuse. When China shifted from socialism to capitalism, the state withdrew funds from the health system.

Since 1980, government spending dropped from 36 percent of all health care expenditure to 17 percent, while patients’ out of pocket spending rocketed up from 20 percent to 59 percent. A World Bank study reported that reductions in public health coverage were worsened by increases in costs by the private sector.

According to cardiovascular doctor Hu Weimin, the state funding for the hospital where he was working was not enough to even cover staff salaries for one month. He stated: “Under the current system, hospitals have to chase profit to survive.” Human Rights in China reports: “Rural hospitals [have had] to invent ways to make money to generate sufficient revenue.”

Hospitals needed to find private funding to replace state funding. Foreign sales of organs became the primary money maker. The Organ Transplant Centre of the Armed Police General Hospital in Beijing for instance stated on its website: “Our Organ Transplant Centre is our main department for making money. Its gross income in 2003 was 16,070,000 yuan. From January to June of 2004 income was 13,570,000 yuan. This year (2004) there is a chance to break through 30,000,000 yuan.”

The Chinese health system began the organ transplant business by selling organs of prisoners sentenced to death. However, eventually, despite the large number of death sentences and executions in China, this supply became insufficient. So hospitals and prisons turned to another source—Falun Gong practitioners.

For years, patients from developed countries came over in the thousands to buy organs in China. The Government of China, in June 2007, ordered the hospitals to give priority to local patients. What before was a foreign flow became a trickle. Transplant volumes today are at traditional levels. So, with minor variations, are the sources. However, the patient composition has changed dramatically.

We cannot nonetheless say that because the patient composition is now mostly local, Chinese organ transplant abuse has ceased to be an international problem. If a pusher gets a client addicted to heroin, the pusher cannot claim innocence because the client now grows his own opium. If a bartender plies a client nightly with drinks and the client becomes an alcoholic, the bartender cannot later plead that the client now uses only his own home made moonshine.

Learning from the Chinese experience and reacting now is more than just shutting the barn door after the horses have escaped. Even the trickle of foreign patients now justifies concern. As well, learning from the experience helps us prevent its reoccurrence…….(more details from The Epochtimes)

First Batch of China’s Torture Victims’ Personal Account Video- Case 3, Wu Yueqing

First batch of 7 (seven) videos documenting the tortures suffered by Falun Gong practitioners in China has been released by WOIPFG (World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong). Most of these video recordings were done after 2007, with the latest ones done on August 2008.

Some of the victims could no longer speak, some of them died shortly after video taping was done due to severe injury.

The personal account of the victims reflects just how savage and brutal the torture has been over the past 10 years and is still going on today in China.

Case 3

Name: Wu Yueqing (吴月庆)
Gender: Male (男)
Status: deceased
Location: Shuangyashan city (双鸭山市), Heilongjiang province (黑龙江省), P.R.China (中国)

Brief (简介):

Mr. Wu Yueqing was a Falun Gong adherent from the city of Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang province.

He was abducted numerous times because of his cultivation in Falun Gong. In January 2002 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, and was detained at the 23rd unit, 11th ward at the Mudanjiang prison in Heilongjiang province.

He was tortured during detention, resulting in muscular dystrophy, and deteriorating of multiple organs.

He was persecuted to death on December 23 2007. At that time, his sister Wu Yuexia was also imprisoned at the labor camp because she practiced Falun Gong.

Their 13 years old son was orphaned without anyone’s care after Wu’s wife died later, he was sent to the Jiamusi Orphanage. The video was recorded before Wu’s death.

Full Report of this case:

English: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articl…
Chinese: http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/20…

Related:
– International Investigation Organization Releases First Batch of China Torture Victims’ Personal Account Video- Case 1
– First Batch of China’s Torture Victims’ Personal Account Video- Case 2, Wang Xinchun

Eleven Years Killing of Chinese People’s Conscience and Falun Gong’s Peaceful Activism

Press Statement, from the Falun Dafa Information Center, 20 Jul 2010 –

NEW YORK – Eleven years ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party launched a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong—a peaceful and popular spiritual practice embraced by tens of millions of Chinese citizens.  But the practitioners of Falun Gong are not the only victims, and the lives destroyed and lost are not the only costs.

