Chinese Australians who belonged to a persecuted religious group in China have ended their week-long campaign in Gippsland to raise awareness of illegal organ harvesting allegedly sanctioned by the communist state.
Falun Dafa or Falung Gong practitioners in Melbourne last month embarked on a 200-city car tour across Australia to raise awareness of alleged human rights abuse committed against “prisoners of conscience” or those incarcerated by the Chinese government because of their religious beliefs.
Speaking to The Express yesterday, Leigh Smith, a representative of the group in Melbourne, said hundreds of thousands of Chinese prisoners were being tortured and their organs forcibly taken by the state to sell for transplant procedures that also allegedly included some Australian beneficiaries.
Ms Smith said the campaign hoped to enlighten Australians about the plight of prisoners, adding most beneficiaries were not aware transplanted organs such as kidney, heart and lungs came from tortured victims.
“Some of them thought that these were bad people who are about to be killed on death row,” she said.
“We would like Australians who go to China (for organ transplant) to reconsider going there because someone’s going to be killed so they could have that needed organ.
“Are you going to allow that? That’s horrendous.”
