Issued by Clearwisdom Net

At noon on September 29, 2006, the United States Congress held its first hearing on allegations of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. Four witnesses testified at the hearing. More than 100 people, including House representatives, legislative assistants, officials and advisers from the US government, and reporters attended the hearing. Senior congressman Dana Rohrabacher of the House Committee on International Relations urged the US government to take further action to stop these crimes.

Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher

Democratic Congressman William Delahunt of Massachusetts

Four witnesses testify at the hearing

Dr. Allison testifies at the hearing

David Kilgour and David Matas testify at the hearing

Congressman Rohrabacher, Chair of the Subcommittee of Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on International Relations said during an interview after the hearing, "What we have learned today is that there is a monstrous crime going on in this world. Just repression of people's religious freedom is bad enough. But for the government of China, they take those religious practitioners, who are no threat to anyone else in their own country, but then to take them to prison, and execute them in order to get their body parts to sell for profit. This is a new level of evil. And today we heard the evidence of this evil exists, and now it's up to us to put pressure on the Chinese government to end this evil."

Congressman Rohrabacher said that facing such evil in the world, we cannot keep silent. We should not ignore such evil just because of commercial interests from such a totalitarian regime.

David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, David Matas, International Human Rights Lawyer, Erping Zhang, Falun Gong spokesperson and Executive Director of the Association for Asian Research, and Kirk C. Allison, Ph.D., Director of the Program in Human Rights and Health, School of Public Health and Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine at the Medical School of the University of Minnesota testified at the hearing.

CCP's feeble response to the allegation of live organ harvesting

Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas introduced their "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China", which aroused attention in many European countries. They called on the international community to stop these crimes against humanity.

Mr. Matas said in the hearing, "We examined every avenue of proof and disproof available to us, eighteen in all."

Mr. Kilgour said that all the evidence brought them to their conclusion. "One month after the report was published, the Chinese government's only dispute was that we spelled the name of two provinces wrong."

Mr. Matas said, "We are reinforced in our conclusions by the feeble response of the government of China. Despite all their resources and inside knowledge, they have not provided any information to counter our report. Instead, they have attacked us personally and, more worrisome, attacked the Falun Gong with the very sort of verbal abuse which we have identified as one of the reasons we believe these atrocities are occurring.

"The repressive and secretive nature of Chinese governance made it difficult for us to assess the claims. We were not allowed entry to China, though we tried. Organ harvesting is not done in public. If the claims are true, the participants are either victims who are killed and their bodies cremated or perpetrators who are guilty of crimes against humanity and unlikely to confess."

Mr. Kilgour mentioned the situation of human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng, who has been detained by CCP since August 15, "I must also give credit to Amnesty International for putting out an emergency bulletin recently about the arrest of China's most courageous lawyer, Gao Zhisheng. Indeed, it was Gao who invited David Matas and me to come to China to investigate the matter of organ seizures from Falun Gong prisoners, although we were not granted visas by the government of China."

Mr. Matas said that under CCP rule, people cannot defend themselves. The victims have no other choice but to rely on the international community. The international community cannot be controlled. The United States cannot be controlled. US and other countries must stand out to speak for the victims.

Congressman Rohrabacher said that the report by Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas caught the attention of media across the world. He hopes through this hearing, the US and Congress will pay more attention to this report.

Mr. Erping Zhang: Speaking up about the persecution with no other choice

Mr. Erping Zhang said, "The regime has robbed Falun Gong of any voice by burning its books in mass rallies, banning all Falun Gong related literature, and blocking all Falun Gong websites and even Western news reports. Under this circumstance we have been left with no choice but to speak out. Our goal has been simple and singular: to let people hear our side of the story, to expose those violating our rights, and to, by doing so, end the genocide we face. We are not interested in political power. We would love nothing more than to meditate quietly in parks. But when people beat down our doors and arrest and torture our parents, friends, and children, when they try to wipe out our very existence, we feel duty-bound to speak out.

