(Clearwisdom.net) On October 17th 2007, the Human Rights Torch Relay (HRTR) sponsored by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), reached Dublin, which is the 24th city in the 19th country that the relay has visited. In downtown Dublin, the capital of Ireland, a ceremony and rally for the arrival of the Human Rights Torch were held. The purpose of the torch relay is to call upon the international community to pay attention to the human rights violations and the persecution of Falun Gong in China, and to ask them to boycott the 2008 Olympics if the persecution of Falun Gong is not stopped.
Among many human right activists and politicians, Senator Joe O'Toole spoke at the rally and issued a press statement on October 17. In his speech, Senator O'Toole said that the CCP is the worst dictatorship in the world, and the international community should not ignore the persecution of Falun Gong launched by the CCP. He called upon the Irish Government to cooperate with the European Union to investigate the persecution and condemn the human rights violations in China. He expressed that people should not go the Olympics, because a lot of human rights abuses are behind it. He said that the purpose of the rally and torch relay is to let everybody in the world know about the persecution.
Below is the press statement by Senator Joe O'Toole.
PRESS STATEMENT
Wednesday 17th October 2007
Speaking at the Global Human Rights Torch Relay Ceremony
- INDEPENDENT Senator JOE O'TOOLE
Grafton Street, Dublin
CHINA
Let's not get too carried away with the flags and anthems and great sporting endeavour at next year's Olympics. This is China's front window hiding the sweatshops and persecution behind.
Make no mistake about China.
Forget the Chop Suey and the Great Wall and remember - while we celebrate the Olympic spirit in China next year that, behind the kindly facade of Special and ordinary Olympics, the Government of the Communist Party of China run an iron-fisted regime which....
- Continues to steamroll and suppress the human and civil rights of its people and rejects democracy;
- Operates labour camps and concentration camps redolent of the Nazi concentration camps where there is persecution of the worst kind including, forced live organ harvesting
- Has persecuted and demonized the followers of the Dalai Llama in Tibet and the gentle Falun Gong movement
- Is the greatest user of capital punishment in the world and inventor of the mobile execution chamber which travels from prison to prison meting out death summarily.
All of this and more, the international community chooses to ignore because of the commercial and financial attractions doing business with the fastest growing economy in the world.
Today I ask the Irish Government, with UN and Euro Colleagues;
- To condemn the lack of civil and human rights in China;
- To demand that China's democratic opposition be allowed to function normally;
- To demand that the Chinese Government allow international human rights organizations investigate and research the charges and allegations against it, without any limitations and restrictions;
- To condemn the systematic inhuman and cruel atrocities of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners
So let's not get too carried away with the flags and anthems and great sporting endeavour at next year's Olympics. This is China's front window hiding the sweatshops and persecution behind.
The world must be told that this is happening now, so that no person, no state, no Government, can afterwards plead WE DID NOT KNOW.
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Category: Voices of Support Worldwide