Following the Communist Party’s decision to suppress Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Falun Gong books were burned in mass public displays, the state-run media turned out a deluge of propaganda to vilify the practice. Falun Gong practitioners were stripped of their rights to free expression, religious practice, and legal protections. Schools expelled students for practicing Falun Gong, and workplaces turned in employees to be imprisoned and tortured.

Falun Gong practitioners today represent the largest group of prisoners of conscience in the world, with hundreds of thousands extra-judicially imprisoned at any given time. Tens of thousands have been tortured in custody as prison guards attempt to force them to recant their beliefs. They are shocked with electric batons, burned, hung from ceilings, and beaten. They are denied adequate nutrition, and force-fed with hot peppers and human excrement. Women are raped, and even children and the elderly are not spared imprisonment and abuse.  Mounting evidence suggests many—thousands or even tens of thousands—have been killed for the extraction and sale of their vital organs. In 2009, over 109 reports were verified of practitioners killed as a result of abuse in custody.

Even outside of China’s borders, Falun Gong adherents are not free from the threat of surveillance, intimidation, defamation and even violence at the hands of Communist Party agents.

The Killing of Conscience

The Communist Party’s campaign of suppression is not merely about the physical security of Falun Gong adherents. Rather, it represents a threat to something far more fundamental and lasting:  the rights of individuals to seek to better themselves, and the collective values and integrity of an entire nation.

When the suppression in 1999 started, Falun Gong practitioners had never expressed any political ambitions. They were not subversive. They did not advocate for political transformation, and instead sought only the transformation of their own hearts. But even though they were not political dissidents, they were spiritual dissidents. In a nation where violence had been glorified, they chose to believe in compassion and patience.  In a system pervaded by deception and corruption, they practiced truth. And in a China whose new mantra was that ‘to be rich is glorious,’ they sought meaning not in the pursuit of money, but through meditation, self-reflection, and the practice of altruism.

As Falun Gong grew in China—with an estimated over 70 million people practicing by 1999—its popularity attracted the ire of top Communist Party leaders, who viewed its moral philosophy as ideological competition. This dynamic was described in an editorial from official Communist Party mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency, which ran on July 27th, 1999, declaring: “the ‘truth, kindness and tolerance’ principle preached by [Falun Gong] has nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving to achieve.”

The persecution aims not to kill Falun Gong practitioners; deaths in custody are generally a by-product. The true objective is forced religious conversion. Individuals who aspire to lead moral lives, who aspire to altruism and kindness, are imprisoned, vilified, and tortured for the purpose of turning them into people without spiritual belief. After they are “reformed” through coercion and abuse, they are then forced to partake in the “transformation” of other Falun Gong practitioners.  In a sense, the goal of persecution is to turn law-abiding people who aspire to kindness into people who inform on and torture their friends.

A Nation Victimized

Falun Gong practitioners are not the only victims of persecution in China.  The suppression of Falun Gong has been directed by the Communist Party and its security forces, but it has been executed with the help and acquiescence of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens.

Police officers who entered their profession in order to protect the people have been forced to imprison elderly women for meditating in parks. Labor camp guards are threatened with the loss of jobs if they don’t partake in the torture and abuse of Falun Gong detainees, and reporters and editors are forced to print hate speech against the practice. School teachers are required to ensure that none of their students believe in Falun Gong, and employers are made to turn in productive employees to be sent to labor camps. Ordinary citizens are offered monetary rewards for informing on their neighbors who practice Falun Gong, and judges are not allowed to rule in favor of justice when Falun Gong adherents are brought before them.

And if nothing else, Chinese citizens have been told by their country’s leaders to hate Falun Gong, to feel contempt for its teachings of truth, compassion, and tolerance, and to stay silent when faced with injustice.

These are the other victims of the suppression of Falun Gong. True, they are not behind bars, nor denied educations and jobs because of their beliefs.  But they have been denied something even more important than physical freedoms—a clean conscience. They have been robbed of their integrity, blinded from truth. And it is for these people for whom Falun Gong adherents in China continue to risk their lives.