"Secondly, I would point out that Falun Gong is not deviant, weird, or dangerous, as China's regime has tried to portray it. Consider the bigger picture. For one thing, all of the accusations the regime has made came overnight, with the banning of Falun Gong in 1999. During the seven years before then, from 1992-1999, Falun Gong was practiced by millions and was totally mainstream, and even praised by various official bodies of the Chinese state. That is to say, the accusations were a sudden political invention. And these accusations, it is worth noting, are something Chinese officials do not allow outsiders to investigate; those who try are arrested. Or from another perspective, we might note how none of the accusations made by the regime are made in Taiwan, another Chinese society. There, hundreds of thousands on the small island practice Falun Gong freely.

"Our efforts are done fully for the welfare of China's people, and even, insofar as we seek to uphold the law and constitution, for the sake of the country. There is nothing 'anti-China' about supporting constitutionally-guaranteed rights when they are abused, or pointing out the perpetrator. Surely 'China', after all, is the people of that vast country -- and not its unelected rulers, who so regularly abuse and exploit her people for their narrow, private interests."

CCP's double strategy in the persecution of Falun Gong

Dr. Kirk C. Allison, Director of the Program in Human Rights and Health, School of Public Health; Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine, Medical School, University of Minnesota, said, "My concern is general as I am not a Falun Gong practitioner. Since July 1999 the systematic persecution of nonviolent Falun Gong practitioners constitutes the single greatest concentration of human rights violations in China against a specific group since the Cultural Revolution. A program of ideological eradication has been systematically pursued under a double strategy: Publicly with high visibility in terms of state propaganda, but hermetically in actions of detainment and sanction outside conventional judicial processes. The systematic program of ideological eradication of Falun Gong coincided with an inexplicable increase in whole organ transplantation, and international organ transplant tourism to China. This raises the question of the organ source.

"Concerning Falun Gong practitioners as nonvoluntary victims, the most compelling evidence has been compiled by David Kilgour and David Matas in the Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China of July 6, 2006."

Four witnesses put forward concrete recommendations

The four witnesses called on the US Congress and administrative branch to take all opportunities to raise the organ harvesting issue to Chinese government leaders and take concrete steps to stop the atrocities and the persecution.

Mr. Kilgour mentioned 17 recommendations in the report, "Our report has 17 different recommendations. Virtually nothing to prevent the harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners has currently been applied. If the government is serious, all of our measures should be enacted with deliberate speed. Our first recommendation, of course, is that the harvesting practice from Falun Gong prisoners must stop immediately.

"Some of the others:

"#3-Independent human rights organizations should conduct their own investigations as to whether the allegations are true.

"#11-All detention facilities, including forced labor camps, should be open for international inspection by the International Committee of the Red Cross or other humanitarian organization."

Mr. Zhang called on Congress to pass a resolution to deny entry of all Chinese officials and doctors who participate in the persecution of Falun Gong and organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. If they enter the US, they would be brought to justice.

Mr. Matas suggested that US Congress Representatives urge the United States and other countries to request China to answer questions from UN special Rapporteur on torture and solve the problems.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/10/1/139092.html

On September 26, acclaimed Jewish scholar and chairman of the Organ Donation Committee of the Kidney Foundation for Eastern Ontario, Rabbi Reuven Bulka attended a rally to condemn the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) atrocities, and gave an improvised speech. On August 25, he wrote in the Ottawa Citizen that organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners is "a human rights breach of the worst order and demands a global response." He said, "Governments must raise their collective voices in disgust at this, and condemn it with uncompromising terms." After the rally, a reporter interviewed Dr. Bulka.

Dr. Bulka at the rally held at Parliament Hill on September 26

Reporter: Some people say that the Olympics in Beijing will help improve the human rights situation in mainland China. Do you agree with this opinion?

Bulka: I agree that we have to do whatever we can. If it means even stopping the Olympics, I think that we should be doing that. In other words, we can do [what it takes] to get this thing resolved and right now we have the muscle of the Olympics, and the Chinese don't want anything to compromise those games. So if we use that as a wedge to get this thing corrected, it is perfectly legitimate and it would be a shame not to use it, because after the Olympics, the Chinese will just walk away, and they will be laughing. So we should be doing that, absolutely.

