Ottawa: Falun Gong mark 13th anniversary of China's brutal crackdown

Meditating Falun Gong supporters gathered across from the Chinese embassy Friday to mark the 13th anniversary of a brutal crackdown on the religious group by the Chinese government.

“Minister Baird is in China right now and we hope he can make a statement on behalf of Falun Gong,” said Lucy Zhou of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada. “We’re hoping trade wouldn’t override human rights.”

In the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Amnesty International reported thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested and hundreds imprisoned or assigned to Re-education through Labour camps, often subject to torture and sometimes death.
 
Standing with Zhou, Falun Gong practitioner Young Wang, who came to Canada from China for work in November 2011, said that he spent more than a year in a Chinese labour camp for the group’s supporters in 2001.

“It was evil,” he said. “They put us in a crowded room and we were forced to watch anti-Falun Gong propaganda and renounce the organization every day when we weren’t working eight hour shifts to produce big chunks of steel.”

Wang, a program manager in IT, said he was arrested after police began tracking the number of emails he sent out speaking up for the group. “They came to my home and arrested me and all my computers were confiscated,” he said.

“Some of the other practitioners in prison were beaten very badly,” he said, “even though they were 60 to 70 years old.”

Zhou, who has been protesting across from the embassy for years, said that Chinese tourists who visit the embassy are shocked to see Falun Gong members protesting at all. “We are like a window for them to see the lies,” she said

“Evidence that Falun Gong detinees have been killed for their organs,” Zhou said, “has given rise to international investigations, and even a ban on China-based organ transplant surgeries by some countries.”
In March, a Chinese health official announced that over five years the country will phase out the practice of transplanting organs from executed prisoners and create a national organ donation program.
  
More: Metro News

Baird's trip to China coincides with 13th year of persecution of Falun Gong

Ottawa – As Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird visits China during the 13th anniversary marking the start of the violent state-sanctioned repression of Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Association of Canada joined by the Hon. David Kilgour, former Secretary of State (Asia–Pacific), and Mr. Lizhi He, torture survivor and former prisoner of conscience, held a press conference on Parliament Hill earlier today. The message was clear—to urge Minister Baird to seek end to the Chinese regime’s atrocities against Falun Gong.  Mr. He’s brother, Lizhong He, is one of the eight Canadian family members imprisoned in China now and is currently serving a 3-year jail term.

“We believe it is the best opportunity for our Foreign Affairs Minister to make a statement on the rights of Falun Gong practitioners during his visit to make Canada’s position on human rights and religious freedom clear.  We appeal to Minister Baird to call for an end to the brutal persecution of Falun Gong, which remains the largest scale modern-day atrocity against a group of innocent people for their spiritual belief in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance” said Lucy Zhou, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Canada.  “With a stronger voice to end the persecution of Falun Gong at the transition of the leadership in China, our voice to support justice now can make a huge impact on the future of China that should take pride in placing herself on the right side of history.”

“I hope Minister Baird will extend his helping hand to Falun Gong practitioners, including my brother Lihong He and other seven imprisoned Canadian family members”, said Lizhi He, who spent 3.5 years in a Chinese prison for practicing Falun Gong and was later rescued to Canada and re-united with his wife in 2003.

According to a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Mr. Nowak, while “torture is systematic and widespread,” Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of victims of alleged torture while in government custody. The US State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released last month stated “Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in reeducation-through-labor camps, while the real number could be even higher.”

Hon. David Kilgour and David Matas, renowned human rights lawyer, released an investigation report in 2006 revealing that a large-scale organ harvest of practitioners is happening in China and described it as a “new form of evil on this planet”.

The then-UN special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak and UN special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom both questioned the Chinese party-state about the issue.  “Nowak concluded in March 2007 that the chain of evidence Matas and I were documenting provided a ‘coherent picture that causes concern’. In late 2008, the UN Committee against Torture indicated its concern and called for further investigation.” said Kilgour. “We are at an historical moment, when the Chinese people as a whole and some Chinese leaders appear to be seeking to end the persecution of Falun Gong, the international voices of elected officials such as John Baird can be extremely important.”
  
More: Canada Free Press

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Baird’s Visit to China Rare Chance to Push Rights, Says Group