Three Falun Gong activists came to Emporia on Tuesday, claiming that the Chinese government is harvesting organs from the movement’s practitioners.
The visit was part of a 16-city car tour in Kansas to publicize the charges. Similar tours have been organized in other states.
The Chinese government has denied the allegations, first made public in March, although it did admit last year to taking organs from condemned prisoners to use in transplants.
“Everyone we talk to says they’ve never heard of this,” said Felice Boewe of Leawood, who was born in China and grew up in Taiwan before coming to the U.S. 40 years ago. “In fact, one lady asked me ‘Are you against this?’ I’m sure it didn’t register in her mind.”
Boewe, along with Gary Du of Overland Park and student Jane Huang of Central Missouri State University, donated some materials to the Emporia Public Library and visited the city manager’s office to ask for a proclamation on the subject.
Falun Gong is described by its practitioners as a meditative practice that draws on beliefs such as Buddhism and Confucianism as well as Chinese folklore. It was outlawed by China in 1999 as a “heretical organization.”
The charges of organ harvesting from Falun Gong members began to reach the mainstream press in July, after a report on the subject was released by human-rights attorney David Matas and David Kilgour, a former member of the Canadian Parliament. In the report, Matas and Kilgour said the allegations were hard to prove or disprove, but that the pattern of evidence seemed to suggest they were true.
“The allegations here are so shocking that they are almost impossible to believe,” Matas and Kilgour wrote. “The allegations, if true, would represent a grotesque form of evil which, despite all the deprivations humanity has seen, would be new to this planet. The very horror makes us reel back in disbelief. But that disbelief does not mean the allegations are untrue.”
The Chinese government has been attacked by human rights organizations for other actions against the Falun Gong since 1999. A 2004 report by Amnesty International said that any practitioners who were detained risked torture if they failed to renounce their beliefs.
The Matas and Kilgour report says that 41,500 organ transplants took place in China that did not have a verifiable source. That number was also cited last month by Edward McMillan-Scott, vice-president of the European Parliament, who said China should lose the right to host the 2008 Olympics.
A Canadian television station reported in July that the UN and Amnesty International were investigating the charges but had not found enough evidence to confirm or deny them. The reports of Falun Gong organ harvesting have also been disputed by Chinese human-rights activist Harry Wu, who said he had investigated the claims and believed them to be groundless.
The group in Emporia claimed Wu was “jealous” at having his thunder stolen after years of investigating organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners.
“There are so many ways you can prove it’s credible,” Boewe said of the charges.
The car tour will end Sept. 21 in Abilene.