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Showing posts with label Kilgour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kilgour. Show all posts

Thursday, June 13, 2013

China kills Falun Gong members for organs, ex-MP says

National Post · OTTAWA — The Conservative government is planning to investigate allegations in a new report that the Chinese government and its agencies are torturing religious prisoners and harvesting their organs, Tory MP Deepak Obhrai indicated on Thursday.

“We take these allegations quite seriously, and we’ll look into that,” said Obhrai, who is parliamentary secretary to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay. “We’ll look to have it confirmed.”

The report, prepared by former Alberta MP David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer David Matas, included transcripts of recorded conversations in Mandarin with hospital and detention-centre officials who admitted they had organs available for transplants from Falun Gong prisoners.

The Chinese government banned the practice of Falun Gong in the country in 1999, and rounded up its members accusing them of anti-government activities.

“What we’ve got here is a new, shocking, different form of evil,” said Matas at a news conference. “The Chinese Communist party sees the Falun Gong as an ideological threat to the regime, because of the large numbers, the ability to mobilize a large group of people, their commitment and their tenacity.”

Obhrai said the government had already been concerned about the issue before the report was released, asking the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture to look into allegations of organ harvesting and human rights violations.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Canada has denied the government has any policy to forcibly harvest organs, dismissing the allegations as “rumours spread by the Falun Gong.”

The report recommends the Canadian government revoke passports of citizens suspected of travelling to China for transplants and stop Chinese doctors from studying transplants in Canada.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Why the government shouldn’t allow the CNOOC takeover: a Falun Gong perspective


Activists level serious allegations against the Chinese state-owned company

by Nick Taylor-Vaisey on Thursday, October 18, 2012 

MacLeans - Yesterday, when I asked readers to direct my reporting on the Hill, someone asked me to tell a story about one of the hottest issues of the past few months.

I didn’t think I’d get a chance to report on that, since I’m sticking to parliamentary committees, for the most part, during this crowdsourcing experiment. But then, lo and behold, an email popped into my inbox announcing a press conference this morning. Former Liberal and independent MP David Kilgour, a human-rights activist and long-time supporter of the Falun Gong, was appearing with Lucy Zhou, the national coordinator of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada. They were there to call on the federal government to block state-owned CNOOC’s takeover bid of Nexen. I checked out the press conference this morning.

(By now, you might have seen some of the reporting that came out of that presser: both iPolitics’ Derek Abma and Sun Media’s Daniel Proussalidis have already filed stories that detail what was presented.)

Zhou presented journalists with 14 pages worth of documents detailing alleged abuses committed by a CNOOC subsidiary in Tianjin, Bohai Oil Corporation, against employees who practiced Falun Gong. The allegations are sweeping, and if you’ve followed Falun Gong protests over the years, the language will sound familiar. It’s unlike anything we’d encounter in Canada.

The documents allude to “brainwashing centres” where some employees were sent; crimes against humanity; mental and economic persecution; forced labour camps; and ransacking, confiscation and kidnapping.

The Falun Dafa allege that in 2005, a 43-year-old Falun Gong practitioner named Wang Yanying was locked up simply for accessing the internet. Later that year, when her contract was up for renewal, she was allegedly told to renounce Falun Gong or be fired. Then, when she was pregnant, she was allegedly arrested—illegally—and sent to a mental hospital where she “was forced to take medication and injected with harmful drugs for ‘psychiatric treatment.’” After that, she was allegedly tortured at a forced labour camp. That’s where “as many as twelve convicts struck her head with electric batons all at once.”

That’s heavy stuff. And documents handed out to journalists chronicled more than a dozen other stories, each similarly disturbing. It’s hard to report that material verbatim, because we’re so removed from it all. But there was Zhou, at the podium, claiming some of the people allegedly persecuted were friends of Falun Gong practitioners in Canada. Would they make this stuff up, or exaggerate it, because they simply don’t like the Chinese government?

