Two Canadian lawyers yesterday went to Australia’s Parliament House to persuade lawmakers to pass a motion urging China to immediately end the practice of what they say is organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.
David Kilgour, a former prosecutor and Canadian secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, have published evidence they said shows that China performs an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 transplants a year, with organs primarily taken from Falun Gong practitioners, Muslim Uighurs, Tibetan Buddhists and Christians.
China says it performed 10,057 organ transplants last year and has not harvested organs of executed prisoners since January last year.
Photo: AP
The US House of Representative passed a resolution in June calling on the US Department of State to report annually to US Congress on the implementation of an existing law barring visas to Chinese and other nationals engaged in coercive organ transplantation.
The resolution also condemns persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual group China calls a cult and has outlawed.
China accused Congress of making “groundless accusations.”
The European Parliament passed a similar declaration in July calling for an independent investigation of “persistent, credible reports on systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience” in China.
Kilgour said the Australian government was reluctant to accept evidence of large-scale, forced organ harvesting in China.
Kilgour blamed Australia’s close economic ties with China, its largest trading partner.
“The greatest amount of skepticism seems to be in Australia,” Kilgour said.
Kilgour and Matas first published a report on organ harvesting in China in 2006, which became the basis of their 2009 book Bloody Harvest. The Killing of Falun Gong for their Organs.
Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade First Assistant Secretary Graham Fletcher told an Australian Senate committee last month that he had doubts about the credibility of Falun Gong reports of forced organ harvesting.
“They are not given credence by serious human rights activists,” Fletcher said, referring to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Amnesty International’s Australian spokeswoman Caroline Shepherd said the London-based organization had not done its own research into organ harvesting in China and supported UN’s calls for an independent investigation of such allegations.
The Australian Department of Health said at least 53 Australians traveled to China for organ transplants between 2001 and 2014.
About 200 Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated outside Parliament House against forced organ harvesting on Monday as Matas and Kilgour addressed a meeting of lawmakers from several political parties.
Australian Member of Parliament Craig Kelley said he was considering moving a motion condemning forced organ harvesting which could be put to the Australian House of Representatives early next year.
A draft urges China to immediately end the practice.
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