Denmark: The Twinning of Aarhus in Denmark and Harbin in China - Chinese Ambassador Intervenes

During the past couple of months, in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, ordinary citizens and government officials took part in discussions about their city's relationship with Harbin in China. After Aarhus sent a delegation to visit Harbin, a local human rights organisation, The Network for Human Rights in China, sent a letter to the city government exposing serious human rights violations and the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners that is going on in Harbin, which caused a huge sensation. The organisation provided substantial detailed evidence on the inglorious part Harbin played in nearly eight years of persecuting Falun Gong. For example, according to an incomplete count of death cases on the Clearwisdom.net website, 378 deaths were reported in Heilongjiang Province. It is the province with the second highest death toll among thirty provinces. One third of the deaths took place in the provincial capital, Harbin. On www.fawanghuihui.org, there are large quantities of concrete testimonies from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong with specific dates, times and locations in which the persecution was perpetrated, as well as names of perpetrators and witnesses. The testimonies of the persecution in Harbin are 500 pages long. These testimonies tell of atrocities including shocking Falun Gong practitioners with electric batons, force-feeding them with human excrement and various other cruel torture methods. The brutality is beyond imagination.

During eight years of persecution, labour camps infamous for the highest death toll and the most atrocious torture, such as Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp and Harbin Women's Prison, are all located in Harbin. In recent years, the appalling dark secret of large scale organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners are also happening in these places. The Mayor of Harbin, Shi Zhongxin, once boasted in a public speech that Harbin had “successfully stamped out Falun Gong.” In other words he confessed without any shame to his and his fellow officials’ participation in evil crimes unparalleled since the Nazi’s torture of the Jews.

The Network for Human Rights in China asked the city government officials as peace-loving, freedom-treasuring, human-rights-respecting people whether the Danes should keep silent and shake hands with butchers like this.

After the facts came into light, the kind-hearted, righteous Aarhus citizens boiled over. Immediately, every major media published long articles about the persecution. Government officials and ordinary citizens came out to voice their opinion one after another. Nearly everyone agreed that this kind of evil could not be tolerated.

In this context, after a long silence, the Chinese Ambassador to Denmark, Xie Hangshe, wrote a letter to the Mayor of Aarhus on the 1st of March, attaching a statement of the Chinese Embassy to Denmark and a statement last year from the Chinese Embassy to Canada which denied organ harvesting allegations. The Canadian letter had been thoroughly refuted by the independent investigators from Canada.

In his letter, Ambassador Xie dismissed the torture and organ harvesting atrocities happening in Harbin as groundless. In a tone of a 'big brother', Xie snapped, “These kind of groundless allegations hurt China’s international image, humiliating 1.3 billion Chinese people.” In the first instance, the CCP’s totalitarian regime has no right to represent the 1.3 billion Chinese people, amongst whom not one genuinely believes in the authoritarianism or not detests its tyranny. Even among those followers who sing the party’s praises, no one believes it truly or takes the lofty-toned brain-washing party propaganda as the truth. They only act to the contrary of their conscience because their personal interests are tied up with this lying, cheating and morally-degrading party.

In fact, Xie himself knows as well as anyone else that the CCP’s human rights record ranks among the worst in the world. During meetings with heads of states from western democratic countries, the CCP leadership is invariably faced with embarrassing demands of improving human rights conditions. In any country where the CCP leaders hold state visits, they are followed by large numbers of protesters. The unpopular bad name of the CCP is not the result of intentional vilification by anyone but rather the CCP’s own doing, destroying the Chinese national image.

The letter and one-page statement threatened that the CCP was obligated to inform Aarhus that the party strictly followed international conventions and never used in transplants any organ from unwilling donors who did not give written consent. The allegations were made out to be rumours of those practitioners following principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.”

