Shift the Focus of Investigation to All Labour Camps and Prisons

On March 9th 2006, the organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners at the Sujiatun Concentration Camp was exposed. The Chinese Communist Party was faced with strong condemnation and pressure from the international community. It took the CCP three weeks to break its silence and deny the existence of the concentration camp. At the same time, it made a seemingly gracious gesture of allowing the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to Sujiatun for an investigation.

This is not difficult to understand. An invitation from the CCP can only be a trap. In three weeks, the CCP has had enough time to shift and destroy evidence. On March 31, a veteran military doctor from Shenyang wrote that even if investigations were done, there would not be any evidence, because it was fairly easy to move a few thousand people. He said it would only take one day for the CCP to move 5,000 people. They would use special shuttles and closed and sealed freight train cars. He once witnessed a train for that purpose, and within one day, over 7,000 people were transferred. All the guards on the train were fully armed, and the train travelled at night.

According to the latest news, all of the eyewitnesses at the Sujiatun Concentration Camp have been secretly transferred. Because currently in Sujiatun there are many reporters from foreign countries and other relevant personnel whose identity as an investigator has not been revealed, the CCP's Ministry of Security has arranged a large number of plainclothes police to act as street vendors, pedestrians, and rickshaw drivers. They are active near the Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital in Sujiatun and near the Sujiatun train station, in order to deceive those who are there to investigate.

The CCP's approach to Sujiatun follows the same pattern as the various times it has denied the truth and deceived the international community. When the international community could not investigate the facts, the CCP will "decidedly" deny it. When the CCP is ready, it can shamelessly extend "invitations" to the international media, using the media who have been deceived to spread its lies. The CCP has deceived the WHO on its SARS investigation mission and the United Nations when it tried to survey the condition of human rights in China. The Sujiatun case is no exception.

As the international community pays closer attention, and as the CCP publicly denied the existence of organ harvesting after a long silence, there are probably no facts to collect in Sujiatun. Instead, the key may be the other places where Falun Gong is being persecuted. According to the military doctor, the hospital at Sujiatun is only one out of 36 similar labour camps across China. Most Falun Gong practitioners are still detained in prisons, labour camps, and detention centres. They are only relocated in big numbers when needed. Currently the region with the biggest concentration of detained Falun Gong practitioners is Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces. In Jiutai, Jilin Province, which has the fifth highest number of detained Falun Gong practitioners, 14,000 people are detained. The detention centre with the largest number of people is code named 672-S. More than 120,000 people are detained there, including many Falun Gong practitioners and prisoners of conscience.

The letter from the veteran military doctor is a strong blow to the CCP's attempt to hide the crimes at the concentration camps. The CCP can disguise Sujiatun, maybe even the detention area in Jiutai or 672-S, but moving 36 concentration camps is not easy. Even if the CCP could move the 36 concentration camps, they could not move the thousands of prisons, labour camps, detention centres, hospitals, or mental hospitals, unless they would no longer detain Falun Gong practitioners. Those 36 concentration camps and thousands of labour camps, prisons, and detention centres are the real crime scenes for persecuting Falun Gong. They are why the Sujiatun Concentration Camp could exist and be sustained. When Falun Gong practitioners can be detained in prisons, labour camps, and detention centres at will, when they could be killed or tortured at will, death camps like Sujiatun can easily be made. Thousands of hospitals can instantly become a crime scene where the CCP snatches organs from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Those media and organizations who truly want to investigate the truth about the concentration camps and stop the mass killings in Sujiatun should not limit themselves to Sujiatun, and should investigate the labour camps, prisons, hospitals, and other similar facilities. The broader the investigation, the more independent and deeper knowledge, the more likely we will find the facts. Information from inside sources at where Falun Gong practitioners are detained will help people comprehensively understand the truth about the persecution.