An Australia-wide public inquiry is to be held into the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
According to Peter Westmore, one of the spokesmen for the inquiry, there are many Chinese now living in Australia who have had first hand experiences of persecution or abuse at the hands of the present Chinese regime. The inquiry, he said, will be seeking to document these experiences with a view to compiling a report for public release.
"There are a large number of Falun Gong practitioners in Australia who were themselves persecuted in China," Mr Westmore told The Epoch Times. "There are [also] Falun Gong practitioners who are living outside China but who have visited China, who we understand have been subjected to various forms of mistreatment."
"What we particularly want to do is to try to seek submissions…from their own experience and to ask them questions to attempt to validate their stories and then to publish a report based upon those," he said.
The inquiry, to commence in Melbourne next month, is being co-ordinated by the Victorian branch of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), an international organisation whose members in Australia include Democrats' Senator Andrew Bartlett, National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce and Federal Opposition Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen.
While the present Chinese regime's flagrant disregard for human rights is well documented, it was the release of a Canadian report last year on illegal organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners that sent shock waves around the world.
Co-authors of the report, former Canadian Secretary of State, David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer, David Matas, declared that what they had discovered was going on in China, was a "grotesque form of evil which despite all the depravations humanity has seen would be new to this planet".
In the report which has recently been updated, the authors allege that organs from incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners have, and continue to be, taken to service a booming and lucrative international trade in human organs.
On order to raise awareness about the atrocities, David Kilgour and Vice-President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, visited Australia late last year, gaining cross party agreement for an independent investigation.
Labor's new leader Kevin Rudd, who was then Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesperson expressed particular concern saying on ABC's Lateline, that the allegations were "so far-reaching and so profound, we need to ensure that there is an appropriate investigation."
Mr Rudd confirmed that the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) had put a proposal to the Chinese regime for an independent investigation and that the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture was also to make enquiries.
To date there has been no word from DFAT on the progress of its independent investigation.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, however, has recently expressed frustration at the Chinese regime's unwillingness to comply with his requests for more information.
"Now the Chinese Government is required to respond with facts on each point of the allegations, eg concrete data on executions, the source of organs for transplants." Mr Nowak told Austrian magazine Profil. "It is not enough to categorically deny the large amount of deduced evidence from a variety of different angles."
According to the magazine, Mr Nowak produced a flimsy two page response from the Chinese Government saying, "This is for sure not enough."
Mr Westmore, who is also the Presdient of the National Civic Council (NCC) said that Mr Kilgour and Mr McMillan-Scott had inspired the CIPFG in Victoria to form their own delegation to go to China to conduct an investigation. However, the Chinese consular general in Melbourne, had been "quite unco-operative" and the group had decided instead to follow up on the many horrific cases of human rights abuse in China that had surfaced in Australia since the Canadian report's release.
"We concluded that because there is evidence available in Australia, we would need to conduct an inquiry in Australia and seek submission from people who had knowledge of the Chinese Government's practices with regard to Falun Gong, independently of all the other inquiries which had taken place," Mr Westmore said.
Security for those giving submission was still an issue for many Chinese mainlanders, he said, and the inquiry would be factoring that into the submission process.
"We want to make provisions for both public hearings and also for private hearings," he said: "for those who are not able for reasons of safety, or family safety,…to speak up publicly about it".
All submissions however, would be considered seriously and all efforts would be made to ensure accuracy.
Mr Westmore said he was not a Falun Gong practitioner but had read all the information available on the practice, including criticisms, and was convinced Falun Gong was a "good movement" based on the values of "truth, tolerance and compassion," which he believed were integral to "the good ordering of society".
"I think they are noble values and people who practise those values should be encouraged," he said. "Those practices should be endorsed and certainly not subject to arbitrary arrest, deliberate persecution still less the horrific practises of murdering Falun Gong practitioners in order to harvest their organs."
While there will be a range of public announcements about the inquiry in the coming weeks, Mr Westmore said all submission notices would be confidential and those already willing to make submissions could notify the CIPFG, 582 Queensbury St, North Melbourne, 3051.
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