Malaysian Human Rights Lawyer: Human Rights Torch Relay Is to Save Lives

On June 14th, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) Asian Delegation held simultaneous press conferences in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan to announce a "Global Human Rights Torch Relay" project. Mr. N. Surendran, a human rights lawyer and also the Malaysia CIPFG representative and a member of Malaysians Against the Death Penalty and Torture, expressed his full support. He said: "It will at least show China that what they are doing is known to the world, and they can not continue to silently persecute, torture and kill people without the world knowing about it. It is also a shame to China."

Mr Surendran said: "The passing of the human rights flame [Human Rights Torch Relay] is very significant. The flame in some way symbolises the lives and the wellbeing of those people who are being persecuted in China now. What we want the flame to symbolise is that we do not want the lives and the wellbeing of people to be snuffed out by the Chinese government and by their security and military apparatus. By passing the flame around, it certainly symbolises the fact that something needs to be done in order to save tens of thousands people."

Attorney N. Surendram supports the Human Rights Torch Relay project

Mr. Surendran also recorded a formal statement regarding the torch relay plan, and the statement will be played at a local press conference.

In the statement, he said that he would be more than happy to participate in the Torch Relay. He emphasised that western governments took little action even though they knew a genocide was happening in Nazi concentration camps, and history seems to be repeating as many governments are again playing political games to avoid confronting the Chinese government. He said that this must be stopped; otherwise the values advocated by these countries will be hollow.