I listened to Rabbi Reuven Bulka interviewing The Honourable Scott Reid (Lanark-Carleton MP) who is the chair of Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, a representative of the Fallun Gong (Lucy was her first name, I never caught her last), and The Honourable David Kilgour, former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, on the matter of the treatment of the Fallun Gong by China. Particularly, the program focused on the harvesting of organs from political prisoners (including many Fallun Gong) in China.
CBC had previously done a piece on this, but this was some time ago. It seems the practice has been going on and may have cost literally thousands of Fallun Gong their lives for organs for Chinese and foreigners looking for organ donors.
In one case that was documented, a man from the Arab world was given eight consecutive kidneys over 4 months due to antibody-based rejections. The Chinese *advertise* and *gaurantee* you'll get a workable organ or they'll keep getting you new ones. As anyone who has worked in civilized, voluntary organ donation will tell you, there is no way you could ever gaurantee someone an organ donor would be available or that you would get eight kidneys in four months. The only way this works is if the people are being selected and killed for their organs.
This is apparently in little dispute - Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Reid both acknowledged that the proof is now well-documented. Over 55 different documented forms of proof exist including official Chinese communications and recorded conversations with officials of the Chinese government (who later tried to say they said something different, but the Canadians had taped the calls) who said that they had Fallun Gong at their prisons and the people interested in organs could 'come and get them'.
On the one hand, we have a major state, China, one of the alleged bastions of civilization (over 3000 years of it), and an autocratic regime trying to obtain some form of international acceptability. (Beijing Olympics anyone?)
On the other hand, we have human beings being ruthlessly harvested for organs. Their only crime is belonging to Fallun Gong. This isn't Al-Queda. This is a peaceful religious movement. But an autocratic state that his lost its faith in its own founding principles (Mao's Revolution) and is soul-searching for new footings in the modern world is apparently terrified of people who organize themselves for purposes not directly aligned to their own temporal gain. This whole concept causes them alarm and thus their declaration of Fallun Gong as a threat. A bunch of peaceful religious people, a threat to the largest and oldest culture in the history of the world. Just try to imagine it... pretty hard to conceive. And yet, that is the pretext for imprisoning them and then later slaughtering them for their organs. And then working to cover this up so that the civilized world does not notice.
Well guess what? There is a report about to hit the Human Rights Committee. It lays a lot of this out. This then gets put before Parliament and voted on. This stuff is documented and pretty much ironclad. Parliament will then decide if they wish to make any sort of statement or take action (they have taken unanimous action before to help individual Fallun Gong members with Canadian ties).
Obviously, our financial mixed interests will influence the final form any action takes. China is a big trading partner. But a China increasingly interested in a place at the table in the modern, civilized countries will have to face up to its dark secrets and do some housecleaning and adjustment. Even shining the light on it makes them uncomfortable. Government sanction, even if it was mostly symbolic, would be another potent jolt to them.
I hope Canada takes a leading role and follows up on the great work of the parliamentary committee members. Anyone with an ounce of humanity should be horrified at using innocent religious practicioners as organ farms at the cost of their lives as this is unequivocally an attrocity. It has been suggested that this even meets the UN's definition of Genocide.
China has to change its ways. They may not like outside attention and interference, but as long as you are going to act like barbarians from 2500 years ago, you can expect to get treated as such. Canada should not stand for the continuance of this Chinese practice, nor should Canadians.
I say the small thing that each and every one of us can do is look at the things we buy. Look at the things we buy that say 'made in China' and see if another alternative is available. There may be other vendours from Europe, Canada, or even other second- and third-world countries that at least don't have the singularly horrifying, Government sanctioned operations to chop up innocent people into parts to fill organ replacement demands. If you can buy something that isn't Chinese, buy it. If you ever talk to your MP, encourage him to push the government to take some strong action on this. Tell your friends.
The one thing that evil cannot stand is the bright light of truth being shone upon it. I am hopeful Canada will be one of the ones holding the light to China's dark secrets.
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