Since the suppression of Falun Gong began eleven years ago, the response by Falun Gong practitioners has been a path of non-violent efforts to educate their compatriots of the truth. They have countered a barrage of official propaganda with underground printing houses, where they create informational materials about the real nature of their spiritual beliefs. They have launched a satellite television station to broadcast uncensored news to China, and developed circumvention software to break through Internet censorship, enabling millions of Chinese citizens to freely access information. They have nurtured performing and visual arts groups to bring a message of peace, compassion, truth and hope to the Chinese people.

Today, there is reason for optimism. As time has worn on, a growing number of Chinese people are refusing to be complicit in the persecution against Falun Gong. By the hundreds of thousands, they write letters to Falun Gong websites expressing their support and solidarity with persecuted adherents. Dozens of human rights lawyers are now actively seeking to defend Falun Gong adherents, even though they know doing so will result in their disbarment and possibly torture.

More and more Chinese people are refusing to be cowed by threats of violence, because they know that a life lived without freedom of conscience is not a life worth living. They realize that the right to seek truth and to pursue self-actualization is what makes us human.  It is what makes a person strong, it is what gives meaning and value to life. It is what enables a nation or a culture, to flourish, and it is these things that, one day, can truly enable the nation of China to reach its full potential, a China that the world would like to see.

– The Falun Dafa Information Center: Eleven Years of Persecution and Peaceful Activism

Editorial: Enduring Darkness and Radiating Light– Falun Gong Practitioners in 11 Years of Persecution

By The Epoch Times Editorial Board, July 20, 2010 –

"Shaken" by Chen Xiaoping, the Gold Award-winning painting in the Second Chinese International Figure Painting Competition. (Provided by NTDTV)

Eleven years ago this week, Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), started an all-out persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. The years since have been extraordinary for Falun Gong practitioners, the people in China, and free nations around the world.

In the past 11 years, the world has witnessed the pain and suffering Falun Gong practitioners have gone through. The CCP, in addition to spreading outrageous lies, has tortured Falun Gong practitioners with means of torture used only in the darkest eras of humankind, such as the needle club, steel wire, copper whip, bramble whip, genital beating, rape, and the like.

A report by the United Nations special rapporteur on torture listed at least 40 types of torture used by the CCP against Falun Gong practitioners.

According to reports on Clearwisdom, a website run by Falun Gong practitioners, there have been at least 3,300 confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners; over 100,000 have been sentenced to labor camps; thousands more have been sent to mental hospitals where the tortures may include nerve-damaging drugs.

Untold numbers of practitioners have been forced to attend brainwashing classes, and untold numbers have been beaten, made to stand for hours or days on end, and extorted by law- enforcement officials.

Because of the CCP’s information blockade, only a fraction of the abuses suffered in the ongoing persecution are known.

Moral Test Faced By All

The CCP has used its enormous political, economic, and diplomatic resources against Falun Gong, forcing everyone inside and outside of China to choose whether to side with the persecution or to oppose it. The persecution stands opposed to modern civilization, and so its continued existence only highlights the persecutors’ cruelty as well as the moral dilemma that our era faces.

The contest between good and evil always determines the course of civilization. For instance, by the end of World War II, freedom had prevailed over fascism. Civilization has been built on a set of universal moral principles, and when such principles are destroyed, civilization will cease to exist. The sharp decline in morality visible in China today is precisely due to the CCP’s destruction of traditional morality.

When the CCP persecutes a group that believes in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, it actually attacks the most fundamental standards of human morality. If the CCP were allowed to have its way, our moral heritage and our civilization would collapse.

The CCP’s attempt to persecute Falun Gong and the efforts to stop this persecution are a battle between good and evil. To keep silent in the face of the persecution is to stand idly by while the foundation of civilization is under attack. That this persecution has been allowed to last 11 years is an enormous shame for our age. The sustained persecution tries our conscience.

Starting 11 years ago, China slipped into a period of extreme darkness: Peasants have had their land expropriated; workers have been forced to retire early; people have seen their homes forcibly confiscated and torn down; underground Christians have endured harsh suppression; dissidents and human rights defenders have been jailed. Ordinary Chinese have experienced indescribable ordeals.

