Legislative Gazette (Albany, New York): Legislators hope to raise awareness of Falun Gong plight

Mon, June 11, 2007

In China, a lung is worth $150,000 and a heart is worth $130,000, according to a human rights report titled "Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvest of Falun Gong Practitioners in China."

The report, written by Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas and former Secretary of State of the Government of Canada for the Asia Pacific Region David Kilgour, alleges that organs are harvested from Falun Gong practitioners while they are still alive, with corpses cremated afterward to hide evidence of the harvest, and sold to "organ tourists" who visit the country, paying huge sums of money for a guaranteed organ match in a fraction of the time of other waiting lists.

The authors of the report held a press conference last week to call for the creation of legislation and regulations requiring organ recipients to find out where their organs come from, as well as promoting awareness by issuing advisories from both private and public health institutions.

"We need to share with the rest of the world what has transpired," said Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, D-Bronx.

The National Kidney Foundation has already issued a statement on its Web site that it is "deeply concerned" by the organ harvesting allegations.

Falun Gong is [a mind and body improvement practice system following the principle "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance".]

Kilgour described a scenario relayed to him from one "organ tourist" who paid $20,000 for a guaranteed kidney match and visited China, where four kidneys were tested against his without a match. Upon his return visit two months later, there were four more kidneys tested against his with the eighth being a match, reportedly from an "executed prisoner," though the report describes military doctors selecting names from a list and returning two to three hours later with a kidney.

Kilgour, along with concerned citizens and relatives of Falun Gong practitioners, spoke at a press conference at the Legislative Office Building last Tuesday, urging legislators to take any action possible to bring awareness to the current situation.

Haitao Xu, a practitioner of Falun Gong and former citizen of China from the Guangdong Province, spoke about his wife's experience with persecution from the Chinese government.

He described his wife, now exiled in Malaysia, being arrested at a protest and noticing that other Falun Gong practitioners who refused to give their names disappeared. This, coupled with the fact that his wife and others were given medical exams including blood tests and X-rays while detained, lead Xu to believe that some of the prisoners that disappeared had been used for organ harvesting.

"Shortly after my wife returned home, the female Falun Gong practitioner's mother came to our home trying to find out about her daughter. She told us that her daughter never returned after being arrested. When thinking of the Chinese Communist Party's hideous practice of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners, I think it is quite possible that this female Falun Gong practitioner had become a victim," said Xu.

[...]

Assemblyman Marc Alessi, D-Manor Park, said there should be "a huge effort to educate the medical community."

"This is people being appraised for their value as human beings," said Alessi. "It's the worst form of slavery."

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