(Clearwisdom.net) The Spanish National Court made a decision recently to indict chief culprit Jiang Zemin and four other Chinese Communist Party officials, including Luo Gan, Bo Xilai, Jia Qinglin and Wu Guanzheng, for genocide and torture against Falun Gong. This act has created a strong reaction in the international community. Renowned Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas considers the indictment a positive development and believes the lawsuit against Jiang has strong evidence.
David Matas said in an interview regarding the lawsuit against
Jiang in Spain on November 21, 2009, "I think it's a positive
development."
He said, "The evidence, in my view, is strong and justified the
prosecution. And it's just a matter of finding the right form.
Ideally, it would be China prosecuting these people in the
international court. But the trouble with that is China gives
immunity to wrongdoers,..."
Mr. Matas said that the judge's decision, "is just the start of
the case and we'll have to see, but I think it shows that there is
a real problem and something needs to be done."
Regarding the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong, David Matas and
David Kilgour co-authored the book "Bloody Harvest" that was
recently published. The book presents a great deal of evidence to
illustrate that since the persecution of Falun Gong started, organ
harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners for profit has been
conducted on a large scale in China.
Organ harvesting from the Falun Gong practitioner is a
criminal act of genocide
Mr. Matas said at his book launch held at the Canadian
Parliament on November 16, 2009, that the organ harvesting from
Falun Gong practitioners is a criminal act of genocide. He
discussed this topic at a meeting of the International Association
of Genocide Scholars held at George Mason University on June 9,
2008. The topic of his speech was, "Persecution of Falun Gong in
China: A New Face of Genocide."
He said, "Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in China in
large numbers. There have been over three thousand named victims
killed as a result of torture inflicted in order to force them to
abandon their beliefs. There have been in addition tens of
thousands that have been killed for their organs which have been
sold to transplant tourists. The Government of China denies all of
this is happening. It denies the organ harvesting; it denies the
killings; it denies the torture. Yet, there is a wealth of factual
evidence to show that these violations are happening."
"Destroy them physically" --an intent to commit
genocide
Mr. Matas stated, "Not every mass killing of an identifiable
group is genocide. For the crime of genocide to occur there has to
be not just actual destruction of the group in whole or in part.
There has to be an intent to destroy."
Mr. Matas continued by addressing the that
Jiang's clique set up to persecute Falun Gong. He said, "On
November 30, the 610 office called more than 3,000 officials to the
Great Hall of the People in Beijing to discuss the campaign against
Falun Gong, which was then not going well. Demonstrations against
the banning of Falun Gong were continuing to occur at Tiananmen
Square. The head of the 610 office, Li Lanqing, announced the
government's new policy on the movement: 'defame their reputations,
bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically.'"
"This statement 'destroy them physically' might seem to be a
smoking gun of intent. The trouble is linking that statement to
individual cases of torture or organ harvesting. A conviction of
anyone for genocide, like any crime, requires individual
responsibility for crime. The relevant intent has to rest with the
accused, not with Li Lanqing." He said, "If the accused was one of
the Chinese officials who was both responsible for killings and
knew the order of Li Lanqing, the requisite intent would be
established."
Those who are accused of genocide are unable to defend
themselves
There are basically two kinds of killings of Falun Gong
practitioners, killings through torture and killings through organ
harvesting.
As for killings through torture, an official in charge of the
torturer might claim that he or she did not know what was going on.
Yet, that is no defense where there is conscious disregard of the
information about the torture. The Statute of the International
Criminal Court provides that a superior shall be criminally
responsible for crimes committed by subordinates under his or her
effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure
to exercise control properly over such subordinates, where the
superior either knew or consciously disregarded information which
clearly indicated that the subordinates were committing or about to
commit such crimes, the crimes concerned activities that were
within the effective responsibility and control of the superior,
and the superior failed to take all necessary and reasonable
measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their
commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for
investigation and prosecution
As for the killings through organ harvesting, Mr. Matas
illustrated with an example. Karl Gebhardt was charged with crimes
against humanity for his participation in Nazi medical experiments,
in the Doctors Trial at the Nuremberg Military Trials. Mr. Matas
said, "In his defense, his lawyers argued that subjects on whom he
was experimenting faced execution."
Mr. Matas said, "One can say the same of those complicit in
organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners. The official
Government of China line may well be that the sources of organs are
prisoners sentenced to death. Many people know from personal
experience that this is not so -- those who blood test Falun Gong
practitioners in prison, those who select Falun Gong practitioners
for transplant, those who transport them to the roving organ
sourcing hospital vans."
"But even those at the other end of the procedures who may not
see with their own eyes that the body in front of them is the body
of a Falun Gong practitioner could learn that fact if they made the
slightest inquiry about who the person was. If David Kilgour and I
could learn that fact simply by having investigators who are
strangers to the system phone the hospitals and doctors and ask,
surely the people inside the system could do so." He said, "When it
comes to organ harvesting of Falun Gong, the evidence is so
pervasive and so easily accessible that those in the system who
claim they do not know have been willfully blind."
Large-scale incitement
Mr. Matas mentioned incitement in the persecution. He said, "The
crime of genocide can be inflicted by incitement." "When it comes
to incitement, the number of Chinese Communist Party and Chinese
state official participants in the crime are legion. Anti-Falun
Gong incitement is standard Chinese government, Communist party
propaganda. It is hard to find anyone associated with the Chinese
State or Chinese Community Party who is not implicated in this
propaganda." He said, "Inside China there may be some people
engaged in anti-Falun Gong propaganda who do not know about the
mass killings of Falun Gong practitioners because of Chinese
government censorship and the internet blockade. However, that is
certainly not true of Chinese officials abroad. Every Chinese
embassy around the world participates in this incitement."
Mr. Matas summed up in the end, "So, in sum, in view, the crime
of genocide has been committed against the Falun Gong community,
through torture, through organ harvesting and through the
incitement that leads to both. The elements of the crime, the mass
killings based on identity and the intent to destroy the group, can
be established.