Turning Back the Darkness

On May 9, 2009, 6,000 Taiwanese practitioners in golden and white costumes formed an image of "Zhuan Falun," the book that guides practitioners in their cultivation. (The Epoch Times)

During the unprecedented, dark pressure of the past 11 years, Falun Gong practitioners’ behavior has surprised everyone. From the beginning to the end, they have remained peaceful and calm, a most remarkable characteristic. The practitioners’ peacefulness goes from the inside out, penetrates all around them, and reveals to those who wish to see it a path that might have otherwise been regarded as inconceivable.

Eleven years ago, Falun Gong was practiced in 30 countries. Since then, Falun Gong has been calmly and peacefully spreading and is now practiced in 114 countries. Today, Falun Gong can be found in most areas in Asia, North America, South America, and Europe, and in some African countries. Falun Gong books have been translated into over 40 languages.

Inside China, the unyielding spirit of Falun Gong practitioners has inadvertently reversed the dangerous trend of the moral collapse of the entire society.

In the most difficult of situations, Falun Gong practitioners have forged ahead and in doing so have revived the Chinese people’s upright spirit and morality, which was on the brink of extinction. As a result, the Chinese have found a way out of a fearsome impasse. People are starting to see hope and brightness at the end of the tunnel. In all of history, this is unprecedented.

In the shadow of the Berlin Wall that separated the free West from the communist East, President John F. Kennedy said, “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.”

When Jiang Zemin wantonly twisted the law to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, the CCP officials at all levels began employing the same method to suppress other groups. That was the origin of China’s darkness and corruption we are witnessing today.

We are very fortunate to see how Falun Gong practitioners have responded to the persecution. They have manifested amazing will power, resisted the persecution unyieldingly and constantly, and told the truth to people compassionately, peacefully, and rationally.

Everything done by the practitioners has been done not been merely to protect their own rights, but to protect the legal rights of everyone. Evil can never prevail over good. Their spirit has become the great asset as well as the glory of our time because they have lightened the dark land with the light of their own lives.

– The Epochtimes

Review: 11 Years of Persecution of Falun Gong in China (video)

More:
– State secret: A Staged Tragedy by Chinese Authority: Self-Immolation in Tiananmen Square, 2001

Speech: Stop the Inhuman Persecution of Falun Gong in China

Hon. David Kilgour, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada, 18 July 2010 –

July 20th will mark eleven years of inhuman persecution of the Falun Gong community by the Chinese party-state. It’s thus good to see so many Canadians of such varied cultural and religious backgrounds standing in solidarity today in our national capital. Officials in Beijing must end this horror begun in mid-1999. More and more people across the world are aware of this new crime against humanity and want it stopped now.

We call for the government of Canada to urge the government of China to end the persecution of Falun Gong and to release all Falun Gong and other prisoners of conscience immediately, including 12 with close Canadian ties.

The Communist Party has deployed the most vicious lies in state media to demonize Falun Gong and used all available means to persecute those who believe in its principles. In contrast, for 11 years, Falun Gong practitioners in Canada and around the world continue to use only peaceful means to raise awareness and expose the crimes of the regime, seeking to stop the persecution.

Nature of Falun Gong

Falun Gong is an ancient discipline which encourages ethical standards for cultivating body and character. It contains the essence of traditional cultivation systems, like Buddhism and Daoism (Taoism), combined with a set of gentle exercises. Its core principles are “truth, compassion and forbearance”. It today reaches millions of people of diverse backgrounds in many countries.

In China where it first became public in 1992, Falun Gong grew to numbers greater than the membership of the Communist party within seven years (70-100 million by the government’s own estimate). The party panicked on seeing nationals in the tens of millions engaging publicly in a form of exercise which had an underlying belief system different from communism. A dilemma for President Jiang Zemin in 1999 was not only that Falun Gong was authentically Chinese and growing across the country among citizens of all ages, regions and occupations, including party members; it was also that Marxism as a European ideological import into China is patently foreign. Communists saw a China-based philosophy cutting out from under them the thin ground on which they still stood.

