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DISABLED SAN FRANCISCAN TO COLLECT 1 MILLION SIGNATURES BEFORE OLYMPICS
By Perple Lu
The Epoch Times Ireland
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/92 8204536
May 20 2008
Ireland
SAN FRANCISCO--"I am asking students, civilians across the United
States and globally to join with us in a town meeting," said Tatiana
A. Kostanian, a disabled San Franciscan, who has taken it as a
personal mission to collect one million signatures, including from
the disabled and the severely disabled, to end organ harvesting in
China. "Our voices, lives are the least and last invited in on both
local and global issues."
At 65, wheelchair bound, and on life support, Kostanian, who spends
her time visiting physicians and the Mayor's Disability Council
in San Francisco, nevertheless, took up a new mission to help
save the myriads of lives that are in danger of involuntary organ
harvesting. According a Canadian human rights lawyer and coauthor of
an independent organ-harvesting investigation, David Matas, transplant
tourism banking on the organs of Falun Gong practitioners has become
a billion-dollar industry.
Thirty-five years ago, Kostanian started her work with a support
group for survivors of violent trauma. "I have had in my life, every
conceivable issue thrown my way...from toddler-hood to my late age of
65," said the founder of MHONA International, a nonprofit group for
the disabled. Having faced multiple challenges in getting around,
of not being heard, and not being included, Kostanian finally took
up the issue of universal human rights.
Together, four sides of Kostanian's family experienced the Armenian
genocide, the Ukrainian genocide, and the Holocaust. "As a family,
we've faced communist tyranny, treachery, traitors, torturers,"
Kostanian recalled. "I have faced extremes of rape, torture and
starvation, abuses as a child into adulthood from a father who was
tortured by the communists in Russia."
After attending the Human Rights Torch Relay in San Francisco in
early April, she soon came up with the idea for a million-signature
Internet petition. "What I want to do is to gather signatures from
around the globe of both people who are disabled/profoundly disabled
as well as friends and families," wrote Kostanian on April 13, to stop
"the extremes of abuses, torture and killing actions of the Chinese
Communists, as well to stop the selling and harvesting of organs,
tissues, of the Falun Gong and other prisoners incarcerated in the
Chinese communist's Gulag Prisons and Slave Labor Camps."
Tatiana A. Kostanian collects signatures at Union Square, in the heart
of San Francisco's shopping district. (Perple Lu/The Epoch Times)On
May 1 Kostanian set up her own petition website. "Yes, I'm on life
support, but I can't sit back ready to die, without giving something
of definite purpose," she said. "I believe it is time for our lives
to step forward and show the world what we feel, think about these
crimes against humanity as individuals and as disabled communities."
Her mission to collect a million signatures was only the beginning,
however. Kostanian showed up in her wheelchair in San Francisco's
Union Square again on May 10 to collect signatures. She recalled
many people who passed by the table, shocked to see a picture of
a woman terribly charred from electric shock tortures, started to
talk and to ask questions, but then suddenly looked away and said,
"This has nothing to do with me."
"In that moment of their statement, it is I who look shocked,
not quite believing that any human being can walk away and deny
a simple signature that just might be the key to stopping the
continuum of genocide in operation in Mainland communist China,"
she later recounted.
"We may have less of finances, or every day needs met, but our hearts,
our very conscience is not empty in wanting our message to reach every
available heart," she said, referring to the community of disabled.
But some people have also been particularly quick to offer their
signatures. They include tourists, locals and young children.
"Organs from the poorest of the poor to give to the
rich. Disgusting!" Sherri O'Connor of Canada left her signature and
commented on Kostanian's petition website on May 15.
Another signer, Kathleen A. H. of Arizona wrote, "It is barbaric,
and we, as human beings should be held accountable for such savage
acts against other humans!"
Isabella Hillmayr from Greece wrote of the prisoners of conscience
on the website, "Your thoughts and mind is free, while your body is
imprisoned--my spirit is with you."
With only three months to go and less than 200 signatures so far,
Kostanian is not daunted. "I will not sit back ... and let my voice,
or the voices of my sisters and brothers ... who gave up the ultimate,
their life, and their organs and tissues, to say we can't gain a
million or more signatures," she wrote on May 10.
"I want to see if we might be able to reach out to some people of
leadership in San Jose as well," she said on May 13, referring to a
global town meeting of disabled and non-disabled people alike. "It
has to be done and pulled together by the people, not by leaders of
governments, or nations, but by the heart of everyday human beings."
