More than 100 legislators, lawyers, doctors, human rights activists and non-governmental organization heads from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau yesterday established an Asian branch of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator William Lai (賴清德), who is also the president of the branch, faxed a letter during the press conference in Taipei to the offices of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and Luo Gan (羅幹), the member of the Politburo Standing Committee who oversees police and judicial matters for the Chinese Communist Party.
Urgent need
The letter demanded that the Chinese government allow the group to conduct field investigations into allegations of government persecution against Falun Gong members in China.
"There is a very urgent need to investigate the situation in China as persecution is happening every day," Lai said.
The group said that the Chinese government executed 1,616 prisoners annually between 2000 and last year, but that it also completed 1,000 organ transplants annually during the same period.
"Establishing this branch means we are going to take action to defend justice and human rights on an international scope," Lai said.
Selling organs
A report by independent Canadian investigators David Kilgour, formerly director of the Asia-Pacific Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, and human rights attorney David Matas says that the Chinese government has profited from selling organs taken from living Falun Gong practitioners.
The group did not say what it would do in the event that the Chinese government did not allow it to proceed with a probe.
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A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
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