NEW YORK—The forum on Friday afternoon at Columbia University would have been an ordinary panel discussion on human rights—except that the graduate Chinese students' club threatened to use force to disrupt it.
An e-mail sent to almost 2,000 members of the CUCSSA (Columbia University Chinese Students and Scholars Association) at 9 p.m. on the night before the forum incited students from mainland China to disrupt the forum, even if doing so would entail "inevitable physical contact." (quotes translated from the original Chinese, original copied at the end of article):
"It is guessed that they [forum organizers] may use the reason that CUCSSA's leaders do not follow the meeting's rule, and thus ask security to remove him/her. That may entail inevitable physical contact...
"We will use the sea of [Chinese Communist] flags, dyed with blood, to strike hard against the evil c***'s arrogant fervor, and to resolutely defend the honor and dignity of the Motherland! Tomorrow we will not dismiss before seeing each other!"
The "evil c***" in question refers to Falun Gong, the meditation practice that was outlawed in mainland China by the Chinese Communist Party in 1999.
The forum, titled "Invitation to Learn the Truth," and co-sponsored by Columbia University's Amnesty International Chapter and Falun Dafa Club, was aimed at raising awareness about the illegal organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners in mainland China. Its featured speaker was the international human rights lawyer David Matas, who, alongside David Kilgour, the former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia Pacific), authored a report originally released in July 2006 that concluded the allegations of organ harvesting were true. ( The Kilgour-Matas report on organ harvesting is available online.)
A copy of the inflammatory e-mail was obtained before the forum, enabling members of the Falun Dafa student club to inform Columbia University Public Safety. Flags and banners carried by CUCSSA students were confiscated, but the Chinese students were allowed to sit down and hold small placards, all of which said "Falun Gong is an evil c***," repeating Chinese Communist propaganda.
Matas Responds
David Matas said that he was "as calm as possible ... while facing a [mostly] hostile crowd."
Having been warned of possible violence and given a copy of the e-mail, Matas digressed from his prepared remarks and instead addressed the issues raised in the e-mail one by one.
For instance, he read out loud the first line of the e-mail, "Falun Gong is a c*** banned by China. The Falun Dafa club at Columbia is a ... " and went on to read from an Edmonton, Canada police report.
That report verified that Falun Gong was a "religion" and explained how the word "evil c***" and the banners carried by the Chinese students in fact validated the "demonization of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party."
Matas then pointed out how "easy it is, under such social conditions, for the Chinese Communist Party to harvest organs from Falun Gong practitioners" and said that "the signs you have holding with you would be enough to constitute a hate crime in Canada."
Matas talked about how his and Kilgour's findings were made independently of Falun Gong, and how he and Kilgour worked directly with transplant professionals, hospitals in China, and human rights records to complete the report.
Upon coming across the line in the e-mail, "it's full of ... guesses," Matas explained in great detail thirty-one different forms of evidence that he and Kilgour had painstakingly collected in order to present their evidence in the organ harvesting reports, most of which are independent of Falun Gong or Chinese regime reports.
Coming to the line "CUCSSA has prepared extensive refutation materials, and is prepared to refute at the forum tomorrow," Matas said that he looked forward to hearing what the Chinese students had to say.
He said, "The only response the Chinese government has come up with is to repeat their usual 'Falun Gong is an evil c***' statements and to say that the names of two cities in the appendix were listed in the wrong provinces." After going over the report with a fine tooth-comb, they "still have not produced any statistics to refute the report," Matas said.
He implied that he hoped the students would do better with their questions.
As Matas addressed the points one by one, several Chinese students walked out of the hall, flashing their placards near the face of Matas and the other speakers.
Columbia University public safety officials refused to let the students who flashed placards back into the room for the question-answer session. One official told a Chinese student who insisted on getting back in, "You had your chance to get in, and you didn't follow decorum."
Lidiya Talai, a member of the Falun Dafa Club at Columbia who helped organize the event, expressed concern that the students had been brainwashed by communist propaganda. "We got the hateful e-mail from a Chinese friend, and it was deeply disturbing and filled with the Communist Party's hate propaganda. There were also direct threats in it, so we felt it was crucial to provide safety for our speakers and guests. The security personnel at the door had to struggle to remove slanderous banners and red flags, and later had to expel two people from the event for disobedience and disorder."
The concerned Chinese student who wished to remain anonymous, had received the e-mail and translated and forwarded it to the forum organizers, was, in the students' own words, "concerned that Chinese people are brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party and sadly even remain so after they come to U.S., because they tend not to take note of non-CCP news sources. I wish we can peacefully and sincerely discuss what is the truth and what are lies in the forum," said the student.
The Chinese Consulate's Role
The CUCSSA Constitution reveals how the CUCSSA has a very close relationship with the Chinese regime. The Constitution states that it is "reviewed by" the Chinese Consulate in New York. The CUCSSA lists as its advisory board two top Consular officials.
The Constitution also promises to "debate or protest … any events which propagandizes the secession of any part of China." In the lexicon of the Chinese regime, "secession" is the favored term for Taiwanese independence.
The CUCSSA Web site posted an article in Chinese that gives an account of the events at the forum. According to the CUCSSA "about 60 students holding the five starred red flag entered Uris Hall." It went on to glorify the actions of the Chinese students' association.
Invitation to Learn the Truth
In the forum, Mr. Matas was followed by Dr. Jingduan Yang, a resident at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, whose sister was tortured in China for her belief in Falun Gong. The third speaker was Dr. Charles Li, a U.S. citizen who shared his experience of having been arrested and brutally tortured for 3 years in a labor camp in China.
Both Dr. Yang and Dr. Li, as well as the moderator, Professor Frank Xie of Drexel University, adjusted their remarks in response to the overwhelming number of hostile Chinese students who filled the room.
"I remember I used to be like you at one point of time—when I first came to the United States, I had a huge argument with my Taiwanese roommate about who started the Korean war—I said it was the 'evil Americans.' Eventually, I found out the truth," Xie said. "You are all smart, young people; I hope that you will rationally and clearly evaluate the truth based on the evidence that you have found."
Dr. Yang said, "You all have posters defaming Falun Gong. Actually, if you turn around and replace the words 'Falun Gong' with 'Chinese Communist Party', you are telling the truth. The main characteristic of an evil c*** is that it kills people with no regard to human life—and there is only one group that is doing this, harming the nation of China."
Responding to a question from a Chinese student who said that the forum "was causing Chinese people to look bad", Dr. Yang said, "Like you, I want China to be great. Not just good, but great. I am happy and proud to be Chinese, but I am also ashamed to be a Chinese because of the Communist Party."
At the time this article went to press, none of the executive board of the CUCSSA had responded to requests for comments.
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