Bo Xilai
Canada Free Press: By Judi McLeod; Monday, May 28, 2007
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment