London Free Press - Canada
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Falun Gong claim believers' organs sold
Thu, September 7, 2006
By PATRICK MALONEY, FREE PRESS REPORTER
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A group of Falun Gong practitioners -- armed with stunning accusations against the Chinese government that's outlawed their beliefs -- brought their controversial protest to London yesterday.
The half-dozen believers are touring Southwestern Ontario to air the charge that China's Communist rulers are harvesting and selling organs from jailed Falun Gong believers.
"It's so horrific," said protest leader Clement Sun, 32, a four-year Falun Gong follower who got Canadian citizenship this summer. "They not only want to kill you, they want to take your organs, they want to steal your life."
Ottawa's Chinese Embassy called the accusations "groundless and biased" when they first received attention here in July.
But MP David Kilgour and rights activist David Matas have published a report they say conclusively confirms the Falun Gong claims. The report is online at www.organ harvestinvestigation.net.
"We believe that there has been and continues to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners," the report says. "Each piece of evidence we have considered is, in itself, verifiable and in most cases, incontestable. Put together, they have painted a whole damning picture."
Sun, who will be camping at night with his fellow protesters while swinging through Windsor, Sarnia and Chatham, described Falun Gong as a "spiritual teaching" typified by a handful of meditation exercises.
First popularized in 1992, Falun Gong attracted 70 million followers in China within seven years.
It was banned that same year, 1999, in a move Sun and his colleagues say was prompted by Communist party fears of losing power to the growing movement.
The core beliefs of Falun Gong are truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, but the benefits can be life-saving -- which makes abandoning the practice difficult, Anne Wang, 64, said outside London city hall yesterday.
A handful of local followers also gather every weekend in Gibbons Park, said 26-year-old Steven Chang.
"This is a crime against humanity," Chang, who works at a London call centre, said of the Chinese oppression. "I want to ask our Canadian people to end this persecution."