Radio Free Europe: China: Fears That Beijing Executing Falun Gong Detainees To 'Harvest' Organs
By Breffni O'Rourke
PRAGUE October 13, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Western countries are beginning to pay high-level attention to accusations
that Chinese authorities are killing jailed members of the banned Falun Gong
spiritual movement in order to sell their body parts for organ transplants. A subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on the
accusations on September 29. The matter was also raised at the foreign-minister
level at the China-European Union summit meeting on September 9 in Helsinki. Commissioned Research The allegations gained fresh momentum as a result of a report published on
July 6 by two Canadian human rights lawyers, who examined in detail claims that
the Chinese authorities are killing prisoners in order to sell their organs at
home and overseas. A Falun Gong association in North America asked the two lawyers, David Matas
and David Kilgour, to help them investigate allegations that prisoners not
sentenced to death by any court were being killed. There were some 60,000
transplant operations in China between 2000 and 2005, but Matas and Kilgour
estimate that just 18,000 organ donations in that period came from official
sources. The two are experienced human rights lawyers. Kilgour is a former
Canadian secretary of state, and Matas is a well-known specialist in refugee,
immigration, and rights issues. They say in their report that they have not found any hard evidence to prove
these grave charges against China. Nevertheless, Kilgour and Matas claim to have
established a sequence of circumstantial evidence that suggests such a trade is
going on. It involves victims, in particular, from the Falun Gong. Beijing Denial Kilgour and Matas were not allowed to visit China in person. As they point
out, after such organ removals are purportedly carried out, an empty operating
room holds no clues. Nor do the bodies remain: Authorities are said to cremate
the remains after the liver, kidney, heart or other organs are removed. [...]Many Went In... When it was banned by Chinese authorities in 1999, the Falun Gong had tens of
millions of members -- many thousands of whom were arrested or sent to labor or
reeducation camps. U.S. officials have estimated that police ran hundreds of
reeducation camps with a holding capacity of 300,000 people. Lawyers Matas and Kilgour say many of the rounded-up Falun Gong declined to
give their identification details to authorities, fearing that their families
would suffer. This protected the families, they say, but at the same time left
the prisoners untraceable by their families -- and made it easier for the
prisoners to quietly disappear. Could these be at least some of the donors for
China's massive organ-transplant business? According to figures supplied by the vice chairman of the China Medical Organ
Transplant Association, Professor Bingyi Shi, there were some 60,000 transplant
operations carried out in China between 2000 and 2005. But Matas and Kilgour estimate that only about 18,000 organ donations in that
period came from official sources -- that is, individuals donating their organs
posthumously or from formally executed death-row prisoners. They say this leaves
a shortfall of some 40,000 organ donations, and wonder aloud where those organs
came from. Sufficient Incentive? Certainly a motive for criminal activity is provided by the profits to be
made from organ transplanting. The China International Transplantation Network
Assistance Center in Shenyang earlier this year carried a list of prices for
body parts. The list put the price of a kidney at $62,000, of a liver at
$130,000, the same for a heart, and of a lung at $150,000. These huge prices are set against a backdrop of wide-ranging corruption among
officials, despite the efforts of the Communist Party to stamp it out. With such
profits to be made, it's easy to see how the system could be abused. Leading human rights groups are taken aback by the scale of the horrendous
allegations against China, and are trying to establish what is really going on. "We have been trying to find out more, obviously, because the
allegations are very, very serious," said Amnesty International's Anna
Kltalahti. "I mean, if something like that would happen, it would be very
serious indeed. But we have not been able to get very far in our
investigations." Soliciting 'Donations' But Falun Gong claims to have more evidence. Falun Gong members in North
America say they telephoned various hospitals, prisons, and other institutions
in China posing as organ buyers, recording the resulting conversations. In one such conversation -- to the Mishan City Detention Center in
Hailongjiang [Heilongjiang] province on June 8 -- a staff member tells
the caller that they have "Falun Gong [organ] suppliers." Question: "Do you have Falun Gong [organ] suppliers? Answer: "We used to have, yes." Question: "What about now?" Answer: "Yes." Question: "Can we come to select, or do you supply directly to us?" Answer: "We provide them to you." Question: "What about the price?" Answer: "We discuss after you come." Meanwhile, a Chinese woman interviewed by Matas and Kilgour claimed her
husband was a surgeon who told her he had personally removed the eye corneas
from 2,000 anesthetized Falun Gong prisoners in northeast China, during a
two-year period to October 2003. She said her husband later refused to continue
the grisly work. Open To Abuse The Chinese government in 2005 confirmed for the first time that it used
organs from tried and executed prisoners. To human rights groups, this is
already an exploitive approach to the body-parts issue, because it implies
criminals could be sentenced to death more readily in order to have their
organs. "What is already established and admitted by the Chinese authorities is
that organs are taken from condemned death-penalty prisoners," says Human
Rights Watch's Kltalahti. "And also that is impossible to monitor, because
of the lack of transparency surrounding the death penalty in China." The legal situation in China has left the door open to abuse in the
organ-transplant business. Until July 1, there were no laws requiring written permission from organ
donors. Nor did institutions have to verify that organs came from legal sources.
Nor did ethics committees have to approve each transplant in advance. [...] In July, legislation has come into force setting these conditions as legal
requirements. But as Matas and Kilgour point out, implementing laws that are on
the statute books has not always been China's strength. They say it is unclear whether this organ harvesting -- if it is occurring --
is backed by official policy in Beijing, or whether it is a result of greed of
individual hospitals that have literally been able to get away with murder. http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/10/eeed1dbf-7691-465f-b892-1961267a5022.html
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/10/16/140298.html
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