July 29, 2006 Saturday

Four followers of the Chinese meditation practice Falun Gong were in Saskatoon Friday to raise awareness of the Chinese government's alleged practice of harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners.

Falun Gong, also known as or Falun Dafa, involves meditation exercises similar to tai chi and yoga, and spiritual beliefs in truth, compassion and tolerance.

"Our request to the Canadian government is to try to issue a public statement to condemn the Chinese Communist regime for its persecution of Falun Gong. Canada has a (very close) relationship with China, so Canada can really have a big pressure (on) the Chinese government," said Dana Zhao, who has practised Falun Gong for three years.

Clement Sun, who has driven across Saskatchewan and Manitoba with Zhao and two other Falun Gong members asking for assistance for their cause, said the Chinese government does not allow any ideology other than communism to be practised in China, so it began a campaign to suppress Falun Gong.

It was banned by the Chinese government in 1999 because it had 70 million followers, more than the number of Chinese Communist party members, Zhao said.

"They started to persecute Falun Gong because of their jealousy of the popularity of Falun Gong," she said.

Since then many of its practitioners have been jailed and tortured, Zhao said, adding 41,500 are alleged to have had their organs harvested between 2000 and 2005.
Earlier this month, former Liberal cabinet minister David Kilgour and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, released an independent investigation reporting on the allegations of organs being harvested from Falun Gong followers.

"When this news was released, no one believed it. Even some of the Falun Gong practitioners did not believe it because it's so disturbing, so shocking and horrific," Sun said.

Sun said the Canadian government has helped Chinese-Canadians bring family members to Canada to save them from persecution, but more could be done.

This spring, Falun Gong followers in Saskatoon successfully lobbied city council to proclaim May as Falun Dafa month.