Kilgour, Athens and the Bloody Harvest Olympics

Kilgour Heads to Athens to Light the First Flame of the Human Rights Torch Relay Calling for Boycotting Beijing’s “Bloody Harvest Olympics”

OTTAWA: August 6, 2007 -The co-author of the “Bloody Harvest” report and former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, David Kilgour is to head to Greece with delegations from other countries to light the first flame of the Global Human Rights Torch Relay (HRTR) this week. They will call for boycotting the “Bloody Harvest Olympics”.

The Torch Relay is expected to last for an entire year and to involve participants in more than one hundred cities in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, including Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and other Canadian cities. The core message of the relay is that “the Olympics and crimes against humanity cannot coexist in China."

Kilgour said: “Over six years, the government of China and its agents have killed a large number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience and sold their vital organs for high prices often to organ tourists. The Matas-Kilgour revised report (http://organharvestinvestigation.net) and much other evidence establish beyond any doubt that this is occurring.”

“This new crime against humanity is incompatible with the Olympic Charter and Olympic movement. It also violates the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, much of which was drafted by a Canadian, and many other UN human rights covenants. If the killing ceases across China, this particular call for a Games boycott will also stop.”

“The hardship a boycott would create for the affected athletes is enormous. The consequences for humanity, however, of having Olympic Games go ahead in the capital of a country where innocent Chinese citizens continue to be murdered for their vital organs are even greater.”

“The invasion of Afghanistan by Russian troops caused a boycott by some countries of the 1980 Games in Moscow. In hindsight, all nations should have boycotted the Berlin Olympics in 1936, but at the time most governments claimed not to know what Hitler had in mind. Today, we do know what the government of China has in mind for its Falun Gong community because of what it continues to do to them. This is an important difference between 1936 and 2008.”

Telephone contact in Athens:  011-30 69 45 148 152

Email contact: investigation.team@gmail.com