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Australia: Falun Gong protests during Wen visit

AAP, via The Age, Australia
Apr. 3, 2006
www.theage.com.au

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday April 3, 2006

Falun Gong followers have likened Chinese officials to Hitler’s Nazis and urged Prime Minister John Howard to challenge visiting Premier Wen Jiabao over human rights abuses.

Just hours after Mr Howard signed a uranium export deal with Premier Wen, Falun Gong practitioners converged outside federal parliament holding banners and graphic photos, demanding an end to Chinese “concentration camps”.

Protesters held up gruesome photos of bodies with organs removed, claiming the practice targeting Falun Gong members was happening in China.

“They use a mafia-style method … they kidnap dissidents,” former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin told the rally.

“There are over 4,000 people (that have) already been used for organ harvesting and 2,000 others … their fate (is) uncertain.”

Mr Chen, a former diplomat at China’s Consulate-General in Sydney, sought asylum after claiming Beijing had up to 1,000 spies in Australia.

He was granted a protection visa six weeks after he abandoned his posting last May.

Mr Chen said China could not be trusted.

“We feel upset that the Australian government is moving towards exporting uranium to the Chinese communist government,” he said.

“We urge members of the Australian parliament, the prime minister, to mention the human rights abuse in China before the Chinese premier.

“Stick to democracy and human rights values.

“(Do not) allow the Chinese communist government to make nuclear bombs for Australian people.”

Falun Gong member Michael Molnar said crimes against humanity must not go unnoticed.

“The Chinese communist party is presiding over this monstrous penal system and should be considered by the international community as even worse than Hitler’s Nazis in view of the fact that they have embarked on the genocide of up to 100 million innocent people,” he said.

The United Nations is looking into allegations by Falun Gong that thousands of its followers are being held at a Chinese “concentration camp” and some have been killed.

The spiritual movement, banned in China, alleges that up to 6,000 people at a time are being kept at a state-run camp in the Sujiatun district.

It says some had been taken to have their organs removed and sold, others had their organs removed before they were killed.

Earlier, Falun Gong members claimed victory in their legal battle against restrictions on their protests outside the Chinese embassy in Canberra.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer began signing certificates in March 2002, barring protesters from displaying large banners and using loudspeakers outside the embassy to protest.

Lawyer Bernard Collaery, representing Falun Gong, told the ACT Supreme Court that Mr Downer had stopped signing the certificates.

Under the agreement which settled the case, Falun Gong promised to keep its protests within certain constraints while Mr Downer reserved the right to reissue the certificates if he believed it appropriate.