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Human rights activists nominated for Nobel Peace Prize |
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Written by --
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 |
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OTTAWA – David Matas, senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada and a member of the Order of Canada, and former Canadian cabinet minister and crown prosecutor David Kilgour were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for their intensive investigation over a four-year period into the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Matas and Kilgour – both recipients of the Human Rights Award from the International Society for Human Rights – co-authored Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, published in late 2009. They had issued two earlier reports on the subject as well.
According to a Jewish Tribune report on the book launch (Nov. 18, 2009) in Winnipeg, Matas declared he would continue his human rights activism.
“Unless people stand up for human rights in any way they can, humanity will whither away,” he said.
The recent nomination gives “weight and attention to the human rights causes in which I am engaged,” Matas told the Jewish Tribune last week. “I was pleased…for that reason. The focus of the nominators was the work in which David Kilgour and I have been involved in combatting the persecution of Falun Gong in China, in particular, their killing for their organs. The nomination, though, is more general than that, encompassing our overall human rights work.”
The nominations were made separately by federal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Balfour Hakak, chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 March 2010 )
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