Members of Parliament presented several petitions in the House of Commons on Dec. 2 that raise the issue of gross human rights violations by the Chinese regime, asking Canada to take action in support of victims.
Conservative MP Peter Kent presented a petition calling on the government to sanction 14 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials involved in the persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
The petition called on the government to apply Magnitsky sanctions, including the barring of travel and seizure of assets, against the Chinese officials involved in “torture, murder, and organ harvesting” of Falun Gong practitioners, Kent said in the House on Dec. 2.
The 14 Chinese officials listed in the petition include former CCP leader Jiang Zemin, the main perpetrator of the persecution campaign. It also includes former and current officials ranging from high-ranking members of the Politburo to mayors and governors, and two medical doctors accused of spearheading the practice of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience.
Garnett Genuis, shadow minister for International Development & Human Rights, presented a petition in support of Bill S-204, which would make it a criminal offence for Canadians to travel abroad to receive an organ for which consent had not been given. The bill is currently before the Senate.
Genius said the bill “extends extra-territorial jurisdiction in an attempt to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking around the world.”
“The petitioners note that this is an important human rights bill. Efforts have been made to pass it for over a decade, and they hope this Parliament will finally get Bill S-204 passed into law,” he said in the House on Dec. 2.
Last year, an independent tribunal in England found that it was “beyond doubt” that state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting for profit has been taking place in China for years and “on a significant scale.”Among its conclusions, the tribunal found that these organs are principally sourced from imprisoned prisoners of conscience—the majority of whom are Falun Gong practitioners.
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a prominent British human rights lawyer who chaired the China Tribunal on forced organ harvesting, is currently convening another independent tribunal in London to investigate whether the Chinese regime’s alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims constitute genocide or crimes against humanity.
Genuis also presented a petition on Dec. 2 that called on the House “to formally recognize the Uighurs in China have been and are being subject to genocide,” and to use the Magnitsky law to sanction Chinese officials responsible for crimes against the Uighur people, such as the growing evidence of forced sterilization and forced abortion among Uighur women in the notorious concentration camps in Xinjiang, northeastern China.
Also on Dec. 2, Conservative MP Arnold Viersen presented a petition to call on Canada to recognize the persecution of Uighurs as genocide, as well as another petition in support of Bill S-240 combating organ tourism.
“I am not sure if members have seen the pictures of folks lined up at the railway station and being hauled off to concentration camps. When we said, “Never again”, we should mean never again,” he said upon presenting the petition.
