(Clearwisdom.net) It is our belief that when the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong in China has been fully revealed, the persecution will come to an end, since the world will simply not be able to tolerate it. That China’s communist leaders have gone to such great lengths to hide and cover up their actions since 1999 indicates that they believe this, also.

To this end, the following is one in a special series of articles designed to more comprehensively expose and chronicle the persecution of Falun Gong in China in all of its many facets. We invite our readers to check back with us on a daily basis this month for more articles which document the crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party over the past eleven years of persecuting Falun Gong.

Previous articles in this series:
“Overview of the Persecution” (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/7/1/118272.html)
“Persecution FAQ” (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/7/2/118294.html)
“Persecution: Timeline”(http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/7/3/118302.html)
“Persecution: Origins (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/7/4/118331.html)
“Persecution: Killings”: http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/7/5/118357.html
“Persecution: Key Individuals”: (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/7/5/118351.html)

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Since the Chinese Communist Party banned Falun Gong in China in 1999, the Chinese authorities have utilized a wide variety of mechanisms in their efforts to force adherents to renounce their faith and ultimately wipe out the spiritual group. These strategies have ranged from extreme use of torture and sexual abuse, to the intimidation and harassment of adherents’ family members, to the establishment of a nationwide extralegal task force to implement the eradication policy.

Mounting evidence tells a terrible tale of murder and mutilation in China. Witnesses and Chinese physicians reveal that thousands of persons affiliated with the Falun Gong are being killed for their organs, which are sold and transplanted at enormous profit.

The kidneys, livers, and hearts are often sold on demand to overseas patients, who can afford them. That is, the prisoners of conscience are tissue typed and then killed once a matching recipient is found for their organs.

The perpetrators are officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), acting in cahoots with surgeons, prison authorities, and military officials.

Victims are held in concentrations camps prior to dissection, after which the bodies’ remains are immediately cremated.

The story, almost too dreadful to believe, was first revealed in March 2006, when a woman claimed that as many as 4,000 Falun Gong had been killed for their organs at the hospital in which she had worked. She also said that her husband, a surgeon at the same hospital outside the northeastern city of Shenyang, had disclosed to her that he had removed cornea from the living bodies of 2,000 Falun Gong adherents (article, video).

One week later, a Chinese military doctor not only corroborated the woman’s account but claimed such atrocities were taking place in 36 different concentration camps throughout the country. The largest, he said, held 120,000 persons. He said he had also witnessed the Falun Gong being massively transported across the country in cattle trains, at night and under the cover of tight security (article).

Falun Gong supporters and human rights activists overseas immediately began investigating the allegations. They placed calls to Chinese hospitals pretending to be shopping for a kidney or a liver. To their horror, one doctor after another openly confirmed: We’ve got Falun Gong in stock; just come in and we can get you the organ within a week.

Shocked by these reports, two prominent Canadian human rights lawyers launched their own investigation. Then in July 2006, former Secretary of State for Asia Pacific David Kilgour and Nazi hunter David Matas, published their own 140-page report. It drew “the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true” (article).

CCP officials are reportedly hastening to destroy all evidence. They have provided monitored tours and removed websites that advertised organs for sale (though not in time, as investigators had already managed to save images of these web pages). One Chinese website had boasted that it can provide matching organs in 1-4 weeks, which medical experts say is impossible unless the Chinese hospitals have access to a huge stock of living organ “donors.”

Shortly after reports of organ harvesting emerged, Party leaders announced new legislation banning use of organs without consent. Over a year later, this law does not appear to have been implemented at all, supporting those who claimed all along that the legislation was nothing more than a public relations stunt.

Throughout the 1990’s, human rights organizations and international media reported the widespread use of executed prisoners’ organs for organ transplants in China. In 2001, a Chinese doctor testified before Congress, saying he had removed corneas and skin from more than 100 executed prisoners, including ones who were still alive (link to Organs05 – Wang Guoqi, “The preparation for Sujiatun”: http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-3-30/39868.html article). The Communist Party has now begun employing “execution vans,” which allow for both discrete executions on the go and delivery of fresh organs to hospitals (article).

Along with Kilgour and Matas, the Committee to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG:http://www.cipfg.org/) has taken the lead in uncovering and exposing the organ atrocities. CIPFG and prominent individuals, such as Jewish religious leaders and former Olympians are currently holding a Human Rights Torch Relay. Their message is: “Crimes against humanity and Olympics cannot coexist in China.”

Original article posted at: http://faluninfo.net/print/230/

Organ transplantation is a form of live transplantation. Three technical difficulties need be solved.

The first difficulty lies in the immediate vascular connection as soon as an organ is transplanted into the recipient’s body. This restoration of blood circulation is critical to supplying nutrition so that cells can stay alive. This requires a different set of surgery techniques from the stitching of regular tissues. This technique for vascular anastomosis was not developed until 1903 by Alexis Carrel, a French surgeon, biologist and eugenicist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912.