It’s hard to know, sitting here on Parliament Hill, where we’re a world away from the answers to those questions.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Baird's trip to China coincides with 13th year of persecution of Falun Gong

Ottawa – As Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird visits China during the 13th anniversary marking the start of the violent state-sanctioned repression of Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Association of Canada joined by the Hon. David Kilgour, former Secretary of State (Asia–Pacific), and Mr. Lizhi He, torture survivor and former prisoner of conscience, held a press conference on Parliament Hill earlier today. The message was clear—to urge Minister Baird to seek end to the Chinese regime’s atrocities against Falun Gong.  Mr. He’s brother, Lizhong He, is one of the eight Canadian family members imprisoned in China now and is currently serving a 3-year jail term.

“We believe it is the best opportunity for our Foreign Affairs Minister to make a statement on the rights of Falun Gong practitioners during his visit to make Canada’s position on human rights and religious freedom clear.  We appeal to Minister Baird to call for an end to the brutal persecution of Falun Gong, which remains the largest scale modern-day atrocity against a group of innocent people for their spiritual belief in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance” said Lucy Zhou, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Canada.  “With a stronger voice to end the persecution of Falun Gong at the transition of the leadership in China, our voice to support justice now can make a huge impact on the future of China that should take pride in placing herself on the right side of history.”

“I hope Minister Baird will extend his helping hand to Falun Gong practitioners, including my brother Lihong He and other seven imprisoned Canadian family members”, said Lizhi He, who spent 3.5 years in a Chinese prison for practicing Falun Gong and was later rescued to Canada and re-united with his wife in 2003.

According to a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Mr. Nowak, while “torture is systematic and widespread,” Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of victims of alleged torture while in government custody. The US State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released last month stated “Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in reeducation-through-labor camps, while the real number could be even higher.”

Hon. David Kilgour and David Matas, renowned human rights lawyer, released an investigation report in 2006 revealing that a large-scale organ harvest of practitioners is happening in China and described it as a “new form of evil on this planet”.

The then-UN special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak and UN special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom both questioned the Chinese party-state about the issue.  “Nowak concluded in March 2007 that the chain of evidence Matas and I were documenting provided a ‘coherent picture that causes concern’. In late 2008, the UN Committee against Torture indicated its concern and called for further investigation.” said Kilgour. “We are at an historical moment, when the Chinese people as a whole and some Chinese leaders appear to be seeking to end the persecution of Falun Gong, the international voices of elected officials such as John Baird can be extremely important.”
  
More: Canada Free Press

Related:

Baird’s Visit to China Rare Chance to Push Rights, Says Group

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

China and the West: An Uncomfortable Connection

By The Hon. David Kilgour on May 16, 2012

I admire the people of China greatly, including their often heroic protests against acts of misfeasance by their government. To his credit, the outgoing premier, Wen Jiabao, has spoken often about the necessity for democratic reform. He recently had a major role in blocking the advance of Bo Xilai to the nine-member Standing Committee of the Communist Party. Bo and his mentor, former President Jiang Zemin, have been among the worst offenders in the ongoing persecution of the Falun Gong movement since July, 1999.  Bo has been removed from his  posts and his wife, Gu Kailai, is under investigation concerning the murder of a British citizen. The next to go will hopefully be Zhou Yongkang, the Party head of security, who worked closely with Zemin and Bo in the persecution of Falun Gong.

The differences real friends of China in open societies everywhere have are with the party-state in Beijing, which is unworthy of the Chinese people and has ruled contrary to their best traditional values since seizing power in 1949. Four major areas of concern at home and internationally today are Maoist governance practices, persecution of religions, state capitalism, and systematic attacks on Internet freedom....

In mid-2006, Canadian lawyer David Matas and I were asked to report independently on allegations that peaceful Falun Gong practitioners were being killed for their vital organs. To our dismay, we located 52 kinds of evidence that a new crime against humanity was occurring across China on a large scale, which continues today. You can access our revised report in 18 languages at http://organharvestinvestigation.net/ or our 2009 book, Bloody Harvest, which is available in Mandarin and English.