Fearing Falun Gong’s growth, the party has repressed it with a brutality since July 1999. Torture, rape, beating to death, detention in labour camps and brainwashing have become reality for many Falun Gong practitioners across the country. Today, they comprise two-thirds of the torture victims and half of the people detained in labour camps across China. The documented yearly arbitrary killings and disappearances of Falun Gong exceed by far the totals for any other victim group in China.

According to the research of David Matas and myself, set out in our book Bloody Harvest, practitioners have been killed in the thousands since 2001 so that their organs could be trafficked to both Chinese nationals and foreigners. Our report indicating that this grotesque commerce is occurring on a large scale across China. Our report is accessible in 18 languages at www.organharvestinvestigation.net

The details about the state of human rights in China can be found at many independent sources, including:Falun Dafa: (http://faluninfo.net).
Human Rights in China:  http://www.hrichina.org
Human Rights Watch:  http://www.hrw.org/en/search/apachesolr_search/china
Amnesty International:  http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/china.

Conclusion

We respect the people of China. Canadians of origin there taught us much about the history, culture, inventions, economy, resilience and other strengths of their homeland. It is concern for the Chinese people that moves so many of us to speak up for justice in China. The party-state in Beijing accuses its critics of being ‘anti-China’, but it is the party which is ‘anti-China’ because of its continued exploitation of the Chinese people. Human rights advocates in China, such as the now “re-disappeared” Gao Zhisheng care deeply about improving the lives of the Chinese people. (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/38853/)

Beijing should listen to the world, stop human rights violations and punish all who perpetrate them. One appeal was issued last year by the UN Committee against Torture (CAT). It demanded that China “immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims that some Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to torture and used for organ transplants and take measures, as appropriate, to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.” www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/CAT.C.CHN.CO.4.pdf

The continuing failure to do so puts the government of China in violation of its international obligations under the Torture Convention, which it signed and ratified. It is rare for the UN system to call the Government of China to account for its human rights violations. CAT deserves much praise.

If China were to revive its traditional values, abandon political Leninism and adopt the rule of law, a free media and governance of, by and for all its people- a democracy with very Chinese characteristics-I believe the new century would bring harmony for both China and its trading partners. The Chinese people have the perseverance, self-discipline, entrepreneurship, intelligence, culture and numbers to make a better and more peaceful world for the entire human family.

– david-kilgour.com

David Matas: Lessons From the Holocaust, Organ Harvesting in China

By Fany Qiu & Michelle Yu, Epoch Times Staff, June 20, 2010 –

Men of conscience often face tremendous challenges in life. Driven by their hearts, when exposed to injustice and evil, they cannot turn away; despite the risks, they choose to do what they believe is right.

Oskar Schindler, the heroic figure portrayed in the 1993 Spielberg film “Schindler’s List,” is a historic example of a person who risked everything to save nearly 1,200 Jewish workers from certain death during Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution” genocide targeting European Jews—the Holocaust. The brave Schindler risked life and limb to stand against tyranny and follow his conscience.

Canadian David Matas is also a man of conscience. Although he does not find himself living and surviving daily while surrounded by oppressors, he has seen evidence of great tyranny. His determination to expose unspeakable evil may potentially save hundreds of thousands from the clutches of one of the most oppressive regimes in human history.

Matas, along with former Canadian government official David Kilgour, published “BLOODY HARVEST—Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.” In the report, they summarize their shocking investigation into a modern-day mass genocide:

“We have concluded that the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centers and ‘people’s courts,’ since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers, corneas and hearts, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.”

This conclusion was reached after months of documented, investigative research, and the eventual report released in July 2006. A subsequent 2007 revision of the report, and recently published book “Bloody Harvest,” include new evidence collected by the two authors in ongoing efforts to expose the mass killings.

How does one investigate crimes committed by a communist regime that controls the very flow of information and stifles transparency? “The allegations, by their very nature, are difficult either to prove or disprove,” Matas and Kilgour stated in the “Difficulty of Proof” section in their 2007 report.

