March 19, 2006

In an effort to raise awareness of the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China, a Sault woman and her friends spent Friday afternoon in the cold.

Sue Kinnaird (shown) was distributing flyers in front of the NCO call centre on Queen Street, asking people to sign a petition condemning China for violently oppressing tens of millions of its citizens for practising Falun Gong, a discipline involving meditation and slow, gentle physicial movements with roots in Buddhism and Taoism.

Other Falun Gong practitioners did the same in other parts of the city.

Kinnaird wants to make the public aware of the discovery of a secret concentration camp in which thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are alleged to be imprisoned in northeastern China.

Of an estimated 6,000 practitioners said to have gone into the camp, none have left alive and about 2,000 are believed to remain alive there.

Kinnaird cited media reports indicating that corrupt doctors and officials are harvesting body organs of Falun Gong practitioners in the camp, then disposing of the bodies in an on-site crematorium.

She quotes Amnesty International statistics indicating that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China have been arrested on spurious charges, with thousands being sent to slave labor camps without trial.

"Torture is widespread, and now accounts for at least 2894 deaths in police custody," Kinnaird said.

The petition she and fellow Falun Gong practitioners are circulating is available online.

Kinnaird says that she has personally been the target of efforts by Chinese government supporters to stamp out the non-violent spiritual movement of Falun Gong.

"I get about six prerecorded phone calls a day," she said. "I answer and a machine comes on, first in Chinese, then in English, telling me how dangerous Falun Gong is."

Throughout the summer months, Kinnaird and other local Falun Gong practitioners can often be found doing meditative exercises in Bellevue park.

She said the informal group meets once every few weeks to discuss the principles of Falun Gong, a peaceful, slow motion exercise practice that focuses on truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.