Wednesday, January 31, 2007

OTTAWA (CP) - A former member of Parliament and a high-profile immigration lawyer are calling on the Foreign Affairs Department to issue an advisory warning Canadians off of travelling to China for organ transplants.

Former Liberal MP David Kilgour and David Matas, an immigration lawyer and senior legal counsel to B'nai Brith Canada, say they have overwhelming evidence that Chinese officials are killing Falun Gong practitioners and harvesting their organs for transplant.

The pair have travelled to 30 countries since issuing a report last July on the issue of Chinese organ harvesting and they say they have doubled the evidence they had that unconscionable practices are taking place.

They said one former patient told them he was given eight kidneys over two months before one finally worked, and he claimed he was told by the Chinese military doctor who performed the transplant that the organ came from an executed prisoner.

Xiaohua Wang, an engineer now living in Montreal, says he and other practitioners of Falun Gong - a discipline banned by China's communist government - were tortured, brainwashed and subjected to suspicious organ examinations and blood tests while he was imprisoned in a labour camp for two years.

Matas and Kilgour say they have documented cases of Canadians from Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver travelling to China for transplants and they say Foreign Affairs should be telling prospective patients headed to China that the organs they receive are likely to be acquired by unethical means.