August 15, 2006

(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioners from Toronto stopped briefly in North Bay, Monday, as part of a cross-Canada tour.

They're raising awareness about a report into allegations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China prepared by human rights lawyer David Matas and former MP David Kilgour.

Released July 6, the independent investigation concluded "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."

China rejected the organ harvesting allegations.

About 41,000 organs transplanted in China in the past six years could not be legitimized and may have come from prisoners scooped up by the communist regime as it attempts to wipe out Falun Gong, the report stated.

In 2000, Amnesty International documented the Chinese regime's use of a "massive propaganda campaign" to demonize Falun Gong, a practice of meditation, gentle exercises and cultivation of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance in oneself.

According to a media release provided by the Falun Gong practitioners visiting North Bay, China's top leader Jiang Zemin initiated the crackdown in 1999 because it was overshadowing his own legacy.

The government estimated there were more than 60 million Chinese practicing Falun Gong at the time.

Investigators based their report on taped telephone requests for organs, testimony by an ex-wife of a surgeon she said removed corneas and Internet sites advertising organs for sale.

The report recommends the Canadian government stop training doctors here to conduct organ transplants until the practice stops and to revoke passports of citizens suspected of traveling to China for transplants.

The group is heading to Haileybury and Kirkland Lake before hitting towns in northwestern Quebec and then driving to Thunder Bay by the weekend.