David Kilgour has been one of Canada’s longest serving Members of Parliament (27 years), as a Cabinet Minister, and as Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific Affairs. Few Members of Parliament are as widely respected. One journalist has written: “in the past 25 years, no Canadian could take this kind of moral time-test and pass with such flying colours as David Kilgour.” — and no Canadian politician comes even close to him as a consistent and principled advocate of human rights. He has published four books on varied subjects, ranging from Espionage to Canadian-American relations. David Matas is a lawyer and lecturer on constitutional law, international law, and civil liberties. He was in the Canadian Delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, and since 1997 has been the Director of the International Centre for Human Rights & Democratic Development.
These men were approached by a Washington-based coalition of Human Rights groups with a request to do an independent investigation and report on allegations of live-organ harvesting from political dissidents by the Chinese Communist Party, which have long been made by followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement, both in and out of China. To quote the authors: “When we began our work, we had no views whether the allegations were true or untrue. The allegations were so shocking that they are almost impossible to believe. We would have much rather found the allegations to be untrue than to be true. The allegations, if true, represent a disgusting form of evil which, despite all the depravities humanity has seen, are new to this planet. The very horror made us reel back in disbelief. … After the Holocaust, it is impossible to rule out any form of depravity. Whether an alleged evil has been perpetrated can be determined only by considering the facts.”
A preliminary report was released in 2005, to which China’s rulers responded with invective and rabid, irrelevant denunciations of the Falun Gong. This second report was made to incorporate additional evidence. The methodology of the the investigation cannot be faulted, and nobody has been able to refute its data, evidence, or conclusions.
What does the report conclude?
“Based on our further research, we are reinforced in our original conclusion that the allegations are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners. We have concluded that the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centres and ‘people’s courts”, since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers, corneas and hearts, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.”
How many of the victims were first convicted of any offence, serious or otherwise, in legitimate courts, we are unable to estimate because such information appears to be unavailable both to Chinese nationals and foreigners. It appears to us that many human beings belonging to a peaceful voluntary organization made illegal eight years ago by President Jiang because he thought it might threaten the dominance of the Communist Party of China have been in effect executed by medical practioners for their organs.
Our conclusion comes not from any one single item of evidence, but rather the piecing together of all the evidence we have considered. Each portion of the evidence we have considered is, ion itself, verifiable and, in most cases, incontestable. Put together, they paint a damning whole picture. It is their combination that has convinced us.”
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