Issued by Clearwisdom Net

Several San Diego Falun Gong practitioners appeared before the San Diego City Council on Tuesday, August 8 to inform the council of recent developments affecting San Diego's sister city relationship with Yantai and of the recent discovery that the CCP is harvesting organs from thousands of live Falun Gong practitioners for profit. The San Diego City Council has previously issued a resolution condemning the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Yantai.

Mr. Frank Eaves, who spoke for those concerned, told the council members, "We thought that it was important for the City of San Diego to know that the situation in our Sister City has worsened, not improved. If you, as the City Council can think of ways to help the citizens in our Sister City we would appreciate your input."

Mr. Eaves said that several organizations have investigated the organ harvesting allegations of Falun Gong practitioners in China. He quoted from the Canadian report by former Canadian Secretary of State and MP David Kilgour, and human rights attorney David Matas, released on July 6:

"the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centers and 'people's courts', since 1999, have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas, were virtually simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.'"

Mr. Eaves showed on a chart the dramatic 2,500 percent increase of the number of organ transplants in China since the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. He stated that from 1991 to 1998 there were a mere total of 78 liver transplants in all of China. But after the persecution started, Yuhuangding Hospital Transplant Center in Yantai City alone performed 160-170 kidney transplants, in just one year.

Mr. Eaves said, "When a person donates an organ willingly, it is a noble gesture that can save another life. But when innocent men and women have their bodies cut open and their organs taken without consent while they are still alive, and in the prime of their lives, one is hard pressed to imagine a grosser violation of human rights. If this were done to one individual, it would be considered murder involving unusual cruelty. The fact that it is done to thousands of innocent Chinese citizens every year can only be considered an abomination, and a damning indictment of the Chinese Communist regime."

The City council members listened very intently. After his speech Mr. Eaves handed out brochures to the council members that detailed the things he had touched on in his short speech. The council members and the city attorney received the brochures and some began to study them thoughtfully.

A copy of the Matas/Kilgour report can be found at: http://investigation.go.saveinter.net/

On August 12, 2006, Falun Gong practitioners were invited to a human rights forum hosted by Singapore's Democratic Party . They explained the fact that practitioners' human rights are trampled in China.

Practitioners demonstrating and introducing Falun Gong

The Singapore Democratic Party sponsored a human rights forum at the Changi Village Hotel on August 12. Falun Gong practitioners were invited, and spoke for 30 minutes about the cases in which police filed unreasonable charges against 11 practitioners. With a computer, the practitioners introduced what Falun Gong is, Falun Gong's wide spread around the world, the persecution in China and the unjust treatment of practitioners in Singapore.

During the introduction, all attendees agreed that the persecution against practitioners is not a political issue, but a human right issue. Regarding the question of why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecutes Falun Gong , practitioners answered that CCP has never treasured life. Since it obtained power 56 years ago, the CCP has killed over eighty million Chinese people. Even though the persecution is happening in China, it is not irrelevant to Singapore. For instance, when SARS occurred in 2003, the CCP assured the entire world that China was safe, including all business and tourist travels to China. But a businesswoman from Singapore was infected in China, and died after she came back to Singapore. The CCP's disregard for life is not only focused on Chinese but the peoples around the whole world. Practitioners then distributed Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, the "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China" by two independent Canadian investigators, as well as a brief introduction to the cases of 11 practitioners in Singapore being charged.

The introduction won applause. Many attendees admitted that they would not have known about the brutal persecution that practitioners are suffering in China without the thorough introduction. They thought that the truth-clarification is very important since the media in Singapore will not report fairly. Practitioners should take all measures to more actively publicize the truth. Then people would truly know what Falun Gong is. A gentleman said that he thought Falun Gong was a weak political group that deserved sympathy, and then he came to understand that Falun Gong doesn't have any political agenda, and the persecution in China is so brutal. He asked for a lot of truth-clarification materials. As he often travels to China, he wanted to share the materials with his Chinese friends.

A photographer said that he was an Internet writer, and would post reports on the facts of Falun Gong onto his weblog to help more people learn the facts from there.

The attorney of the practitioners in the case was to ask for a service fee immediately, but after listening to the truth-clarification, he told practitioners that they should consider their visa renewals first, and talk about the service fee later on. After the meeting, all the attendees signed the petition calling for the authorities to drop the charges against the practitioners. Practitioners were invited to the banquet in the evening too. They talked with the attendees separately, and almost every attendee learned the facts and showed their sympathy and support for practitioners.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/8/13/135467.html