A never-ending stream of atheist atrocities.

Beijing -- More horror stories emerging from atheist China are once again raising the question of what should be the free world's relationship to the Communist regime in that country. This should include the question whether democratic nations should participate in the Summer Olympics scheduled for Beijing in 2008.

The Epoch Times newspaper, headquartered in New York with an office in Toronto for its Canadian edition, has since March 10 been carrying articles exposing a newly discovered concentration camp for Falun Gong adherents, as well as the organ harvesting system at work in China. The series began with the testimony of a former Chinese journalist, who told the Times that a secret prison camp called Sujiatun, located in northeast China's Liaoning Province, is totally sealed off from the outside world and allegedly houses over 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners. Those who die there have their organs harvested for sale, he said.

"They cannot find enough bodies through executions, and no bodies are more readily available than those of (Falun Gong) practitioners to do this business," said the journalist, who was not identified for his own protection.

U.S. President George W. Bush recently welcomed Hu Jintao, president of the People's Republic of China and general secretary of the Communist Party of China, to Washington. Yet Bush's own State Department in its 2005 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for China, again described that nation as a state where human rights are subject to numerous and serious abuses. The report identified physical abuse resulting in deaths while in custody; torture; coerced confessions of prisoners; use of a coercive birth limitation policy, in some cases resulting in forced abortion and sterilization; restrictions on religious freedom (remember the Catholic underground Church of four million); control of religious groups; harassment and detention of unregistered religious groups; and trafficking in women and children.

On the subject of organ harvesting, the report noted that officials confirm that executed prisoners are among the sources of organs for transplant. No national law governs organ donations, nor are there reliable statistics on how many organ transplants using organs from executed prisoners occurred. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of political prisoners remain incarcerated, some in prisons and others in "re-education-through-labour" camps and other forms of administrative detention. Some 10,000 prisoners are executed every year.

Critics of the Chinese Communist regime such as the Epoch Times are lamenting the media's turning a blind eye to the atrocities. Time magazine's May 1 European issue, for example, carried only a short piece suggesting that, "New rules should clean up China's use of organs produced from executed prisoners, ending an unhealthy trade ... organ brokers may have to look elsewhere for business opportunities."

Whitewash articles such as that one prompted the Times' editorial staff to issue "an open letter to our colleagues in the media," which charged that "major media, if they have reported on this (concentration camp and organ harvesting) story at all, have reported mostly or only the Chinese Communist Party's canned and predictable official denials ... To be frank, it appears that you're missing the story through lack of effort (Apr. 19, 2006)."

Canada

What do Canadian officials have to say about the situation in China? Stephen S. Poloz, senior vice-president of corporate affairs and chief economist for Export Development Canada, in 2004 boasted that Canadian trade with China was delivering "big benefits" and such trade was expected to grow rapidly in coming years. In November 2005, the former foreign affairs minister, Pierre Pettigrew, announced that, though Canada was "concerned" about the human rights situation, "engagement rather than isolation represents the best means to achieve improvements over time." (Export Development Canada, May 19, 2004; Dept. of Foreign Affairs press release, November 3, 2005.)

An internet search for statements by the new Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay on China so far reveals only concerns over Chinese industrial espionage in Canada.

Comment:

We suggest that readers begin writing letters opposing Canada's participation in the 2008 Olympics, unless there is a radical and visible change in China's behaviour.