(Clearwisdom.net) On October 16, Chinese authorities announced that a Japanese man named Hiroyuki Nagase was arrested in China for illegal organ brokering. According to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, IPC Information Service Co., a Japanese-funded enterprise in Shenyang City in northeastern China "has been found to have released information on the Internet under the name of China International Organ Transplant Support Center and has helped to arrange organ transplants for Japanese patients since 2004." Its website has been shut down abruptly.

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Website clearly states that the organ transplant trade has support from the CCP

The "China International Organ Transplant Support Center" website revealed a large amount of important information, including that there exists a living organ pool in China for selling live organs for profit, and that the large amount of organ trade is made possible and continuously supported by none other than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

The Center's website has been shut down and re-opened since the discovery of the large-scale organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. Some consider the arrest as proof that the Chinese authorities have no choice but face the consequences of persecuting Falun Gong, and the huge financial black hole that has been created. Whether the chasing down of who is responsible will lead to the main killer who gave the orders, is a focus in the media right now.

Nagase is the first person China has arrested with charges related to organ trafficking. The high publicity of the arrest has inspired speculation that the authorities' real aim is the bigger fish behind the live organ harvesting.

On October 16, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that Nagase is the CEO of IPC Information Service Co., which illegally conducts organ trade. Hiroyuki Nagase has been arrested, and more people are also under investigation

According to a source from Japan, Nagase was arrested in mid September at Shanghai Airport. But the arrest was not announced until a month later during the CCP's 17th National Congress, one of the most sensitive periods for Chinese authorities. Considering China's customary lack of transparency and strict media censorship, as well as its careful avoidance and denial of organ trading, the noise it has made concerning Nagase's arrest is certainly unusual.

Not long ago, many overseas media reported that Chinese doctors promised to never harvest death penalty prisoners' organs. Now, news about the arrest of this Japanese organ trader has surfaced. These two events have kept the world guessing if CCP's policies of persecution have really changed, and to what degree the CCP is having an internal fight for power.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said that Nagase's company "has not only been doing business beyond what it registered to do, but also violated the regulations of the Ministry of Health prohibiting organ trading in China." Regarding these remarks, Dr. Wenyi Wang, a pathologist who has been studying and protesting the CCP's organ harvesting since its discovery, pointed out that the CCP is trying to pass the buck again. Dr. Wang argues that though the website is under the name of Nagase's company, it had been fully supported by the CCP and was used as an official government website. "The reason why the CCP used Nagase to run it," observed Dr. Wang, "is because they know organ harvesting is a sinister crime. Nagase's role is to be the scapegoat to be sacrificed if the crime is exposed, which is exactly what's happening now."

Nagase's IPC Information Service Co. was registered in December 2003. Since then the International Organ Transplant Support Center had served as a major portal for bringing numerous foreigners to China for organ transplants. The website did not provide information on the source of the organs.

Dr. Wang's accusation seems to be backed by the statements on the center's website, which expressed gratitude for strong support from the Chinese government without which "the huge numbers of organ transplants could not have been achieved." The website also mentioned relevant laws issued on October 9, 1984 in China which stated that the government supports the provisioning of human organs. As the website correctly concluded, China is the only country in the world that issues laws like this.

Hiroyuki Nagase admitted when interviewed by a Asahi Shimbun journalist in January 2006 that he established his company in China because otherwise he would be violating Japanese law forbidding organ trade for profit.

In March 2006, the website's Chinese version was quickly shut down after the CCP's crime of harvesting living Falun Gong practitioners' organs was exposed. But the site reopened a short while later.

On its website, the Organ Transplant Support Center listed the typical waiting period for each major organ. According to the list, livers and kidneys can be provided within one to two weeks, with the longest waiting time of around one month. For hearts and lungs, the waiting period is about one month. Moreover, the website promised that if the organ found is not the right match for the patient, the center will find another one within a week.

Obtaining fresh organs in China is disturbingly easy and quick, especially when you consider that in all other parts of the world people have to wait years for an organ transplant. Experts say that the only possible explanation is that a huge number of living people are used as convenient organ sources.

According to the Center's website, China had conducted 85,000 organ transplants by 2006, and in 2005 alone 12,000 were conducted. This number is many times higher than that of executed prisoners in China according to official statistics.

In 2005, Pubic Health Minister Huang Jiefu admitted that organs used for transplants in China come from prisoners, but his statements were contradicted by Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang in March 2006 and by Public Health Ministry spokesman Mao Anqun in April 2006.

Finally in late November 2006, the CCP officially announced in its media that the organ transplant sources are mainly prisoners. In early 2007, the State Department posted a regulation forbidding organ trade.

Epoch Times writer Zhang Jielian pointed out that the information from the CCP in each department is contradictory, reflected by the varying perspectives or attitudes of the different leaders. On the surface, it seems that some are focused on the prisoners, but in reality they are concerned about the organs being harvested from Falun Gong practitioners. Those involved are trying to cover up their crimes, while the highest leaders must react under international pressure. Zhang Jielian pointed out that the arrest of Hiroyuki Nagase is a reaction to the huge overseas and domestic pressure.

According to investigations by the CIPFG and the Canadian Independent Investigation report, since July 1999, when Jiang Zemin and the CCP began to persecute Falun Gong, the Chinese Army, Justice Bureau system, Police Departments, and hospitals have worked together in the live removal of Falun Gong practitioners' organs to sell for profit. The exposure of this tragedy shocked the world.

An investigation group of over three hundred scholars and politicians requested to enter China, but they were rejected. They initiated the Human Rights Torch Relay, a global multi-staged event to put pressure on China through calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics. More and more international activists are joining the Relay and calling to stop the evil crimes.

Even inside the CCP there are an increasing number of voices calling to stop the persecution and bring the murderers to justice. According to internal sources, in the past several years, Jiang's regime has used twenty-five percent of the State's income towards persecuting Falun Gong. A little while ago, former Finance Minister Jin Renqing was accused of misplacing one hundred billion yuan, but he had actually used it for persecuting Falun Gong. Jiang dares not to give up power due to fear of being brought to justice for the bloody debts incurred in the persecution, which has resulted in the current internal power struggle.

Zhang Jielian said that under such pressure, both internally and externally, the CCP's highest leadership must face and solve these problems. Arresting a Japanese businessman during the 17^th congress is telling, perhaps the first step of a series of actions.

Posting date: 10/25/2007
Original article date: 10/25/2007
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/10/19/164847.html

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