A. Halpern's Letter to Canadian Parliament Members

FoFG board member Abraham Halpern urges the Canadian Parliament to boycott the 2008 Olympics

August 20, 2007

By Abraham Halpern, MD, FACP
FoFG USA board member Dr. Abraham Halpern

Dear Parliamentarian,

I am a professor emeritus of psychiatry at the New York Medical College. After serving in the Royal Canadian Navy during WW2, I attended medical school at the University of Toronto and then rejoined the Royal Canadian Navy and served as a medical officer aboard a destroyer during the Korean War.

I am writing to ask that the Parliament of Canada call for a boycott of the Olympic Games in Beijing in August, 2008, unless the Chinese government stops engaging in human rights abuses against its citizens.

No doubt you are aware of the countless reports of serious human rights violations in the People's Republic of China, in some cases clearly constituting crimes against humanity, particularly the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and political dissidents. Falun Gong adherents, innocent in all respects, have been abducted, confined in jails, prisons, work camps and maximum security psychiatric institutions, tortured and brutalized and subject to removal of body organs in connection with a widespread organ transplant program in China. Many of these atrocities are fully documented in comprehensive reports by David Kilgour, former long-term member of the Canadian Parliament and Secretary off State (Asia- Pacific), 2002-2003, and David Matas, a distinguished Winnipeg attorney. (See their reports titled "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China" and "Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China")The reports have resulted in protests in many countries around the world. Regrettably, the protests have thus far failed to bring about any meaningful change in the barbaric actions of the Chinese authorities.

A resolution adopted by the Parliament of Canada recommending that the Canadian Government take immediate steps to boycott the Olympic Games in China next year will warm the hearts of the thousands of persecuted Chinese citizens and give them hope. It will also encourage protesters everywhere to redouble their efforts.

I hope you will take this important step and show the world that Canada continues to be in the forefront of the struggle for fundamental human rights everywhere.

Sincerely yours,

Abraham L. Halpern, M.D.