The slandering rhetoric seemed familiar from the Canadian Embassy statement last year. However, time has passed and things have changed. When the Embassy in Denmark copied the Canadian paperwork, it unfortunately forgot a shocking piece of news in November 2006. The CCP’s Deputy Minister of Public Health, Huang Jianfu, reversed denial all along and acknowledged publicly the main source of organ transplants in China is executed prisoners. Under the influence of traditional Chinese culture, there are very few willing organ donors. Making all executed prisoners willing organ donors is a self-deceiving low trick. Unfortunately, the contradiction from high levels of the CCP directly countered Ambassador Xie’s statement above. The CCP exposed its own lies about “following international conventions” as if slapping Ambassador Xie in his face on the spot. In the eyes of intelligent Danish people, the letter from the Ambassador failed to deceive straight away.

Of course some have already put two and two together and figured out that the admission from Huang was to focus the attention away from the appalling crimes of large scale organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners. Since 1999 ,when the CCP started cracking down on Falun Gong, numbers of organ transplant operations in China soared exponentially. In order to solicit foreign patients to make high profits, various organ transplant centres and hospitals vied with each other in putting out enticing promises on their websites, such as “successful operations, abundant organs, short waiting time”, etc.

In July 2006 Canada’s former Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region, David Kilgour, and a famous human rights lawyer, David Matas, published an independent investigative report, Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. On March 31st, 2007 they updated the report with a revision. The investigation found no plausible explanation provide by the CCP as to the main source of organs in transplants during the period of 1999 to 2005 other than executed prisoners, which was reluctantly revealed recently. By the two investigators’ estimation, the organs stolen from live Falun Gong practitioners could be as many as 41,500, if not more.

If Ambassador Xie had any real intention to refute the “rumours”, he must have been able to provide convincing evidence to prove the above allegations to be wrong. Allegations with such weight in seriousness would not simply go away with a little threatening tall talk.

Of course, we could understand the frame of mind of Ambassador Xie and the statement drafters. Those who have truth on their side will willingly share it in abundant details, while liars, no matter how eloquent they are, can only hide behind their bluffs, feeling scared under public scrutiny.

If Ambassador Xie was indeed faithful to his duty, wanting to prove for the Danish people what he said was true, the most effective way is to grant entry visas to members of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), which has been established in all major continents around the world, including a European delegation at London on March 2nd with Danish participation. If the Danish member could be granted uncensored access to conduct objective investigations in China with Ambassador Xie’s permission, the truth of the matter would soon become known. Sadly, what the CCP is afraid of the most is the truth being exposed. Not one member of the CIPFG around the world has been granted visa to visit China. The reason goes without saying. Of course Ambassador Xie dared not to offer this convenience either. He knows perfectly well himself that his statement can not withstand investigation. Under the CCP’s tyranny everyone has to sell one’s conscience in exchange for livelihood. Lying is the prerequisite for official ranks. Ambassador Xie must know it well. Fact of the matter is everyone is equal in front of the truth. Everyone’s conscience is to be questioned equally and mercilessly in front of the truth. The law of the universe mandates that good is rewarded and evil punished. As Chinese, we have all received this kind of enlightenment from gods in our ancient culture. For those Chinese officials living in western democratic societies, it is very easy to learn the truth. Those who have learned the truth but still insist on being accomplices to the evil CCP in persecuting, lying to and poisoning people have as good as condemned themselves beyond redemption into hell. Everyone needs to think this over and over again.

Since the publication of the Epoch Times’ editorial Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in November 2004, the evil CCP has come up with nothing to argue the dishonourable historical facts cited, as if it was struck dumb. It should be perfectly clear that the root of the evil CCP has been pulled out. Heaven’s elimination of the CCP is a historical trend.

So far twenty million Chinese people have broken through various barriers and bravely denounced the CCP. If Ambassador Xie and other officials in the Embassy once acted against their will to persecute and deceive the innocent for personal benefit, under God’s boundless benevolence they still have a chance to survive if they break with the evil immediately and amend for their crimes by good deeds. To be a scapegoat of the evil party, follow it to hell or to quit it to save one’s life is a question of more real, urgent personal interest than one’s official rank. Time and chances are flying by. Now that the CCP has been uprooted, what are you still waiting for?