International gathering of Falun Gong practitioners

Matas and I have since travelled as volunteers to more than 40 national capitals, meeting with Falun Gong practitioners who managed to leave both forced labour camps across China and the country itself, citizens, legislators, government ministers, academics and journalists in a campaign to persuade the party-state to cease a barbaric national and international commerce. I understand that Wen Jiabao has recently called on the party-state to cease the persecution.

The piece concludes that the persecution of Falun Gong, Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and other spiritual communities continues across China and that “All people of faith and their governments must let the party-state know continuously that they decry its tactics of persecution and intimidation against … spiritual communities.” ...

More: The Metropolitain

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Harper to meet Bo Xilai, persecutor of Falun Gong, in China next week

Check the latest update on this story here

Some of you will remember this past incident reported in this below CFP article about Bo Xilai--the butcher of Liaoning--who's at the top of the RCMP wanted list...PM Harper should definitely start thinking about hanging out with more dignified folks, don't you think? Is he naive or just looking the other way? Scroll down to see an update of Bo's latest campaign of violence against Falun Gong. Who's going to be next?

On the eve of the PM's trip to China can someone please tell him that playing with oil and fire can't be good for Canadians!

Canada's RCMP will protect Chinese Commerce Minister against Falun Gong activists in Ottawa today

Canada Free Press: May 28, 2007, By Judi McLeod -- While their next-door neighbours are paying homage to fallen soldiers during Memorial Day 2007, Canadians will be thwarted from serving papers on an alleged killer and one of China's most notorious crimes against humanity offenders.

Chinese Commerce Minister Bo Xilai--said to be responsible for 100 confirmed torture deaths of Falun Gong adherents while held in police custody in Liaoning Province--is expected in Ottawa today at the invitation of Canada's Minister of International Trade David Emerson.

Accepted on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP's) watch-list in September 2003, Bo is now being given Mountie protection.

"On Sunday May 27th, RCMP Constable M. Mongeon told Falun Gong practitioners that he had received high-level orders to arrest anyone who tries to serve Bo Xilai legal papers." (Falun Dafa Association of Canada).

Bo, 57, Mayor of the City of Dalian, Liaoning when the persecution of Falun Gong was launched in July 1999, is one of the communist party's prize "princelings", the son of a first-generation, high-ranking communist party official. It was while Bo was serving as Governor of Liaoning from 2001 to 2004 when 100 torture deaths of Falun Gong prisoners were confirmed.

All pleas to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, publicly credited for acting with conviction and compassion when it comes to respecting human rights, have fallen on proverbial deaf ears.

With the exception of the National Post, media mewlings about Bo's Ottawa visit today are all but non existent.

The Falun Association of Canada got little help in even being able to pinpoint the timing of Bo's Ottawa visit: "Jennifer Chiu, press secretary at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, did not deny that a visit was in the works but told The Epoch Times Wednesday "the visit is not confirmed". (The Epoch Times, May 24, 2007).

Today Falun Gong practitioners will converge on Ottawa to rally with banners in front of Parliament Hill expressing their outrage over the Canadian government's hosting of Bo.

"Evidence of Bo's complicity in torture and crimes against humanity has prompted lawsuits in 10 countries." (Falun Dafa Association of Canada).

Attorney Lawrence Greenspon states: "Canadians have rights to sue and serve legal documents on those who have wronged them. It is completely unacceptable that the RCMP would protect Bo Xilai from being served with proper legal proceedings."

"We are shocked that our government, who has recently shown some moral stand over human rights abuses in China, has taken such an about face on this issue by shielding a criminal of genocide and stopping Canadians from their right to seek legal redress for crimes against humanity," said Xun Li, Falun Dafa Association of Canada President.

Any diplomatic shielding of Bo flies in the face of the more than 318 documented death cases of Falun Gong practitioners as recent as April 23, 2007. Recent reports from David Kilgour and David Matas show substantial but largely ignored evidence of "large-scale organ seizures" from murdered Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning Province.

