Tribune staff

September 21, 2006

A woman born in China stopped in Chanute Wednesday to bring to light the travesty going on in that nation.

A group of activists harshly critical of the Chinese government are part of a campaign to get Kansas politicians and businesses to pressure the Communists to stop that country's organ transplant program.

The group is visiting cities in each of the state's Congressional districts the next three weeks in what it calls "The SOS! Urgent Call to Rescue the Falun gong Practitioners Persecuted in China," said Felice Boewe, Leawood. The Chinese are removing human organs from live political prisoners and selling the organs to transplant patients, she said.

"This is the 21st century and as this evil and inhumane practice goes on, we're just watching it and letting it happen," she said.

The group is promoting two things. "Tell everybody you know," Boewe said. "Make a phone call to the White House to ask to help stop the brutal harvesting."

The campaign is three weeks and Boewe said if two people from each state called Washington every day that will be 100 calls a day for 21 days.

Born in China in 1949, Boewe moved to Taiwan and has been in the U.S. more than 30 years.

"I'm a citizen and I love this country." She said in the last 56 years [80] million people have died unnecessarily -- that's 4,000 a day for 56 years. "We just want the public to be aware something like this is happening and that everybody can do something to help," Boewe said.

"It's a simple thing to do and has tremendous impact. I have found that the American people are very kind and stand for justice and democracy -- and won't let this go on." Most of the political prisoners who are victims are practitioners of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, based on a now-banned Chinese martial art and closely related to Tai Chi, has been described as Chinese yoga and combines specific exercises with meditation. In the words of its creator Li Hongzhi, former Chinese government official and now exile living in New York City, Falun Gong is designed to help practitioners learn "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance." [Editor's note: for a description of Falun Gong, visit http://www.falundafa.org/eng/overview.htm]

"Why that offends the CCP is beyond me," said Teri Leahy, a practitioner from Baldwin, part of the team of three touring this part of the state. "We use this system to improve the body and the mind," Boewe said.

The practice is done three or four times a week, said practitioner Dotty Puckett, also of Baldwin. Some medical research indicates that Falun Gong promotes better health; and originally, the Chinese Communists encouraged practitioners, according to Falun Gong literature.

However, the government later turned on Falun Gong, Boewe said. [...] the government outlawed Falun Gong in 1999 [and began a persecution against it]. Falun Gong members living outside of China accused the government of the murder-for-transplants practice earlier this year after two Chinese officials familiar with the Communists' gulag of slave-labor camps said Falun Gong members were being killed to provide human organs.

An independent study by David Kilgour, a former Canadian member of Parliament and secretary of state for Asian affairs, and David Matas, Canadian human rights study, released in July agreed that the Chinese were killing Falun Gong prisoners for transplants.

The study conceded that it had no witnesses that directly saw the abuses but that the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming.

Among the evidence, Kilgour and Matas said that their investigators, posing as patients in need of transplants, were told by Chinese doctors that their organs were coming from healthy Falun Gong donors.

[...] Chanute was the 11th stop on the tour -- stops today were planned in Atchison, Hiawatha, Horton and Topeka.