An independent investigative report “Bloody Harvest” about organ harvesting from thousands of living Falun Gong prisoners of conscience compiled by former Canadian Crown Prosecutor, Member of Parliament, and Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Africa David Kilgour, and award-winning international human rights attorney David Matas, was recently added to the list of extremist publications by the Russian Ministry of Justice.
Since the publication of their findings in 2006, David Kilgour and David Matas, also human rights advocates and activists, have been traveling to almost 40 countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia to raise people’s awareness about “a form of evil that we have yet to see on this planet, a new form of evil,” as David Matas had put it. A revised report with new evidence can be found in 18 languages at An Independent Investigation into Allegations of organ Harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in china.
“Virtually no independent person we know who has read our report, is not convinced of the validity of our dismaying conclusion,” said David Kilgour in his remarks at the International Symposium on the Crimes of Communism in Kiev, Ukraine, in November 2007.
On the same “black list,” there were put all the books written by Falun Gong founder Mr. Li Hongzhi.
At the above mentioned Symposium in Ukraine, David Matas proclaimed: “Which thinker or philosopher of twentieth century China has the most devotees or followers outside China? The answer is Li Hongzhi, the author of the works which inspired the Falun Gong movement. It is indeed a joke which history has played on the Chinese communists that, despite their atheism and materialism, the most significant and influential thinker China has produced during their rule is a spiritual leader.”
Speaking about “glaring crimes” of communism, Kilgour remarked that “it destroyed any concept of the rule of law and independent judges.”
In his essay “Standing with the voiceless of the world,” David Kilgour wrote: “These macabre deaths would not be occurring if the Chinese people enjoyed the rule of law.”
What rule of law are we dealing with now in Russia?
Alexander Verkhovsky from the Panorama Center, Moscow, in his article “Taking anti-extremism to extremes,” writes about the incomprehensibility of the definition “extremism” in the new law: “Some kinds of ‘extremism’ are simply absurd. Thus a ban is imposed on ’symbols indistinguishable from Nazi symbols.' As no exceptions are envisaged, that means that the ban covers swastikas used as religious symbols in Orthodox and Hindu places of worship and even swastikas that appear in an anti-fascist film.”
He concludes that this law makes it possible to crush and selectively repress “almost any organization (including any religious organization) and practically any publication, for even in the most respectable newspaper one can find the occasional sentence that is not ‘politically correct.’”
David Kilgour knows about Russia. In the early 1990s, he visited Moscow with a group of Christians who hosted a brunch for members of the Duma, Russia’s parliament.
In 1994, he published the book “Betrayal” about a Soviet-trained spy who defected and came to Canada. He dedicated his book “To Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and all others who disturb an unjust peace.”
The Epoch Times asked former Canadian Secretary of State Hon. David Kilgour to share his views about the new add-ons to Russia’s “extremist” list.
Epoch Times (ET): Mr. Kilgour, you probably know that last December, your report on organ harvesting was put on the list of extremist publications by Russian Ministry of Justice. Would you please comment on this decision?
David Kilgour (DK): The decision is perfectly consistent with numerous other totalitarian acts by the Kremlin in recent years. The victims are the long-suffering and admirable Russian people.
ET: Have you heard about any precedents of this kind anywhere in the world?
DK: No, but I’m certain that the party-states in Beijing, North Korea, and Iran are pleased with the decision despite the lack of any reasoning behind it.
ET: From a legal standpoint, was this decision legitimate?
DK: In no way, of course, in any rule of law nation, but most unfortunately Russia is no longer such a country.
