Rally in London Calls For an End to The Persecution of Falun Gong

A rally in London’s Trafalgar Square has called for the end of 12 years of persecution in China.

At the rally on Saturday, July 16, members of the Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) spiritual practice condemned the routine torture of their peers in China.

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, Falun Gong practitioners make up the “largest group of prisoners of conscience” in the world, with hundreds of thousands enduring “re-education through labour” in China at any one time.

Made up to appear bruised and bloodied, several members demonstrated in a large cage, while printed boards displayed photographs of those that have been tortured to death over the last 12 years.

Practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditative spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, have been persecuted in China since 1999, with July 20 marking the 12th anniversary of the crackdown.

There are 3,427 well-documented deaths from the persecution, though many researchers believe that the actual figure is likely to be much higher.

Matthew Jones, public affairs officer for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, spoke at the rally and told Sound of Hope radio: “It’s scandalous that in the modern day a world power like China is complicit in the sort of atrocities that we’re hearing about – things such as enforced detention, organ harvesting and even murder.

"It’s well overdue that China gets a very strong message from the international community – London and the UK included – that this situation is unacceptable, it’s breaking China’s commitments and obligations under international law, and it simply must end.”

In his speech Mr Jones said that obtaining legal representation is difficult for Falun Gong practitioners in China. “The number of lawyers willing to take on Falun Gong cases is getting smaller by the day,” he said.

Shao Li, director of the UK Falun Dafa Association, said that the methods used in the persecution to prevent adherents from practising have been the “most brutal”. “When you see the severity and the scale of the persecution going on today, we want to bring this to the attention of the people in London,” he said.

Mr Li also called on the British government to strengthen its criticism of the Chinese communist regime, saying that it has been “few and far between, and when and when it happens it’s rather timid”.

At an event in the UK Parliament on July 12, investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann said that the persecution of Falun Gong is one of the “clearest cases of genocide in this century”. He urged NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to investigate allegations of organ harvesting, which he said had happened to at least 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners.

“Group after group has ignored this [organ harvesting] because it’s easier to do so,” Mr Gutmann said in an interview with Sound of Hope. “I don’t see a lot of change in that yet, but it’s possible.”

Gutmann is investigating evidence that organ harvesting has also occurred to members of the Uyghur and Tibetan ethnic groups.

He said he would like to see Western governments recommending that people not go to China for transplants until the providence of organs can be properly ascertained.