Letter: Why the delay?

The Ottawa Citizen Published: Thursday, April 26, 2007

The letter from Zhang Weidong of the Chinese Embassy carefully avoids the facts.

The guided tour given to journalists and diplomats of the first hospital identified as an organ-harvesting facility in China happened two weeks after the information was made public. If organ harvesting were not happening at that facility, journalists and diplomats would have been ushered in immediately to prove these heinous crimes were not happening. Why was entry denied for two full weeks?

Mr. Zhang claims that the well-respected David Kilgour and David Matas "concocted" an investigation so that Falun Gong could extricate itself from the initial claims. Falun Gong did not make the initial claims. The wife of one of the organ-harvesting doctors revealed this information at great risk to her personal safety.

Mr. Kilgour's uncommon honesty and decency as a MP for 27 years have been written about in numerous publications. His actions throughout his career have constantly proven he will not compromise his principles. To claim that he would now participate, along with the well-respected Mr. Matas, in a "concocted" investigation on a subject that is difficult for the human psyche to accept to begin with, is a disgusting initiative by the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa.

Yes, indeed, "lies are lame." Mr. Zhang stated that China's "laws" ban torture. But he could not be so absurd as to directly deny that the use of torture is "widespread in China" as reported in 2005 by Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This has been verified by the U.S. State Department and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Zhang's letter makes him part of history. He has publicly presented himself as an abettor to the crimes of the Chinese Communist regime. These crimes will be answered for, of this there is no doubt. With good will, I hope that others will not continue to sacrifice themselves to China's regime by supporting its ongoing atrocities.

Michael Mahonen,
Toronto