NGOs Urge Australian Gov. to Act on Falun Gong
Friends of Falun Gong USA has co-signed a letter to the Australian Prime Minister and its Foreign Minister to China. The letter urges Australia to enact Magnitsky-style restrictions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its criminal forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong held practitioners in state custody. The letter is cosigned by NGOs such as China Aid Association, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, Genocide Watch, the Lantos Foundation, and the Falun Dafa Association of Australia. The letter also asks the Australian government to condemn the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and call for an end to the crackdown, which in July will mark 25 years.
Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for their faith, and tens of millions of practitioners and their family members continue to suffer physical, psychological, medical, and financial abuse at the hands of the Chinese government. In 1999, the CCP launched an unprecedented crackdown on Falun Gong, a spiritual qigong practice based on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Featuring five gentle exercises, Falun Gong was praised by the Chinese government before the persecution began.
The letter cites a UN special report that estimates that Falun Gong practitioners account for 66% of those being tortured while in Chinese state custody. View the letter here.