Reporter: Are you talking about boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics?

Bulka: I think that we need to use it as a weapon to get this thing done. If that is one of the things that we can use to say to them that if this doesn't stop, we are going to have a wholesale boycott by the entire West. And I would say that we can go even further than that, to ban travel during the Olympics. So that they don't even make money off the people that are attending, so that this is a real boycott, and not just a symbolic one.

And to say that this is going to happen, we are going to put out a ban, threaten you with a ban on travel unless this issue is taken care of. This is the kind of language that has got to be used. Because otherwise they will think, you know what we will be nice, we will pussyfoot around, and we will make excuses and we will deny it until after the Olympics. And then you won't have any muscle on them. And God forbid that this should go on until the Olympics. This is something that has to be done now.

And there are other things that we can do in terms of, I know that we want their trade but we have to ask ourselves, do we want to trade with a partner that is so barbaric? We don't want that and that is not what we stand for, it is so un-Canadian, what is happening. And I can imagine, for example, how would anybody have anything to do with Nazi Germany in its heyday. We want nothing to show that we are supporting them. We have to do the exact same thing now and to use everything that we have. The Olympics is a muscle, trade is a muscle, international condemnation, everything that we can use and do.

Reporter: Do you have any other suggestions for the Canadian government or the Canadian people?

Bulka: I think that the awareness has to be expanded over all of Canada and we have to yell and scream because people are being murdered as we are speaking, and you just can't just stop and you have to be relentless, and continue to chip away at this until the pressure is so intense on the Chinese government that they have no choice but to say this is going to stop. And I don't know even how you can monitor to make sure that they are doing this. But you have to do whatever you can in terms of having the United Nations investigators coming in to make sure and you know, and in all of the hospitals you have to basically monitor what is happening, and to cut out this trafficking source entirely.

Reporter: Have you read this report by Kilgour and Matas?

Bulka: Of course, yes.

Reporter: Do you have any comments on the report?

Bulka: The report is a very important document, which for the first time it was put together, what you would call enough evidence to say, there is no way they could have gotten this done unless they murdered people. 50,000 [the report figure is 41,500] organ donations, they promised people that if the first one doesn't work we will give you another one in a week. We know what goes on with organ donations, and that is the only way they can do this because they murder people and they know that they have this steady supply. It is so horrific, and it is hard to believe that human beings are capable of such evil.

And there is no question [if] you put all of the facts together, including their own statements, it adds up to the fact that this is what they are doing. There is no question about this. And they can deny from here to doomsday. But if their denial is as creditable as they say, that they are an open society where everybody is allowed in, then you know where the truth is. And they are not doing anything to show that these allegations are untrue. All they are doing is attacking the people and making stupid allegations on the side instead of attacking the facts. This is always a telltale sign that this is the truth.

Reporter: Do you think that the international justice system can do something to stop the crimes?

Bulka: Pressure, pressure, pressure! Any government can say that if this doesn't stop, we can withdraw trade. I know this is harsh, but that is the only language we can use. We are not dealing with human beings that think like human beings. This is barbaric stuff.

Rabbi Dr. Reuven P. Bulka received his Rabbinic ordination from the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Rabbinical Seminary in New York, and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Ottawa in 1971, concentrating on the Logotherapy of Viktor Frankl. He has been Rabbi of Congregation Machzikei Hadas, Ottawa, since 1967.

Host of the TV series, In Good Faith (New RO) and weekly Radio call-in program Sunday Night with Rabbi Bulka (CFRA). Author and/or Editor of 31 books.

