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Winnipeg lawyer nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
David Matas, lawyer and human rights advocate. (TOM HANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)
MP David Kilgour (CANWEST NEWS SERVICE ARCHIVES)
WINNIPEG — Winnipeg lawyer and human rights advocate David Matas has been nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of Falun Gong followers in China who are being killed for their organs.
Matas has been nominated along with former MP David Kilgour for their work over the past four years to alert the international community to the situation in China.
"It’s an honour to be nominated," Matas said this morning. "David Kilgour and I have been working on this issue since 2006.
"Our goal is to stop this abuse. I can’t say it’s stopped yet."
Matas and Kilgour won the prestigious 2009 Human Rights Award from the International Society for Human Rights for their work.
They were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize separately by federal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj and Balfour Hakak, chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel.
Matas said Falun Gong followers are persecuted, jailed and executed in China but he said he’s found no evidence to link their death and organ harvesting to the central Chinese government.
Matas and Kilgour have issued three reports on the Falun Gong organ harvesting, the last written as a book, Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 was awarded to U.S. president Barack Obama.
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will take place Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway.
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