Mr. Matas elaborated on this assertion in a recent interview with The Epoch Times. “What was difficult was to figure out a method to approach the issue when there are no corpses [according to the allegation, the victims’ bodies were cremated], no crime scene, no records, no independent media, no human rights NGOs working within the country.”…… (more details from The Epochtimes)

Rape, Beatings and Betrayal: Chinese Government’s Way of “Transforming” of Former Tsinghua University Student

Falun Dafa Information Center, May 28, 2010-

NEW YORK – The life of a top student at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University has been ravaged by a decade of rape, torture and betrayals. According to reports recently received by the Falun Dafa Information Center, the once vibrant and brilliant young woman from Shandong Province, Ms. Liu Zhimei (柳志梅), now lives in a hut, regularly wets her bed, and crouches into the corner of her room with clenched fists whenever someone approaches her. Neighbors have seen her running from her home naked and screaming.

“When Chinese authorities talk of ‘transforming’ Falun Gong practitioners, this is what they mean,” says Falun Dafa Information Center executive director Levi Browde. “They abuse and torment healthy, rational people to the point where the victim either completely gives up his or her personal beliefs and submits to the will of the Chinese Communist Party, dies from abuse, or in the case of this young woman, is driven to the edge of sanity and completely robbed of all human dignity. They drive adherents to the point where life is a living hell.”

“Liu’s case is tragic, but sadly, all too common in China…so many lives have been utterly devastated in similar ways amidst the persecution of Falun Gong.”

In 1997, Liu was admitted to Tsinghua University with the highest entrance test scores in all of Shandong Province. Upon arriving on campus, she took up Falun Gong, which was practiced by over 1,000 students and faculty at Tsinghua at the time.

After the campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong was launched in July 1999, Liu was expelled from school because of her practice. Police detained her on several occasions over the next three years. In custody, she was repeatedly beaten and held for prolonged periods in an isolation chamber. The torture left her with head and chest injuries, a limp in her step, and several missing fingernails.

In November 2002, Liu was “sentenced” in a sham trial to 12 years at the Shandong Province Women’s Prison because of her Falun Gong practice. While at the prison camp, she was pressured by Tsinghua University staff (who would visit her there) and prison officials to become a “helper” – one who helps prison officials coerce and torture steadfast Falun Gong practitioners into renouncing their practice and embracing the CCP’s hardline against Falun Gong – and as a reward, she could return to Tsinghua University as a student.

With the prospect of returning to school before her, Liu agreed. Reports from the prison indicate Liu devised methods for “transforming” fellow Falun Gong practitioners. On occasion, the prison guards coerced her to beat Falun Gong practitioners directly. Liu also began reviewing various subjects in preparation for returning to university. That opportunity, however, never came. As the years wore on inside the prison, she realized the promises of returning to Tsinghua were not true and she fell into despair.

On November 13, 2008, Liu was finally released to her parents’ custody, a mere shadow of the person she was ten years prior.

Liu does not remember her name. She has a large welt around her belly-button and excessive bruising about her buttocks and upper legs. Her breasts sag almost to her waistline though she is not yet 30 years old and she has an extreme deformity in one of her fingers.

Liu often and randomly yells out phrases that provide a glimpse into the torture she faced while imprisoned. While a relative changes her clothing, she will sometimes grab the relative’s hand to her breast and while beating her other breast yell “They beat me here, like this, it hurt so much…” Liu often wets her bed and when approached by someone she doesn’t know, cowers into a corner with fists clenched.

Liu’s mother passed away, in grief over Liu’s imprisonment, in 2007. Liu’s father, Liu Zuorui, had been a Communist Party secretary for the local village. Neighbors report that after Liu returned home, her father often raped her and sold her to other men in the village.

In 2009, local practitioners of Falun Gong took Liu into their home and took turns watching over her. Over several months, Liu showed signs of improvement. She mumbled to herself less and less, stopped wetting her bed, and could even cook simple meals for herself.

