By ROSS ROMANIUK, CITY HALL REPORTER

Wed, July 26, 2006

Dana Zhao (left), Tianqi Li and Heidi Luo explain cause at city hall. (C. PROCAYLO Sun)

Several Chinese refugees went to city hall yesterday to ask for help in fighting their homeland's crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation movement -- and found at least one supportive politician.

The horror stories of "mass killings" of Falun Gong practitioners and allegations of sales of their organs -- as told by the handful of refugees visiting Winnipeg, as well as a growing number of members of the Chinese spiritual movement -- have prompted Coun. Jenny Gerbasi to recommend that city hall take action against the Communist government's clampdown.

CONDEMN ILLEGAL HARVESTING

Gerbasi (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) will ask this week that the city push Ottawa to condemn any illegal harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners -- a practice that Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas says has become common in China.

She'll also recommend the city demand that the provincial government tighten laws against organ trafficking and require doctors to report evidence that a patient has received an organ in such a way.

The Chinese refugees, who live in Toronto, came to Winnipeg as part of a trek across Canada to call attention to the alleged persecution by the Chinese government and to ask authorities here to help stop it.

Tianqi Li, a 60-year-old who moved to Toronto from China in 2003, says he was imprisoned at a Chinese labor camp from 2000 to 2002 as punishment for practicing Falun Gong -- a spiritual, meditative and non-political movement that started in 1992 and has grown to an estimated membership of more than 100 million.

"They want to brainwash us, because the Chinese government doesn't allow people to practice Falun Gong," Li told the Sun. "They force you to give it up."

Gerbasi pointed to Matas's research and said an estimated 41,000 organ transplants are "unaccounted for" in China in recent years.

Through a translator, Li said former president Jiang Zemin launched the clampdown.

"When he started the persecution, he made it a policy that all the Falun Gong people need to be eradicated and that their bodies be destroyed," Li said. "And, politically, they need to be condemned and restricted from any political involvement."

http://winnipegsun.com/News/Winnipeg/2006/07/26/1702717-sun.html

Posting date: 7/28/2006
Original article date: 7/28/2006
Category: News & Media Reports

 Yearly Archive  Printer Version