The Presbyterian Church has its very own ambitious, aggressive human rights activist in David Kilgour, a member of parliament from 1979 to 2006, who has advocated for global social justice and peace issues throughout his time in public office. On a recent 10-country European tour he drew attention to the alleged organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners in China. Along with human rights lawyer David Matas, Kilgour conducted a two month investigation into this practice, uncovering evidence that Falun Gong practitioners (a banned spiritual movement in China with about 70 million members and founded in 1992) are being wrongfully imprisoned, killed and harvested for their vital organs which are sold to local and foreign patients.
In an address to the United Nations, Kilgour said the organ harvesting victims' only crime “was to believe in 'truth, compassion and forbearance' in a totalitarian governance system in which opposing values prevail.”
The Chinese government has discounted Kilgour's claims, saying the rumours have been spread by Falun Gong members who are eager to discredit the communist country. However, a recent statement by Chinese Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu admitted the Chinese regime has used organs from executed prisoners without consent.
Kilgour's report relies largely on the testimony of Falun Gong members living outside of China, but highlights several facts: official figures show that organ transplants rose from 18,500 between 1994 and 1999 to 60,000 between the years 2000 and 2005. Waiting lists for organ transplants are often only several weeks long — another statistic that Kilgour mentions when defending his argument.
Kilgour is also passionate about human rights issues in Vietnam, Rwanda, Uganda, and the genocide in Darfur, where more than 3.2 million people have been affected by the deadly three-year conflict, with about 400,000 murdered by the Janjaweed militia.
“I wish everyone at the UN Security Council could hear what was said about Sudan's rapes and mass murders several weeks ago at the mock tribunal,” he said, referring to the gathering of human rights activists, lawyers and a Nobel laureate in November to discuss the actions of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir. The meeting was held across the street from UN headquarters.
Since that meeting, the UN Human Rights Council agreed to dispatch a five-member mission to Darfur to assess the situation.
As a member of Westminster, Ottawa, Kilgour's faith is something he does not hide, and indeed, it informs his actions. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Knox College last May.
“Like literally billions of others of faith around the planet, my spiritual hard- and software probably affect much of what I think and do everyday,” Kilgour told the Record. “In the case of the terrible persecution faced by Falun Gong practitioners in China since mid-1999, for example, no Christian or person of any other faith can stand back and do nothing once we know what is really going on.”
The Winnipeg native is a Fellow of the Study for Democracy at Queen's University, and a member of the board of the Council for the Community of Democracies. He recently helped organize the annual National Prayer Breakfast on Parliament Hill, bringing together participants from numerous faiths to celebrate religious harmony.
He is no stranger to standing up for what he believes and has suffered in the past because of it. In April 1987, Kilgour was dismissed as Parliamentary Secretary by then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney for criticizing his government's ethics and its treatment of Western Canadians. Three years later, after voting against the Goods and Services Tax, he was expelled from the Conservative caucus. He briefly sat as an independent Progressive Conservative before joining the Liberal Party in 1991, and became an independent in 2005. He has traveled to 75 countries and was recently a member of the Canadian delegation to Rwanda in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the genocide.
He considers his recent trip to Europe “a success in terms of raising awareness [of organ harvesting] among legislators, media, diplomats and the various publics.” – AM with files from www.david-kilgour.com