On the morning of April 16, 2010, officers from the Bailinzhuang Town Police Station in Laiyang City raided the home of the practitioners taking care of Liu. She, along with four other Falun Gong practitioners, were taken into custody. When interrogated by police, witnesses say she turned into a “completely different person,” professing her “guilt” and extolling the police for abducting her. These witnesses say Liu’s behavior is not uncommon for someone who, after extended periods of torture and pressure, learns to tell police whatever they want to hear in order to avoid further abuse.

Upon discovering she was not mentally stable, the police returned Liu to her father’s home where she remains today.

“Back in 2001, the Washington Post ran an in-depth story on how the Chinese regime was systematically using torture and ‘reeducation’ methods to break Falun Gong practitioners,” says Browde (news). “One of the victims interviewed by the Post concluded after going through the CCP ‘transformation’ process: ‘I have seen the worst of what man can do. We really are the worst animals on Earth.’”

“Liu’s case illustrates what this victim was talking about… the complete destruction of the human spirit. That is the story of Liu Zhimei, and tragically, the story of countless other Falun Gong practitioners who suffer under the CCP’s campaign to ‘eradicate’ Falun Gong.”

Related links:

Washington Post: Torture is Breaking Falun Gong
http://faluninfo.net/article/566/?cid=67

2010 Falun Dafa Information Center Annual Report: “Transformation” and Forced Religious Conversion
http://faluninfo.net/article/1022/

10 Common “Transformation” Tactics
http://faluninfo.net/article/1033/

Ms. Yao Yue, Tsinghua student sent to prison camp for 12 years
http://faluninfo.net/article/758/

– from Falun Dafa Information Center

Annual Human Rights Report release at U.S. Capitol brings together scholars, activists and victims of persecution in China

WASHINGTON DC– The Falun Dafa Information Center marked the release of its 2010 Annual Report on Monday with a press conference and panel discussion at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, introduced the key findings of the report, including the observation that tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners continue to face “lawlessness and brutality” in Mainland China, and that they constitute “the largest group of prisoners of conscience” in the world. (read the executive summary)

“In the persecution of Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is developing more effective and comprehensive mechanisms for brutal suppression and censorship,” explained Browde. “We’re already seeing the CCP unleashing these mechanisms onto other targets…using them against Tibetans, Christians and other persecuted groups, as well as for hiding incidents like SARS and poisonous products, the effects of which reach far beyond China’s borders.”

“In this sense, the persecution of Falun Gong is serving as the CCP’s test lab for tyranny, and the longer it continues, the greater the threat to us all.”

The annual report (full report) includes details of 109 Falun Gong practitioner who died in 2009 as a result of torture and abuse in China, in addition to over 2,000 more who were sentenced arbitrarily to reeducation through labor or prison camps.  Due to the difficulties associated with obtaining information from inside China, the actual numbers are believed to be significantly higher. The report also includes analysis of the origins, motivations, and tactics behind Falun Gong’s peaceful resistance to persecution.

The presentation of the annual report’s key findings  were followed by a panel discussion moderated by Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institution’s Center for Religious Freedom and commissioner with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.  It brought together human rights scholars and authors David Matas, a Canadian human rights and immigration attorney and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, and Ethan Gutmann, author of a forthcoming book on Falun Gong.

Among the findings cited by Gutmann was his estimate, based on extensive surveys with former Chinese detainees, that there are between 450,000 – 1,000,000 Falun Gong prisoners of conscience in China at any given time. Gutmann also explored the history of China’s online censorship, surveillance and denial of service attack capabilities, which he found originated as tools to be used against Falun Gong.

These findings, noted Ms. Shea, highlighted the intersection between human rights or religious freedom issues and U.S. national security concerns.

The panel also featured Dr. Shiyu Zhou, a leading Falun Gong activist for the cause of internet freedom in China, and Ms. Pang Jin, a young Washington DC resident whose mother and aunt were both sentenced in sham trials to long prison terms in 2009 for their belief in Falun Gong.

Ms. Pang referred in her speech to House Resolution 605 (news), which passed in March 2010 and which expresses “sympathy to Falun Gong practitioners and their family members who have suffered persecution, intimidation, imprisonment, torture, and even death” for their belief in Falun Gong.

