Torture and organ harvesting – it is like something out of a horror film.
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But members of Falun Dafa allege it is what occurs to the practitioners of Falun Gong at the hands of the Chinese government.
Falun Gong is a meditation movement that became so popular in China in the 1990s that Chinese authorities banned it as a cult.
On Monday, some of its practitioners visited Bega as part of a trip around the country to raise awareness of the alleged abuse that occurs in China. They wanted the Australian government to urge China to put an end to the persecution.
“I once talked to a Vietnamese community president and he said if we don’t speak up for the victims, no-one will speak up for us when we become the victims,” Falun Dafa member Ni Yan said.
Speaking in Bega, David Liang said in 2004 he went to Johannesburg in South Africa to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong in China. He was driving from the airport when a car overtook him and its occupants fired shots into his car, striking his feet, in an attack he attributed to the Chinese government.
Another member, Changzhi Yue, said she was detained for four years in a Beijing prison where she was allegedly tortured and severely injured.
There, she was asked to undergo health checks and her blood sample was taken.
She thought that was suspicious, even more so when she heard years later that Falun Gong practitioners were being harvested for their organs.
Ms Yan said her parents were also persecuted in China.
Her mother was arrested twice and her father was a university lecturer whose employer told him he had to resign from his position unless he gave up his beliefs.
Ms Yan – a Falun Gong practitioner since she was seven – came to Australia to study and hopes to remain in the country, but her parents are on a “blacklist” so cannot obtain a passport to travel.
“Many unfair things happened to us,” she said.
“I hope to stay here, to enjoy the freedom that everyone should have.”