编者按：2007年8月9日，加拿大主流媒体《渥太华公民报》发表文章，对前加拿大下院议员大卫·乔高的所谓法轮功受迫害的报告提出了质疑，并称为“苏家屯故事”。文章主要内容如下。

　　渥太华公民报　格兰.麦克乔治　2007年8月9日

　　乔高先生曾经是加拿大政府负责亚太地区事务的部长，长期鼓吹人权。2005年，当他还是无党派的下院议员时，曾威胁时任加拿大总理保罗·马丁，如果加拿大不对苏丹达尔富尔地区提供更多的帮助的话，他将撤销对马丁有限政府政策的支持。

　　乔高先生去年与温尼伯湖的律师大卫·麦塔斯合著的一份关于法轮功受迫害的报告引起了国际关注。

　　和以前的报告不一样的是，这份麦塔斯—乔高报告完全信任“法轮功”的判断和主张。今天，它的结论还经常被反华运动的信徒当作对中国政府指控的证据拿来引用。

　　然而，当他们的很多工作被国际人权专家所信奉的时候，一些人也对报告的某些内容和它的方法论提出了质疑。

　　中国驻渥太华大使馆批评报告是“毫无根据的”、是“建立在谣言和错误判断基础之上的。”

　　但是报告的其他部分仍然是可疑的，美国国会研究人员认为报告中的一些关键主张“似乎与其他的调查发现互相矛盾。”

　　报告的中间部分声称中国政府摘取“法轮功”练习者的器官卖给外国游客。“法轮功”支持者充满感情地说中国政府在“法轮功”练习者被囚禁或处死的地方用简单的工具摘走了他们的器官，并将尸体烧掉。

　　2006年3月，一个所谓在中国东北有“集中营”的故事被大纪元时报报道出来。大纪元时报是专门刊载关于“法轮功”受迫害的、充满敌意的反共评论和故事的报纸。这份报纸声称在苏家屯秘密集中营里4500名法轮功追随者被处死并被烧掉。

　　主流媒体很快开始报道这个故事。国家评论在线，美国的一个保守网站写道：“中国人权运动人士相信这个地名能够引起像特雷布林卡或其它什么名字一样的战栗。”多伦多太阳报将苏家屯和纳粹集中营进行了简单的比较。

　　乔高先生和麦塔斯先生被总部设在美国的“法轮功受迫害真相联合调查团”邀请去中国做关于中国侵犯人权的调查。他们没能进入中国境内，却通过文献和采访来工作。7月，他们发表了一份报告，结论是中国“处死了一大批但是不祥的法轮功良心犯。”

　　作者强调他们没有任何证据可以证明他们的结论，但是他们找到了由一位以假名安妮居住在美国的妇女讲述的“可信”的故事，这名妇女声称在中国时曾是一位脑外科医生的妻子。

　　安妮，这个以前曾在大纪元时报的故事中出现的女人告诉加拿大人，她的丈夫曾经在苏家屯从大约2000名“法轮功”练习者的身上摘取了眼角膜。她说，之后，身体被送到其他医生那里摘取更多的器官，然后，遗体就被烧掉了。麦塔斯先生和乔高先生写到，他们只是在用其他信息来证实安妮所提供的消息。

　　
　　报告还依靠翻译过来的电话记录做为证据，这些纪录被说成是中国官员确认从“法轮功”被拘留者身上摘取器官。

　　随着报道发表，对“苏家屯事件”真实性的怀疑也在增加。

　　美国务院称美国驻沈阳领事馆和驻北京大使馆的官员曾两次被邀请去苏家屯，但是他们只发现了“一个普通的公共医院”。

　　香港媒体的记者也没有发现任何“法轮功”追随者所谓的“地下死亡集中营”，他们证实，所谓焚烧尸体的设施其实就是一个锅炉房。

　　当一个声明反对共产主义中国政府的前政治犯吴宏达质疑苏家屯事件所用的证据时，苏家屯故事变得更加不可信。他的组织调查发现这些证据都是“不可靠的”。他认为这个事件“可能是被故意捏造出来的”。

　　对麦塔斯—乔高报告的质疑已经超出了对苏家屯事件的质疑。一份由美国国会研究机构起草的报告认为，麦塔斯—乔高报告的大部分“并没有提出新的或独立获得的证据，很大程度上是依赖于逻辑推理。”同时，也质疑电话记录，这些纪录被说成是中国官员证实从“法轮功”被拘留者身上摘取器官。

　　研究机构的报告认为：“一些人认为如此明显的证据似乎不太会被得到，因为这些敏感信息是由中国政府控制的，由此产生对电话记录可靠性的质疑”。

　　今年1月份，麦塔斯先生和乔高先生发表了报告的更新版，重申他们相信那位匿名的外科医生前妻的话。他们声称，吴先生关于苏家屯事件的结论是在调查团没有完成工作之前就匆忙得出的。

　　“也就是说吴先生的观点不是依据他完整的调查报告而得出的。”他们强调。

　　吴先生组织的一位女发言人本周却表示，吴先生没有改变在苏家屯事件上的立场。

　　劳改研究基金会的丽莎.坡特索说：“我们没有发现任何证据可以证实他们所描述的地点、数字和事件。”

　　麦塔斯先生说如果将他所说的认为是基于将大纪元时报中提到的集中营和医院等信息的一种错误混合，那么可能会对苏家屯事件的认识产生偏差。他表示，他仍然相信那位外科医生前妻所说的话。

The Ottawa Citizen questions 'The story of Sujiatun'

[Editor Notes:] On August 9, 2007, the main media of Canada "the Ottawa Citizen" published an article to question the report about "The story of Sujiatun" made by David Kilgour, a former MP. The following is the main text:

Mr. Kilgour, who once served as secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific region, has a long record as a human rights advocate. In 2005, when sitting as an independent MP, he threatened to withdraw support for then-prime minister Paul Martin's narrow minority government if Canada did not do more to help the people of Darfur, in the Sudan.