“This kind of support from kind-hearted Americans really gives hope and light to all the people suffering in China,” said Ms. Pang, who lost contact with her mother after she was sent in a show trial to 10 years in prison. (The Falun Dafa Information Center)

Speeches in Support of U.S. House Resolution 605 on Falun Gong (5)- by Representative GUS BILIRAKIS

From the The Falun Dafa Information Center –

[The U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 605 on March 16, 2010 (news). The voting was preceded by a 13-minute-long floor debate during which Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the resolution’s author and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs spoke, as did Representatives Diane Watson (D-CA) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), all in support of the declaration. Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), who could not attend the debate in person, submitted statements for the record. Below is the Congressional members’ full remarks.]

GUS BILIRAKIS (R-FL)

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 605, which condemns the Chinese government’s targeted, persistent and egregious persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This resolution was introduced last year to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to suppress the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Sadly, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and anyone associated with them, including lawyers who try to defend their human rights, continues today.

Since 1999, 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been sentenced to prison, over 100,000 were sentenced to re-education through labor camps, and at least 3,000 died while in police custody. They have been sent to special high security psychiatric hospitals for the “criminally insane” against their will where torture has been widely reported. Lawyers trying to defend their rights have been harassed, beaten and attacked by police officers in order to intimidate them. One of China’s most prominent human rights advocates, Gao Zhiseng, who has defended the rights of many individuals attacked for their religious beliefs, was detained by police in February 2009 and his whereabouts are still unknown. The government continues to deny any involvement in his case.

The Government of China censors all media in China and actively opposes any information exposing its brutality and injustice. But the truth is clear to us today. This resolution is a testament to the millions of victims of the Chinese Communist Party that the Chinese government cannot hide the truth, and its victims will not be forgotten.

This resolution also stands as a statement of the U.S. Congress’s continued support for the inalienable right to freedom of religion and expression recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that applies to all people everywhere. To be taken seriously as a participant in the twenty-first century global economy, China must take the rights of their citizens seriously. Egregious injustices, such as those suffered by the Falun Gong practitioners and others targeted by the Chinese Communist Party, are unacceptable in a civilized world and must end today.”

– From The Falun Dafa Information Center

Related:
– The complete text of U.S. House resolution 605: calling for an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners in China
– Speeches in Support of U.S. House Resolution 605 on Falun Gong (1)- by Representative Diane Watson
– Speeches in Support of U.S. House Resolution 605 on Falun Gong (2)- by Representative ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (video)
– Speeches in Support of U.S. House Resolution 605 on Falun Gong (3)- by Representative LYNN WOOLSEY
– Speeches in Support of U.S. House Resolution 605 on Falun Gong (4)- by Representative CHRIS SMITH

Baidu Resumes Censorship of Genocide Lawsuits Against Former China President Jiang Zemin

After 10 hours in which Chinese search engines Baidu and Sogou had stopped filtering information related to lawsuits filed against former regime leader Jiang Zemin, the filtering has been resumed.

On March 31, for the first time, information regarding international lawsuits filed by overseas Falun Gong practitioners against Jiang Zemin was accessible to netizens in China by using the search engine Baidu and keywords related to the lawsuits for genocide, such as “Jiang Zemin Genocide Case.”

They were able to read that Jiang stands accused of torture and genocide in 50 lawsuits that have been filed in 17 different countries by Falun Gong practitioners.

Analyst Lu Gaping (Lu Jiaping), a history scholar who has written online commentaries regarding Jiang’s secretive life and misconduct, had remarked that the change suggested Jiang had lost his political influence in China, though the regime is not ready to reveal the fact to the public.

Soon after the Chinese Epoch Times (Dajiyuan) published two articles on the sudden move made by the two search engines, the Chinese Epoch Times showed up in the first page of search results of Baidu.

At around 7 p.m. when The Epoch Times reporter used Baidu and Sogou to search the same keyword, the Chinese Epoch Times’ name continued to appear and even moved up in the list shown in the first page of search results.

However, at around 11 p.m. EST using Baidu and Sogou to search the same keyword, the situation had suddenly changed. An error message read: “Search result probably does not conform with related laws and regulations; Cannot display results.” (The Epochtimes)