He has contributed scholarly and popular articles to various journals, including AMHC Forum, Analecta Frankliana, Chronicle Review, Hadarom, Humanitas, International Forum for Logotherapy, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Journal of Religion and Health, Judaism, L'Eylah, Midstream, Pastoral Psychology, Tradition, and Voices.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/9/30/139016.html

On September 26, 2006, Falun Gong supporters and several Members of Parliament held a rally in front of Parliament Hill, calling upon the Canadian government and people to take action to stop the Chinese Communist Party's harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. Brian McAdam, a well-known Canadian diplomat, gave a speech at the rally. The following is a transcript of his speech.

China's Communist regime has dazzled the world with its dramatic economic growth in the past decade.

However, among the many dark secrets it has hidden, is that for decades China has prospered from harvesting organs from executed prisoners and selling the body parts for transplantation.

The U.S. Congress held hearings on the matter, which caused a sensation. But the sensation died down, as sensations tend to do. Organ-harvesting has gone on, with no negative consequences for the Chinese government."

Because China dangled billions of dollars of trade, seducing many countries into ignoring human rights issues in China, it was allowed to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) and was selected to hold the 2008 Olympic Games, which respects universal moral values.

China broke its silence in December 2005 and admitted for the first time that the majority of the organs for transplants came from executed prisoners.

Now the world has learned from a report by former Canadian Member of Parliament, David Kilgour, and human rights lawyer, David Matas, that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."

"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 in the world,' said Mr. Matas."

This depravity is like something depicted in a science fiction or horror film and is reminiscent of the Nazi death camps.

This report gives the world a glimpse of the true face of the evil Communist regime in China.

Of course as usual China denied such depravities were happening.

Given the Communists' propensity to murder, deny and deceive, there should not be any doubt about the veracity of what has been revealed so far.

China uses denial and deception as part of their foreign policy, as it knows there are rarely any consequences.

U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said:

There are so many people who think of China only as a good place to do business and make money, but they don't want to recognize those people running China who are involved in monstrous crimes that no civilized person would associate with. Now we ignore so many bad things that they have done, the Chinese Communists expect us to ignore this as well. That doesn't mean the rest of our country has forgotten these values.

I believe that when a country doesn't stand for certain moral principles and closes its eyes to oppression, in the end that decision comes back to hurt the country who closes its eyes and chooses not to recognize evil. In that case, China again, the Chinese Communist country is demonstrating evil that deserves condemnation by the entire civilized world.

The civilized world must join in the condemnation of forced organ donation in China and call for an urgent open and independent investigation.

And the world should follow the 17 recommendations made by David Matas and David Kilgour in their report.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/9/29/138924.html

On September 18-21, Kansas Falun Gong practitioners organized an SOS car tour to raise public awareness of the persecution and the organ harvesting atrocities against Falun Gong practitioners in China. During the four-day endeavor, the practitioners visited sixteen cities and brought the truth of the persecution to many officials and citizens. Many people signed the practitioners' petition on a banner.

A city manager holds a banner with two practitioners

At every stop, the practitioners first visited the local city hall, requesting support from the elected officials for the car tour and asking them to take actions to stop the persecution. They also gave the local media information packages about the persecution and told them in detail about the Chinese Communist regime's atrocities of harvesting organs from living practitioners. They also visited a local library to donate Falun Dafa literature and a DVD of the NTDTV 2006 Chinese New Year Gala.

Several newspapers, four radio stations and a TV station interviewed practitioners. A total of eight newspapers reported on the car tour. Additionally, the mayors of four cities decided to issue proclamations in honor of the car tour.

After listening to a news report about the car tour on the radio, a city councilman reported what he had heard to everyone on the city council and requested his mayor to issue a proclamation to the practitioners. Many people were shocked upon learning about the organ harvesting atrocities and they all signed the practitioners' petition without hesitation.

After the car tour reached a successful conclusion, Kansas practitioners had an experience sharing meeting in which they reviewed issues raised during the tour. For example, they will dress more formally when they visit city halls, and will contact media several days beforehand so that they have more time to arrange a meeting.

The car tour allowed practitioners to realize that people are eagerly waiting to hear the truth of Falun Dafa. While the car tour brought the beauty of Dafa to many people, the participants will continue their efforts in the coming days.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/9/30/139017.html