| Copyright 2006
Northern News All Rights Reserved Northern News (Kirkland Lake, Ontario) August 16, 2006 Wednesday SECTION: KIRKLAND LAKE & AREA; Pg. A3 LENGTH: 551 words HEADLINE: Group speaks out on alleged organ harvesting BYLINE: Rick Owen BODY: Practitioner of Falun Gong stopped in Kirkland Lake as part of the Canada wide tour to raise awareness of China's government alleged harvesting organs from live Falun Gong members. The main principles of Falun Gong are truth, compassion and tolerance but Clement Sun director of Global Mission To Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners said China's Communist Regime does not tolerate free thinking so Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted in China. Michael Mahonen, who was born and raised in Kirkland Lake and went on to be an award winning actor is a practitioner of Falun Gong. He wrote, directed and produced the film Sandstorm, which tells the story of the persecution practitioners face in China. Mahonen brought his movie to Kirkland last year and showed it at Northern College. Sun armed with statistics questions how the Chinese government went from performing nine organ transplants in 1998 to 2,248 organ transplants in 2005. The total number of organ transplants in Canada in 2004 was 1,773. As well Sun points out that in Canada if you are waiting for an organ it can take a year to find a matching organ but in China one can be found in a week or less. He strongly believes that the organs are coming from Falun Gong practitioners, who are in jails or as Sun calls them concentration camps. This belief has been given some creditability with the release of a study conducted by David Matas and David Kilgour. Matas is an immigration, refugee and international human rights lawyer in private practice in Winnipeg. Kilgour is a former member of parliament and former Secretary of State for Canada in the Asia Pacific Region. The two authors of the report conclude: "Based on what we now know, we have come to the regrettable conclusion that the allegations (of Falun Gong organ harvesting) are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." They also concluded that Chinese agencies, hospitals, dentition centres and 'people's courts are all involved and since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners. In addition to supplying Chinese people with organs Matas and Kilgour say sometimes the organs are sold to foreigners who face long waiting times for organ transplants. The report continues: "It appears to us that many human beings belonging to a peaceful voluntary organization made illegal seven years ago by President Jiang because he thought it might threaten the dominance of the Communist Party of China have been in effect executed by medical practitioners for their organs." The authors point out that their conclusions are drawn from piecing together all the evidence and that each portion of the evidence in itself is verifiable and put together paints a damning picture. The Chinese government has rejected the harvesting allegations. The Falun Gong practitioners that stopped in Kirkland Lake are asking Canadians to write their MPs, MPPs and municipal politicians and ask them to stand up for the Canadian conscience. They are also asking people to write Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to condemn the Chinese Communist Party for its alleged crimes against humanity. As well they are asking Canadians to pray for Falun Gong practitioners. GRAPHIC: Falun Gong practitioners Tiangi Li, left, Celement Sun, Lisa Wang and Vicky Lin are shown in front of Kirkland Lake Town Hall trying to spread the message about the Chinese government alleged harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners in China. LOAD-DATE: August 16, 2006 |