Oakville Beaver (Canada): Falun Gong practitioners protest Chinese death camps

Protesters want Canada to pressure Chinese government

March 29, 2006

The "Chinese Auschwitz" may be a long way from Oakville Town Hall, but for the Falun Gong practitioners who gathered there Monday, this death camp remains as painfully close as their own hearts and conscience.

For that reason, adherents of the peaceful meditation and exercise practice are traveling across Ontario to spread awareness about Sujiatun, a now not-so-secret facility near Shenyang City where they claim human organs are taken from Falun Gong practitioners while they are still alive and sold for profit by the state.

Almost too horrific to contemplate, Sujiatun is the reason the group is trying desperately to have the public pressure Canadian politicians to take action.

"We're calling on them to condemn the atrocities," said Falun Gong practitioner Mike Pawlett, who was among those who delivered a letter to that effect to Mayor Ann Mulvale's office.

Literature distributed at Town Hall puts their plea this way: "We urgently call on the Canadian government to demand that China stop the persecution of Falun Gong and the atrocities being committed at Sujiatun Death Camp, to summon the Chinese Ambassador to raise this concern, and to send a team to Shenyang to investigate the Sujiatun organ harvest camp."

The camp was recently uncovered near Shenyang City in Liaoning Province -- a place equipped with a crematorium to burn the bodies and destroy evidence, a place where no prisoner is known to have come out alive. According to Steve Ho, who was also on hand at Town Hall, 2,000 of the 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners known to have been rounded up at Sujiatun have been murdered and their organs harvested.

Falun Gong is a meditation and exercise practice with teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance -- everything the Chinese government does not represent. Since its introduction to China in 1992 it is now practiced by millions of adherents in that country and millions more in 50 other nations around the world.

The peaceful discipline was outlawed in 1999 by Chinese president Jiang Zemin, who is "fearful of anything touching the hearts and minds of more citizens than the Communist party," say activists.

The result is a concerted policy of imprisonment, torture and murder that has left relatives in Canada and elsewhere agonizing over the fate of their loved ones.

Ho explained that his own father-in-law spent three years in a labour camp as punishment for his Falun Gong beliefs.

In August 2002, representatives from 12 families of 14 loved ones jailed in China for practicing Falun Gong made their first visit to Town Hall.

In addition to their family members, hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 being sentenced to forced labour camps, typically without trial.

In 2003, they made a return visit to offer a big thank you to all those who helped get five of their loved ones released. That included the mayor, MPs and MPPs, for all their past support.

For example, in 2002 Parliament unanimously passed MP Scott Reid's private member's bill requesting China release the 13 prisoners and more than 800 proclamations of support were received from across North America and the world.

"Canada has saved a lot of people," said Pawlett.

Since then, unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has stepped up what Pawlett calls its "campaign of terror" to break Falun Gong's back for good. After all, Pawlett explained, with the world watching China leading up to the 2008 Olympic Games, the CCP sees truth -- and the Falun Gong practitioners who dare voice it -- as a menace.

"The good people are being tortured and killed as a threat," said Pawlett. "The corrupt CCP doesn't want people thinking for themselves."

As a result, they say Sujiatun serves a dual purpose: silencing Falun Gong and servicing the global black market for human organs with those harvested from those who have been tortured to death.

"They're trying to cover everything up and kill everyone," said Pawlett. "The international community needs a collective voice to stop this evil."

This is especially true at a time when Western politicians and business leaders continue to roll out the red trade carpet for the very people responsible for Sujiatun and the unrelenting persecution of Falun Gong.

"This needs to be seen in the light," said Pawlett. "We hope time is running out for Sujiatun."