Falon Gong practicioners are being murdered by the Chinese government say adherents to the spiritual practice.
Organ tourism, where one travels to another country in an effort to procure a necessary vital organ for transplantation purposes, especially with regards to organ trafficking, needs to stop but because it is such a highly lucrative trade on the black market, Falun Gong representatives say it is unlikely.
That was the message behind a Human Rights Car Tour stop in Barrhead Oct. 13 where Falun Gong practicioners staged an impromptu press conference outside the Town of Barrhead building.
Falun Gong is a Qigong discipline that combines slow-moving exercises and meditation grounded in a moral philosophy centred around the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
Introduced by Li Hongzhi in 1992, the practice has over 100 million followers and was the subject of an eradication campaign initiated by the Communist Party in 1999.
“We want to let the public know that this is a serious human rights issue, not a political issue and it is genocide propagated by the communist regime currently in power in China,” Minnan Liu, a member of the tour and Falun Gong practicioner, said.
“We are urging everyone we meet, whether they are residents, councillors, members of parliament or MLAs to write letters and stand with us against the murder of innocents for the purpose of organ harvesting.”
Liu said the persecution of Falun Gong practicioners has been going on for 17 years.
“I know it is hard for other people to accept something like this, but it is true,” she said, adding between 60,000 and 100,000 organ transplants occur in China yearly.
“The reality is that we don’t have an official organ donation system in China and only 137 people have signed up with the Red Cross to do so since 2006, so where are all of the other organs coming from? Through raising awareness, we have the potential to save human lives.”
Fellow Falun Gong member Shar Chen agrees.
“Since 2009 there have only been 120 people officially on the organ registry,” she said, adding in her opinion the Communist Party of China is muddying the waters.
“They are throwing numbers out there that don’t exist and the huge disparity is due to the murder of innocent people in this state-orchestrated genocide.”
The tour, which began on the east coast, has reached 300 cities across Canada — 50 in Alberta to date, and Chen said in a lot of these places, the heartbreaking truth is that the majority of people do not know about the cause.
Chunyan Huong, a Falon Gong practicioner and the only member of the tour who did not attend the Barrhead press conference, said the whole point of the tour is to raise awareness.
“The persecution against Falun Gong is really a persecution against humanity,” Huong said in a telephone interview Oct. 12, adding while many people think the issue is only relevant to China and the surrounding countries, the reality is organs harvested and sold on the black market are available worldwide.
“It is a state-run killing directed by the government and the party in power. The numbers are truly shocking when you think about the people killed and those involved. All of the hospitals that can do transplants, more than 700 of them, are involved.”
It is a new form of genocide Huong alleges the world does not acknowledge.
“Along with the other members of the tour, I can understand how hard it is for people in Canada to accept that this is happening, but the fact is you are too kind a people,” she said.
“People who have relatives in China, who are involved in Fulon Gong and yet no longer live there, these people live in fear still despite living thousands of kilometres away,” she said.
“Facing this crime as a thinking human being, we should say no to Chinese imports and take a stand in defence of the innocent people being murdered,” she said.
“It is too evil to be believed but it is comparable to the Second World War when Hitler was murdering the Jews,” she said. “People living outside Germany couldn’t believe it then and people living outside of China can’t believe this now.”
For more information on Falun Gong, visit www.faluninfo.net and for information about the ongoing organ transplant issue, visit www.stoporganharvesting.org or sign the petition to end forced organ harvesting at endorganpillaging.org/an-update
