Elaine fears for her mother-in-law's life

Elaine Xie is travelling across Ontario to raise awareness of the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

And to save her mother-in-law's life.

Sault Ste. Marie was the last stop in her tour.

Elaine (shown, left) was part of a group that stopped off at City Hall today to inform people about the results of an independent report by two prominent Canadians.

The report, by human rights lawyer David Matas and David Kilgour former Canadian secretary of state (Asia-Pacific), supports allegations that the Chinese government is harvesting organs from living Falun Gong detainees and then cremating the donors' remains to destroy evidence of what was done to their bodies.

Xie told SooToday.com that she has a very personal connection to this effort, both as a Falun Gong practitioner and as a deeply concerned daughter-in-law.

"My mother-in-law is not a Falun Gong practitioner but she wrote a letter asking the government to stop persecuting them," said Xie. "They kidnapped her and put her in jail."

She said her mother-in-law is now 52 and has been in a detention camp for two years, with another six to go.

Xie said her husband is very close to his mother and was distraught at the news of her imprisonment, which he learned on his birthday.

"They tortured her," she said. "They have so far been allowing my mother-in-law's youngest sister to see her once a month and she told us that they injected my mother-in-law with psychotropic drugs that caused her to lose much of her memory and to be very unresponsive."

Shown are Xie, Anne Zuo, James Yang, Tian Qi Li and Lisa Wang who are participating in a car tour to promote awareness of Falun Gong among Canadians.

They're asking people to sign their petition calling for action to prevent any further persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

After reading a statement from the steps of City Hall, Xie and her travelling companions spoke privately, in separate meetings with representatives of the offices of Mayor John Rowswell, MP Tony Martin and MPP David Orazietti.

Following those meetings, the travelling group learned of and met up with some local Falun Gong participants at Clergue Park.

Local practitioner Sue Kinnaird was very happy to meet the travellers and to learn more about other practitioners in Canada.

"We don't have any membership fees or restrictions and you can come and go as you please," Kinnaird said. "Often people practise independently so we might not know about each other but it's nice to get together as a group and practise sometimes."

Kinnaird, Xie and their fellow practitioners completed a group exercise together before the travelling group left to head home to Toronto.

Xie said that the people of China few human rights and little hope of a happy future or control over their own lives.

She said that many have turned to Falun Gong for solace, hope and guidance in personal growth.

"The Chinese government wants people to believe it is a dangerous cult so they can be free to persecute Falun Gong's practitioners. But really it is only a set of meditation exercises and principles," said Xie.

"We believe in truthfulness, compassion and tolerance," she said. "We do not maintain any lists of our members and everyone is free to chose our way or not to."

She said that Falun Gong was founded in northeastern China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi.

At first the government supported it because it made workers happy and well so they could do their jobs better and without expensive medical care, said Xie.

But in July 1999 the Chinese government became jealous of Falun Gong's support and branded it an evil sect, she said.

Practising Falun Gong was outlawed in China in 1999 when the Chinese government began to see the movement's growing popularity as a threat to its power.

According to the official Falun Gong website, it is a powerful practice to improve body, mind and spirit.

The independent study completed recently by David Matas and David Kilgour says that at least 40,500 Falun Gong prisoners are missing and are likely to have been killed to contribute to a large number of mysterious organ transplants recorded in China.

It says that transplantation websites promising short waiting times and guaranteed organ matches have been operating from Chinese hospitals for at least five years and that these hospitals cannot account for sources of their donor organs.

Estimates vary, but independent sources including Amnesty International say that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are detained for at least short periods of time each year, and that significant numbers of these are unaccounted for even years later or have been killed.

The site says that these detentions usually involve re-education by labour or by abuse designed to convince practitioners to renounce their beliefs.

"Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to stop the mass arbitrary detentions, unfair trials and other human rights violations resulting from the crackdown on the Falun Gong and other groups branded by the government as 'heretical organizations'," says the organization.

Meanwhile, the government of China maintains that the few Falun Gong practitioners it detains for illegally congregating are not kept for long or ill-treated in any way.

The Chinese government says that Falun Gong practitioners are anti-humanity, anti-science and anti-society.

A Chinese government website offers a selection of articles that accuse Falun Gong practitioners of blocking TV broadcasts, killing family members and burning themselves to death in public to turn people against their government.

Xie says that such activities would be against her belief in truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

She says she just wants her mother-in-law to be released from jail and allowed to live her life unmolested by people who feel Falun Gong is a threat to their power.

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