The second difficulty is to keep the harvested organ alive after it becomes isolated. Under normal temperatures, an organ dies between a few minutes and an hour, which will prevent it from being transplanted into the recipient’s body. However, to complete the transplantation within such a time constraint is impossible. Innovative techniques are needed to keep organs alive. The solution is to lower the temperature during a process called perfusion. The lower temperature reduces the nutrition level needed by the cells, which extends the survival time of an isolated organ. Perfusion achieves nutritive delivery of blood. It was not until 1967 and 1969 that F.O. Beizer and G.M. Collins independently developed practical perfusion solutions, which could keep an isolated organ alive for 24 hours. This has gained enough time for organ transplant surgery operations.

The third difficulty lies in the foreign source of the organ being transplanted. Any recipient has an inborn capability and mechanism (immune mechanism) which can recognize, control, destroy and eliminate foreign tissues or organs transplanted into the body. This physiological immune process is clinically manifested as rejection reaction, which can result in damage to transplanted organs and failure of transplantation. Transplanted organs, like other cells in a human body, are composed of two major types of antigens: ABO blood type and Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA). Together, they determine the rejection reaction associated with homograft. There are only four ABO blood types (O, A, B, and AB). It is not that hard to match suppliers and recipients of the same ABO blood type. However, HLA is extremely complex. It has been discovered that there are seven groups of HLA. They are HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C, HLA-D, HLA-DR, HLA-DQ, and HLA-DP, with a total of 148 antigens. The possible permutations are well over 2,000,000. Except for twins from the same egg, it is practically impossible to locate a supplier and a recipient with identical HLA matching. As a result, rejection reaction always follows a homograft. It has to be reversed with intense immune suppression. Immunosuppressant drugs that are clinically effective were not discovered until the 1960s. They include: azathioprine (1961), prednisone (1963), anti-lymphocyte globulin (1966), and Cyclophosphamide (1971). With the advent of these immunosuppressant drugs, organs could be kept alive long enough after transplantation. In 1962, J.E. Murray, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990, accomplished the extended survival of a human kidney transplant for the first time. It marked organ transplantation as being clinically feasible.

Three types of transplant rejection:

Hyperacute rejection – Hyperacute rejection usually takes place within 24 hours of the transplant. It is the outcome of a xenotransplanted organ in non-immunosuppressed recipients. Hyperacute rejection is a particular risk in kidney transplants. This is commonly addressed by a prospective cytotoxic cross match prior to kidney transplantation to ensure that antibodies to the donor are not present.

Acute rejection – Acute rejection is the most common rejection observed. It usually takes place several days to several months after the transplant. It is caused by mismatched HLA. Most acute rejection cases can be alleviated by immunosuppressant drugs.

Chronic rejection – Chronic rejection usually takes place several months to several years after the transplant. It is a poorly understood process of chronic inflammatory and immune response against the transplanted tissue.

2. Liver transplant charts from two hospitals with close ties to the Chinese military

This chart is taken from the homepage of the Orient Organ Transplant Center in Tianjin. [68] Watermark in Chinese: ‘Our accomplishments.’ Numbers indicate liver transplants. It claims to have performed the highest number of liver transplant surgeries of all hospitals around the world in 2004. [69]

Number of liver transplant cases at the No. 2 Hospital of the Second Military Medical University (also known as Shanghai Changzheng Hospital) in 1996, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. [70]

3. Published organ transplant statistics by Chinese experts

There are no accurate statistics for the annual number of transplants in China. Estimates provided by various experts based on data at hand differ from one another. However, all statistics have pointed to the significant growth of China’s organ transplantation market. For example, Jiankangbao [Healthnewspaper] reported that Shi Bingyi, member of the standing committee of the Chinese Society of Transplantation, which is a division of the Chinese Medical Association, and director of the Transplant Center of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), estimated that there had been a cumulative count of 90,000 transplant cases by 2005, with close to 10,000 kidney transplant cases and close to 4,000 liver transplant cases in 2005 alone. [71] Shi Bingyi said in another interview by Science Times that the number peaked in 2006, with 20,000 transplant cases in that year. [72] When Shi was a guest at Xinhuanet.com in September 2009, he said that between 8,000 and 9,000 kidney transplant surgeries were conducted in China each year, while liver transplant surgeries numbered between 3,000 to 4,000 each year. [73] Huang Jiefu, deputy minister of China’s Ministry of Public Health claimed transplants reached a peak in 2004, with close to 15,000 cases of liver and kidney transplants. [74] Another source, China’s Caijing magazine, revealed in Issue No. 18, 2009 that by the end of 2008, cumulated kidney and liver transplants had surpassed 100,000 cases. [75]

The above is an article published by the website of Jiankangbao [Health newspaper]. It is an interview with Shi Bingyi, director of the Transplant Center of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), who estimated that there had been a cumulative count of 90,000 transplant cases by 2005. This article has since been deleted from the website. The screen capture was taken from an archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20060826070646/http: //www.transplantation.org.cn/html/2006-03/394.html.

