Statement from Vice-President of the European Parliament: “There is enough circumstantial evidence to alert the international community to what amounts to genocide”

The following statement was submitted by Edward McMillan-Scott MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament, for a press conference held in London to mark seven years of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners.

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Mr Edward McMillan-Scott MEP (Yorkshire & Humber UK EPP-ED/Conservative) Vice-President of the European Parliament and rapporteur for the EU’s new Democracy and Human Rights Instrument travelled to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan on 21st – 29th May 2006 on a fact-finding mission, in particular to investigate claims of organ harvesting.

On the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the start of the persecution by the Chinese government of Falun Gong practitioners in China, there is enough circumstantial evidence to alert the international community to what amounts to genocide. In particular I pay tribute to the recent report by [David Matas and] David Kilgour, Canadian lawyer and former parliamentarian.

Whilst in Beijing, I interviewed a Chinese former prisoner, Mr Cao Dong, a Falun Gong practitioner who had seen the cadaver of his best friend with holes where organs had been removed.

The United Nations’ annual report on China has since 1999 consistently documented widespread human rights violations committed by the Chinese communist regime against Falun Gong practitioners in China. Such violations include illegal arrests and detentions, brainwashing, torture and killing.

Now, the atrocities have culminated into the most despicable crime of all – removing organs from living Falun Gong practitioners held as prisoners of conscience n China’s gulag-like network of jails and labour camps, and selling them at huge profit to unsuspecting victims worldwide who are in desperate need of transplants. The UN owes the world an enquiry.

It is time that the People’s Republic of China opened its doors to allow unrestricted investigation of all labour camps, hospitals, mental institutions and related facilities.

Edward McMillan-Scott MEP