By Perple Lu
The Epoch Times Ireland
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/92 8204536
May 20 2008
Ireland
SAN FRANCISCO--"I am asking students, civilians across the United
States and globally to join with us in a town meeting," said Tatiana
A. Kostanian, a disabled San Franciscan, who has taken it as a
personal mission to collect one million signatures, including from
the disabled and the severely disabled, to end organ harvesting in
China. "Our voices, lives are the least and last invited in on both
local and global issues."
At 65, wheelchair bound, and on life support, Kostanian, who spends
her time visiting physicians and the Mayor's Disability Council
in San Francisco, nevertheless, took up a new mission to help
save the myriads of lives that are in danger of involuntary organ
harvesting. According a Canadian human rights lawyer and coauthor of
an independent organ-harvesting investigation, David Matas, transplant
tourism banking on the organs of Falun Gong practitioners has become
a billion-dollar industry.
Thirty-five years ago, Kostanian started her work with a support
group for survivors of violent trauma. "I have had in my life, every
conceivable issue thrown my way...from toddler-hood to my late age of
65," said the founder of MHONA International, a nonprofit group for
the disabled. Having faced multiple challenges in getting around,
of not being heard, and not being included, Kostanian finally took
up the issue of universal human rights.
Together, four sides of Kostanian's family experienced the Armenian
genocide, the Ukrainian genocide, and the Holocaust. "As a family,
we've faced communist tyranny, treachery, traitors, torturers,"
Kostanian recalled. "I have faced extremes of rape, torture and
starvation, abuses as a child into adulthood from a father who was
tortured by the communists in Russia."
After attending the Human Rights Torch Relay in San Francisco in
early April, she soon came up with the idea for a million-signature
Internet petition. "What I want to do is to gather signatures from
around the globe of both people who are disabled/profoundly disabled
as well as friends and families," wrote Kostanian on April 13, to stop
"the extremes of abuses, torture and killing actions of the Chinese
Communists, as well to stop the selling and harvesting of organs,
tissues, of the Falun Gong and other prisoners incarcerated in the
Chinese communist's Gulag Prisons and Slave Labor Camps."
Tatiana A. Kostanian collects signatures at Union Square, in the heart
of San Francisco's shopping district. (Perple Lu/The Epoch Times)On
May 1 Kostanian set up her own petition website. "Yes, I'm on life
support, but I can't sit back ready to die, without giving something
of definite purpose," she said. "I believe it is time for our lives
to step forward and show the world what we feel, think about these
crimes against humanity as individuals and as disabled communities."
Her mission to collect a million signatures was only the beginning,
however. Kostanian showed up in her wheelchair in San Francisco's
Union Square again on May 10 to collect signatures. She recalled
many people who passed by the table, shocked to see a picture of
a woman terribly charred from electric shock tortures, started to
talk and to ask questions, but then suddenly looked away and said,
"This has nothing to do with me."
"In that moment of their statement, it is I who look shocked,
not quite believing that any human being can walk away and deny
a simple signature that just might be the key to stopping the
continuum of genocide in operation in Mainland communist China,"
she later recounted.
"We may have less of finances, or every day needs met, but our hearts,
our very conscience is not empty in wanting our message to reach every
available heart," she said, referring to the community of disabled.
But some people have also been particularly quick to offer their
signatures. They include tourists, locals and young children.
"Organs from the poorest of the poor to give to the
rich. Disgusting!" Sherri O'Connor of Canada left her signature and
commented on Kostanian's petition website on May 15.
Another signer, Kathleen A. H. of Arizona wrote, "It is barbaric,
and we, as human beings should be held accountable for such savage
acts against other humans!"
Isabella Hillmayr from Greece wrote of the prisoners of conscience
on the website, "Your thoughts and mind is free, while your body is
imprisoned--my spirit is with you."
With only three months to go and less than 200 signatures so far,
Kostanian is not daunted. "I will not sit back ... and let my voice,
or the voices of my sisters and brothers ... who gave up the ultimate,
their life, and their organs and tissues, to say we can't gain a
million or more signatures," she wrote on May 10.
"I want to see if we might be able to reach out to some people of
leadership in San Jose as well," she said on May 13, referring to a
global town meeting of disabled and non-disabled people alike. "It
has to be done and pulled together by the people, not by leaders of
governments, or nations, but by the heart of everyday human beings."