4/20/07
(Clearwisdom.net) David Matas and David Kilgour wrote a recent report
on organ harvesting from living Falun Gong members in China, knowing full well
the challenges-moral and visceral-the report might pose for its readers and
legislatures in the free world. Matas, an international human rights attorney,
and Kilgour, a former Secretary of State from Canada, are not ones to make such
statements lightly.
What comprises this story, then? The Falun Gong is a meditation practice that
originated in China in the early 1990s. Owing to its positive effects on health
and the fact that it was free, throngs of people in mainland China took up the
practice. Within seven short years, an estimated 70 million-plus were
practicing.
China's ruling Communist Party operates above the law, and the growing
popularity of Falun Gong unsettled certain members of the Party. In 1999, the
Party-state banned Falun Gong and commenced a campaign of unlawful arrests and
often-brutal persecution, which continues today. An estimated hundreds of
thousands of Falun Gong practitioners languish in Chinese labor camps today
without the most basic of human rights. Amnesty International has labeled these
detainees "prisoners of conscience," given that they are
"imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs."
While the maltreatment of Falun Gong prisoners has long been known, the
Matas-Kilgour report has given credence to the worst fears: that the regime,
having so dehumanized the Falun Gong, might go one step further. The report
finds that the CCP regime is carving up-literally-the bodies of living Falun
Gong adherents for their organs, which are then transplanted or sold for immense
sums of money.
The report includes transcripts of conversations by investigators with Chinese
doctors who flippantly reveal that they have Falun Gong members on hand, ready
for mutilation. (Matas and Kilgour have made public the audio recordings.)
"Is the organ from a healthy Falun Gong practitioner?" asks the
undercover investigator. "Correct," replies the physician. "We
will choose only a good one, because we guarantee the quality of our
transplants."
So carefully researched and argued is the report, and so terrible its findings,
that it has prompted Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and
other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, to begin probing the matter. The
initial response of the Chinese regime has only served to deepen concerns,
however: a curt, two-page dismissal of the whole affair. Perhaps it's no
coincidence then that the state hastily banned the commercial trade of organs on
May 1, 2006-less than a month after the report was published. Whether or not the
law will be enforced is another matter, of course. Even before the Matas-Kilgour
report, the investigations of human rights bodies had determined that China's
regime was unlawfully harvesting organs from prisoners.
Then is our own "disbelief" an acceptable response, however natural?
The history of the past century suggests that we must instead muster the courage
to consider the reality of it all, gruesome as it may be. In the 20th century,
there has been a haunting legacy for this sort of thing. But today's China is
very much economically interwoven with our country-consider the number of items
which bear the label "Made in China." A vast array of powerful
institutions want, or believe they "need," China to be a normal,
prosperous, uneventful place.
And indeed, U.S. corporations have gone so far as to sell Internet surveillance
technology to China's communist leaders, who use it to arrest democracy
advocates and members of various religious faiths. Meanwhile, those same leaders
spend tens of millions each year on sophisticated international PR firms to
foster the image of normality abroad. It's easier to dream about striking gold
in China rather than think about kidneys being carved out of living prisoners of
conscience.
When the Olympics were awarded to Nazi Germany, the regime turned the event into
a tremendous publicity stunt, reassuring the world all was well. Many suggest
that the 2008 Beijing Olympics is history repeating itself.
Matas and Kilgour have traveled the world to raise awareness of their findings,
yet remain barred from perhaps the country that matters most: China. CCP
officials have refused them, as with others, entry to investigate.
One is left to wonder: if the organ harvesting were indeed unreal, and the
regime so confident of this, why would it fear independent investigation rather
than welcome it? Or, even if the harvesting were taking place, what government
wouldn't want dearly to rein in such abominable acts if occurring in its own
land and to its own people? The answer to the latter, of course, is a government
that is complicit in those acts. The CCP's response is a portrait of guilt.
Matas, who speaks at Uris Hall (Room 301) today at noon, gets my applause. One
day, when the camps of China are liberated, we can only imagine it will be the
people of China--oppressed on account of simply who they are--who will offer
their applause.
http://media.www.columbiaspectator.com/media/storage/paper865/news/2007/04/20/Opinion/Organ.Harvesting.An.Unbelievable.Reality-2871152.shtml
All content published on this website is copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