Mr. Kilgour made international headlines last year with a report on the persecution of Falun Gong, co-written with Winnipeg lawyer David Matas.

Like no other document before it, the Matas-Kilgour report gave credence to allegations advanced by Falun Gong. Today, its conclusions are regularly cited by the movement's devotees as evidence of abuse at the hands of the Chinese government.

And while much of their work has been embraced by international human rights experts, some have raised doubts about some aspects of the report and its methodology.

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa dismissed it as "groundless" and "based on rumours and false allegations."

But others were also dubious. Researchers working for the U.S. Congress concluded that some of the key allegations in the report "appear to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations."

At the centre of the report is the claim that the Chinese government harvests the organs of Falun Gong practitioners for sale to foreign tourists. Falun supporters have charged that the Chinese government operated a facility where practitioners were imprisoned, executed, their organs removed and their bodies cremated.

The stories of an alleged concentration camp in northeastern China first surfaced in March 2006 with reports in the Epoch Times, a newspaper that publishes virulently anti-Communist commentary and stories alleging persecution of the Falun Gong movement. The paper cited a secret concentration camp at Sujiatun where, it alleged, 4,500 followers had been executed and cremated.

The mainstream media soon jumped on the story. The National Review Online, a conservative website in the U.S., wrote that Chinese human-rights activists believe that this name should cause the same shudders as Treblinka and the others. The Toronto Sun made the easy comparison between the Sujiatun claims and Nazi death camps.

Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas were asked by a U.S.-based group called the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China to look into the allegations of human rights violations. They were not allowed into China, but worked from documents and interviews. In July, they issued a report that concluded China had put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience.

Although the authors stress that they did not rely on any one piece of evidence to reach their conclusion, they said they found credible the story of an unnamed woman living in the U.S. with the pseudonym Annie, who claimed to be the former wife of a surgeon in China.

Annie, previously featured in an Epoch Times story, told the Canadians that her husband had removed the corneas from approximately 2,000 Falun Gong prisoners at Sujiatun. The bodies were passed on to other doctors who removed more organs, and then cremated the remains, she claimed. Mr. Matas and Mr. Kilgour used her information only where it could be corroborated by other information, they wrote.

The report also relied on translated transcripts of telephone calls in which Chinese officials were said to confirm the common harvesting of organs from Falun Gong detainees.

By the time the report was released, doubts about the veracity of the Sujiatun story were growing.

The U.S. State Department said officials from its consulate in nearby Shenyang City and the embassy in Beijing had visited Sujiatun twice and found only a normal public hospital.

Reporters from a Hong Kong newspaper also found no sign of an underground death camp that Falun followers alleged. A machine that was said to be an oven for cremating bodies was, in fact, a boiler room, they concluded.

The Sujiatun story lost more air when Harry Wu, a former political prisoner of the Chinese government and outspoken voice against the Communist government, said he doubted the witness accounts upon which the Sujiatun stories relied. His organization investigated and found the witness statements unreliable. He concluded the story may be intentionally fabricated.

While Mr. Wu agreed that the Chinese government brutally persecutes the Falun Gong and others, he said there was no evidence to support the claim that 4,500 practitioners were killed at Sujiatun.

Questions about the Matas-Kilgour report went beyond the allegations about Sujiatun. A paper prepared by the U.S. Congressional Research Service concluded that the report for the most part "does not bring forth new or independently-obtained testimony and relies largely upon the making of logical inferences." It also questioned the transcripts of telephone calls, in which Chinese officials are said to admit using Falun Gong organs.

"Some argue that such apparent candour would seem unlikely given Chinese government controls over sensitive information, which may raise questions about the credibility of the telephone recordings," the research service paper said.

In January, Mr. Matas and Mr. Kilgour released an updated version of their report and repeated their belief in the story of the unnamed former wife of a surgeon. Mr. Wu had jumped to conclusions about Sujiatun before investigators from his organization completed their work, they claimed.

"What this means is that the views of Harry Wu were not based on the full reports of his investigation," the report claimed.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Wu's organization said this week he has not changed his position on the Sujiatun allegations.

"We haven't found any evidence to support the location and the number and events they have described going on," said Lisa Pertoso, of the Laogai Research Foundation.

Still, by most accounts, there had been a marked rise in the number of organs available for transplantation in China. The government has acknowledged that some organs may come from prisoners, but it claims the condemned agree to donation before their executions.

Some of the executed could be political prisoners or Falun Gong followers, of course. But China vehemently denies an orchestrated genocide or use of Nazi-style concentration camps involving Falun Gong. The government also moved last year to prohibit the sale of organs.

Mr. Matas says there may have been some confusion over Sujiatun based on what he says was a mistaken blending of information about a prison camp and a hospital in one of the Epoch Times stories. He says he continues to believe what the surgeon's ex-wife told him.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizenews/story.html?id=8a3de338-e62d-4446-952a-7a6eedc772a7&p=1

(The Ottawa Citizen， Thursday, August 09, 2007)