Falun Gong practitioner ask DFAT to raise organ harvesting issue at the upcoming
talks
PRESS CONFERENCE
TIME: 12:30pm Friday 6 July
VENUE: Sydney DFAT office, 123 Pitt Street
On Friday, 6 July, Falun Gong practitioners will hold a press conference asking
that Australian representatives attending the Australia-China Human Rights Dialogue
this month to have the issue of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners
in China high on the agenda.
Both the Australian Government and Federal Opposition expressed verbal support
for an investigation of the organ harvesting allegations and the issue was said
to have been raised during the Dialogue in 2006. However, we are aware of no
response from the Chinese regime and no further steps towards allowing an urgent
investigation.
We request that Australia’s delegates at the 2007 dialogue pass a firm
and emphatic message to their Chinese Communist Party counterparts that immediate
action must be taken to:
- Completely end the persecution of Falun Gong and unconditionally release
all Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. - Allow open access to jails, labour camps, detention centres and related
hospitals for the UN and/or Coalition to Investigate Persecution of Falun
Gong in China (CIPFG) to conduct independent investigations.
Background
UN Special Rapporteur on torture Mr Manfred Nowak notes in a March 2006 report
that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66% of the victims of alleged torture
while in custody in China.
Mr Nowak’s March 2007 UN submission lists hospitals, transplants centres,
detention centres and courts in China that have all been involved in either
removal of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners or administering the use
of these organs.
Human rights lawyer David Matas, and former Canadian Secretary of State for
Asia-Pacific, David Kilgour in January 2007 published a revised report on the
allegations of organ harvesting titled “Bloody Harvest” which now
lists 33 strands of evidence that led them to “the regrettable conclusion
that the allegations are true”.
Despite the vast resources and information at their disposal, there has been
no contradiction of the analysis or conclusions of the Matas-Kilgour report
by the Chinese authorities.