The group will visit 200 Australian cities and towns this month to raise awareness of the Chinese government’s illegal organ harvesting practice, which they say targets Falun Gong practitioners.

Falun Gong media representative Sophie Taylor said the tour’s aim was to educate people in regional areas not to buy organs from China.

“In Australia we know people sometimes have to wait over two years to find an organ doner,” Ms Taylor said. “Many westerners, including Australians, go to China because organs are advertised online and are easy to buy.”

Ms Taylor said many of the advertised organs were taken from Falun Gong followers who were detained in camps run by the government and killed for their organs.

“It’s killing on demand,” she said. “I have with me a friend who was detained for eight years before she escaped. She is lucky but she is very worried about her friends who are still in the camp.”

“Lots of Australians are going to China to get organs and we need them to stop. That is why we are doing this tour.”

Ms Taylor said Falun Gong was simply ‘a peaceful practice for mind and body’ whose followers were now being persecuted by the Chinese government.

“Our people are being tortured and killed for refusing to renounce our beliefs,” she said. “We are also targeted for organ harvesting because we are very healthy and happy and our organs are healthy.”

“Falun Gong is a traditional practice, a lot like yoga, which has been passed down generations.

“The Chinese government see us as a threat and has banned our books from publication. Nearly 4000 practitioners are confirmed dead with an additional ten times that number believed killed in organ harvesting atrocities.”