July 19, 2006

Elaine Xie is traveling across Ontario to raise awareness of the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

And to save her mother-in-law's life.

Sault Ste. Marie was the last stop in her tour.

Elaine (shown, left) was part of a group that stopped off at City Hall today to inform people about the results of an independent report by two prominent Canadians.

The report, by human rights lawyer David Matas and David Kilgour former Canadian secretary of state (Asia-Pacific), supports allegations that the Chinese government [The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)]is harvesting organs from living Falun Gong detainees and then cremating the donors' remains to destroy evidence of what was done to their bodies.

Xie told SooToday.com that she has a very personal connection to this effort, both as a Falun Gong practitioner and as a deeply concerned daughter-in-law.

"My mother-in-law is not a Falun Gong practitioner but she wrote a letter asking the government to stop persecuting them," said Xie. "They kidnapped her and put her in jail."

She said her mother-in-law is now 52 and has been in a detention camp for two years, with another six to go.

Xie said her husband is very close to his mother and was distraught at the news of her imprisonment, which he learned on his birthday.

"They tortured her," she said. "They have so far been allowing my mother-in-law's youngest sister to see her once a month and she told us that they injected my mother-in-law with psychotropic drugs that caused her to lose much of her memory and to be very unresponsive."

Shown are Xie, Anne Zuo, James Yang, Tian Qi Li and Lisa Wang who are participating in a car tour to promote awareness of Falun Gong among Canadians.

They're asking people to sign their petition calling for action to prevent any further persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

After reading a statement from the steps of City Hall, Xie and her traveling companions spoke privately, in separate meetings with representatives of the offices of Mayor John Rowswell, MP Tony Martin and MPP David Orazietti.

Following those meetings, the traveling group learned of and met up with some local Falun Gong participants at Clergue Park.

Local practitioner Sue Kinnaird was very happy to meet the travelers and to learn more about other practitioners in Canada.

"We don't have any membership fees or restrictions and you can come and go as you please," Kinnaird said. "Often people practice independently so we might not know about each other but it's nice to get together as a group and practice sometimes."

Kinnaird, Xie and their fellow practitioners completed a group exercise together before the traveling group left to head home to Toronto.

Xie said that the people of China few human rights and little hope of a happy future or control over their own lives.

She said that many have turned to Falun Gong for solace, hope and guidance in personal growth.

[...]

The independent study completed recently by David Matas and David Kilgour says that at least 40,500 Falun Gong prisoners are missing and are likely to have been killed to contribute to a large number of mysterious organ transplants recorded in China.

It says that transplantation websites promising short waiting times and guaranteed organ matches have been operating from Chinese hospitals for at least five years and that these hospitals cannot account for sources of their donor organs.

Estimates vary, but independent sources including Amnesty International say that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are detained for at least short periods of time each year, and that significant numbers of these are unaccounted for even years later or have been killed.

The site says that these detentions usually involve re-education by labor or by abuse designed to convince practitioners to renounce their beliefs.

"Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to stop the mass arbitrary detentions, unfair trials and other human rights violations resulting from the crackdown on the Falun Gong and other groups branded by the government as 'heretical organizations'," says the organization.

[...]