(Clearwisdom.net) On November 21, 2006, Mr. Xun Li, President of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada was invited to provide testimony on the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong at the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, House of Commons. The following is his testimony:
Thank you to the committee for holding this hearing and inviting the Falun Dafa Association of Canada to present.
Lawyer Gao Zhisheng has been called "the conscience of Chinese lawyers." China's Ministry of Justice rated him one of China's top ten lawyers in 2001. He is not a Falun Gong practitioner, yet he himself is currently under arrest [1] for defending human rights in China, in particular for his 3 open letters to Chinese government leaders calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.
Mr. Gao wrote in his letter dated late 2005: "Among the true accounts of unbelievable brutality, among the records of the government's inhuman torture of its own people, the immoral acts that shocked my soul the most were the lewd yet routine practice of attacking women's genitals by 6-10 Office staff and the police. Almost every woman's genitals and breasts or every man's genitals have been sexually assaulted during the persecution in a most vulgar fashion...." Below are two accounts of the cases he cited.
* "Ms. Lijun Wang was tortured in the small metal cage three times. Inmates tied many knots on a thick rope and pulled it back and forth in a sawing motion across her vagina. Her entire lower body swelled up. The head guard then ordered inmates to jab her swollen vagina with the thorny end of a broken mop stick. This torture caused Ms. Wang's vagina to bleed profusely. Her abdomen and vagina were so swollen that she could not pull up her pants, or sit, or urinate..."
* "Mr. Liu Haibo was stripped of all his clothes and forced to kneel down. Police pushed in the longest electric baton they could find from his bottom and gave his organs electric shocks. Liu died immediately on the site."
These are only two accounts of the numerous atrocities suffered by Falun Gong practitioners daily in China over the past 7 years. The majority of the brutal cases remain unreported. Revealing such information constitutes the severe crime of "leaking state secrets."
Yue Yao [2], wife of Canadian resident Wenyu Liu in Calgary, is one of 14 jailed practitioners with Canadian ties. In 2001 she was sentenced to 12 years in prison for downloading information from Falun Gong websites and printing leaflets for distribution.
Introduced in China in 1992, Falun Gong is a peaceful spiritual belief that cultivates the mind, body and spirit through gentle exercises and following the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance." Yet the nature of Chinese Communist Party is quite the opposite. It advocates violence, deception, and the destruction of traditional moral values and beliefs.
By official government estimates there were over 70 million people practising Falun Gong by 1999. The regime formulated the following policy against Falun Gong: "Defame their reputation, bankrupt them financially, eliminate them physically," and "Count the death of Falun Gong practitioners as suicide." Communist China regards Falun Gong as its #1 enemy and has utilized the cruelest means imaginable against its practitioners. Over 100 means of torture have been documented.
According to a 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation's report, "Falun Gong practitioners make up close to half the number of Chinese people being held in labour camps, a process that requires no legal or judicial ruling."
In March 2006, UN special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak reported that torture
remains "widespread" in China and Falun Gong practitioners represented
66 percent of all the alleged torture cases.[3]
Author Jennifer Zeng confirms that she has acquired classified information
showing that by the end of April 2001, less than 2 years since the persecution
began, there had been approximately 830,000 arrests of Falun Gong practitioners
in Beijing alone. The persecution spans all of China. Nearly 3,000 death cases
have been verified, the real number is unknown and believed to be much higher.
Recently, Hon. David Kilgour and Mr. David Matas concluded in their independent investigation report[4] that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners" by the "the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country..." The widespread killing of Falun Gong practitioners for profit to provide organs for transplants is "so shocking that it represents a new form of evil on this planet."
The report stated, "The policy of repression of the Falun Gong means that they are in prison without rights, at the disposition of corrupt authorities. The incitement to hatred against the Falun Gong and their dehumanization means that they can be butchered and killed without qualms by those who buy into this official hate propaganda."
Pursuant to these vital findings of Organ Harvesting of live Falun Gong practitioners, I strongly believe that it warrants a formal hearing by the committee.
I want to highlight two key findings from Professor Burton's report:
1. "The Chinese MFA's mandate is to defend China's interests abroad. It has no institutional interest in promoting respect for China's human rights domestically."
2. "The dialogues involve only a small number of Chinese people and have no mechanism to spread the information beyond this small group."
These findings underscore the futility of the dialogues. The persecution of Falun Gong in fact was launched and has continued to escalate after the bilateral human rights dialogue process began in 1997. The systematic eradication of Falun Gong through hate incitement, torture, and killing constitutes severe crimes against humanity.
We believe that China does concern itself with world opinion, and more and more Chinese people are aware and wanting a society that provides for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The international community, including Canada, has a crucial role to play to help uphold these values and principles.
* * *
We also recommend that the Canadian government:
1) Call on China to stop the persecution of
Falun Gong and release all practitioners being held in custody;
2) Suspend the bilateral dialogue until the
critical concerns from Prof. Burton's report are adequately addressed; and
3) Put human rights at the forefront of Canada's
China policy, using every opportunity to promote respect for human rights in
China and to speak publicly against human rights abuses in China.
4) Include civil society such as Falun Gong
representation in any future human rights engagement with China.
Democratic countries are ultimately held accountable to fulfill our responsibilities. Only by ending crimes against humanity and protecting the safety and wellbeing of our fellow world citizens can we truly protect the security and dignity of our own country. There truly is no other choice we can make as human beings.
[1] AI, Urgent action, http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA170552006?open&of=ENG-381
[2] Amnesty International, ASA 17/046/2002, State Control of the Internet in China, http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa170462002#8
[3] U.N. Commission on Human Rights; Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, on his Mission to China November 20 to December 2, 2005 (E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.6), March 10, 2006. (http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/docs/62chr/ecn4-2006-6-Add6.doc)