Epoch Times: Chinese Authorities Must Co-operate, Says MP

In a private members statement, the
member for Prospect in Sydney, told the Australian Parliament on November 1 that
the Chinese authorities have a case to answer to “prove or disprove” allegations
made in a Canadian report which links China's organ transplant industry to
the Communist regime's persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice.

Mr Bowen likened descriptions of the persecution to that of the reports coming
out of Nazi Germany where people refused to believe them “because they were too
frightening and it was not accepted that human beings could do this to one another.”

“I must say that it was my initial reaction: I thought the allegations [of
organ harvesting] must be overblown; I thought they could not be true.”

Mr
Bowen called on the Chinese authorities to co-operate and allow an independent
investigation to visit China saying “If the Chinese Government believes that these
allegations are untrue, they should have no problem in granting visas to those
delegations.”

Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett, who has been a regular campaigner
for Beijing to be brought to call on its human rights record, welcomed Mr Bowen's
statement saying it was in everybody's interest, including the Chinese authority's,
to “verify one way or another” whether these allegations were true.

Senator
Bartlett said there were growing concerns about the human rights situation in
China generally and important to its credibility as a host for the 2008 Olympics
would be a more open and accessible China.

“I think it will be a growing problem
heading towards the Olympics if there is not transparency and no opportunity for
those sorts of concerns to be examined,” the Senator told The Epoch Times.

Speaking on behalf of the Greens, Kerry Nettle said the Canadian report on the
organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners raised specific questions which the
Chinese regime now needed to answer.

“The allegations that have been raised
are extremely serious, are quite specific in nature and what is required from
the Chinese Government is not a blanket statement to say this couldn't be
occurring but some detailed responses to the detailed allegations that have been
made,” she said.

Senator Nettle said Greens leader Bob Brown had asked the
Australian Government a number of questions on the issue, most specifically to
do with Australians travelling to China for possible organ transplants.

“We
are asking the Australian Government to discourage Australians travelling to China
to have any medical operations whilst the claims around organ harvesting are made,”
Senator Nettle said.

The Canadian report compiled by former secretary of State
David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer David Matas lists a number
of recommendations which include a call for “all states” to prevent their nationals
from obtaining organ transplants from China until the “Chinese law on organ transplants
is rigorously implemented”.

Another recommendation is that “all detention
facilities, including forced labour camps” be opened for international scrutiny.

Secretary of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG)
in Australia, Ms Jane Sun said the CIPFG was preparing a delegation incorporating
legal, medical and human rights groups to visit China in order to carry out the
report's recommendations.

“We have taken the recommendations in the report
very seriously,” Ms Sun told The Epoch Times “and we intend to implement them”.

Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline based on a moral philosophy and tai-chi
like exercises, has been brutally persecuted in China for seven years.

Posting
date: 8/Nov/2006
Original article date: 5/Nov/2006
Category: Media Report