Bo, who was scheduled to visit Canada along with current Chinese leader Hu Jintao, made like the Artful Dodger when Liberal Paul Martin was Prime Minister in 2005. Falun Gong activists were proud to acknowledge that it was their protests kept him back in the Orient.

This was how Bo reacted when an attempt was made to serve papers on him in Washington, D.C.: Suddenly clueing in that he had been served with court papers, tyrant like, the ex-governor of Liaoning threw the papers to the ground. Someone in his entourage physically attacked the process server, the process server said.

An attempt to file a lawsuit against Bo in South Africa by nine Falun Gong practitioners met with violence.

On June 28, 2004 enroute from Johannesburg Airport, a gunman with an assault rifle shot at as Falun Gong practitioner's vehicle, hospitalizing the driver. After disabling the car, the would-be assassin made no attempt at robbery and successfully fled the scene. The practitioners believed the gunman was a killer for hire.

Today's visit by Bo to Parliament could be catalogued as the Liberal legacy of Canada's Minister of International Trade David Emerson.

First elected as a Liberal, Emerson served as Minister of Industry under Prime Minister Paul Martin. He was re-elected in the 2006 federal election as a Liberal. On February 6, 2006, Emerson accepted an offer to join the Canadian Conservative Government as Minister of Internal Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. Emerson was never made to answer to constituent voters for being the first Canadian MP to cross the floor after being officially elected--but before being officially sworn in.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: [email protected]

FDI - Sept. 2011: Bo Xilai intensifies Falun Gong crackdown in Chongqing

In recent weeks and months, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Chongqing has intensified under the direction of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head Bo Xilai. According to information obtained from CCP insiders, Bo apparently seeks to capitalize on the crackdown to advance his political ambitions and show that he is capable of wiping out Falun Gong in his jurisdiction. Bo already has a long track record of directing attacks on Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning province where he previously served as a top CCP official. Although Falun Gong practitioners in Chongqing have been persecuted since 1999, recent months have witnessed an intensification of the campaign against them with the following features:
  • Increased abductions: According to records collected by Minghui, the main Chinese-language Falun Gong website, during 2009, there were 188 cases of Falun Gong practitioners in Chongqing being abducted because of their beliefs. By comparison, during the first seven months of 2011, already 224 detentions have been reported.
  • Physical and psychiatric torture at brainwashing centers: In recent weeks, Chongqing authorities have reportedly set up 13 new brainwashing centers for illegally holding Falun Gong practitioners and trying to force them to renounce their beliefs. Several local residents sent to these makeshift detention facilities report being served strange smelling water, which caused intestinal disorders, numbness, nightmares, and slowness of the mind indicating to them that it had been laced with some kind of psychiatric drug. Physical torture has also been reported.
  • Cutting off utilities: Police have been cutting off electricity and water supplies to practitioners' homes in an effort to force them to surrender and be taken into custody for “transformation.”
More at FDI

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Harper should stand against Chinese slave labour

Kilgour and Matas: Most of the population of Chinese slave labour camps are practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that the Communist Party banned in 1999 out of fear that the ideological supremacy of the Party was threatened by its popularity. The U.S. State Department has concluded that “Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in [China’s] re-education‑through‑labour camps.” (Unofficial estimates suggest that there are actually 1,200 forced labour camps, with 2 million inmates.)

We concluded, in two reports in 2006 and 2007 and a book published in 2009 under the title Bloody Harvest, that Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in the tens of thousands, and their organs sold for transplants. Chinese arbitrary detention facilities are not just forced labour camps, in other words: They also are vast forced organ-donor banks.

Goods imported into Canada should withstand scrutiny on both economic and ethical terms. A trade mission to a communist state exporting the products of slave labour around the world at rock bottom prices should do more than seek favourable terms of trade for Canada. Its leaders, including the Prime Minister himself, should do what they can to end the abhorrent practice of slave labour in China.

More at the National Post