4. Organ transplants in underground hospitals

Many underground hospitals sprouted up, driven by the high profit margin. This crowded the organ transplant marketplace.

Life Week magazine published a report in its April 2006 issue named “The difficulty of organ transplant regulation.” Zhu Youhua, president of the Transplantation Research Institute of the PLA and director of the Organ Transplant Center at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, told Life Weekreporters, “181 kidney transplants and 171 liver transplants were performed in 2005. We also took between 20 and 30 patients who suffered transplant failure from underground hospitals…” The article also quoted Shen Zhongyang, of the Orient Organ Transplant Center, that between 10% and 20% the total number of cases at the transplant center were people who previously had transplant surgeries performed by non-standard measures in underground hospitals. [76]

Therefore, we need to point out the existence of underground organ transplant hospitals. Transplants conducted at these hospitals are likely not included in the statistics by Huang Jiefu, deputy minister of the Ministry of Public Health, and others. As a result, the number of actual transplants that took place between 2003 and 2006 could very well surpass the estimates we have discussed in previous chapters.

5. Organ transplant statistics provided by Huang Jiefu and Shi Bingyi

Huang Jiefu, deputy minister of China’s Health Ministry, and others published the article “Government Policy and Organ Transplantation in China” in The Lancet. [77] It contains the following chart:

If we transpose liver transplant cases on top of kidney transplant cases, we get the following chart, with the red line indicating the trend of changes. Note: Huang Jiefu’s data between 2003 and 2006 is based on incomplete statistics. Estimates from other experts are much higher.

In fact, Huang Jiefu’s data is on the conservative side among statistics we have gathered from organ transplant experts in China. Shi Bingyi, director of the Organ Transplant Center of the PLA, estimated that there were close to 10,000 kidney transplant cases and close to 4,000 liver transplant cases in 2005 alone. Shi Bingyi said in another interview with Science Times that the number peaked in 2006, with 20,000 transplant cases in that year. When Shi was a guest at the Xinhuanet.com in September 2009, he said that currently between 8,000 and 9,000 kidney transplant surgeries were conducted in China each year, while liver transplant surgeries were between 3,000 and 4,000 each year.

6. Organ transplants in other countries

During the same period, the volume of transplant surgeries have been relatively stable in other countries. The number of transplant surgeries increased from about 1,600 to about 2,250 in Canada between 1997 and 2007. [78] In the United States, the number increased gradually from a little over 20,000 to slightly below 28,000. [79]

Number of organ transplants in Canada from 1996 to 2007

Number of transplants by donor type in the U.S. (Jan. 1, 1997 – July 31, 2009)

7. Average waiting period for organs in Chinese hospitals

The following are average waiting periods for organs as taken from websites of Chinese hospitals.

Average waiting period of two weeks at the Orient Organ Transplant Center (Tianjin) (Original content deleted; screen capture from an archive at: http://web.archive.org/web/20060207021805/http://www.ootc.net/)

Average waiting period of one week for liver transplants at the No. 2 Hospital of the Second Military Medical University (Shanghai Changzheng Hospital) (Original content deleted after the exposure of live organ harvesting by overseas media; screen capture from an archive at: http://web.archive.org/web/20050210151434/www.transorgan.com/apply.asp

See the following chart for changed text on the hospital’s website.)

The text was changed to: “Operations will be arranged as soon as a patient checks into our hospital.” (http://www.transorgan.com/apply.asp)

Average waiting periods for liver and kidney transplants at the China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center of the No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of the China Medical University in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province (original content deleted; screen capture from an archive at: http://web.archive.org/web/20041023183012/zoukiishoku.com/cn/jueding/index.htm)

8. Cost of organ transplants

Cost of transplant surgeries listed at the website of the China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center of the No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of the China Medical University in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province (original website in Japanese, Russian, English, and Chinese languages was closed after overseas exposure of live organ harvesting; screen capture from an archive at: http://web.archive.org/web/20060422143018/en.zoukiishoku.com/list/cost.htm)

9. Guarantee of donor quality

The China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center of the No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of the China Medical University in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province published answers to most frequently asked questions on its website emphasizing live organs being used in organ transplants.

The Chinese text circled emphasizes that the organs are live organs. The China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center website has since been taken offline. Screen capture from an archive at: http://web.archive.org/web/20041023193430/zoukiishoku.com/cn/wenda/index.htm.

10. Disappearance of the Chinese Society of Organ Transplantation website

After the exposure of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners on March 9, 2006, the website of the Chinese Society of Organ Transplantation (www.cstx.org) affiliated with the China Medical Association soon disappeared. It was redirected to the website of the China Medical Association (www.cma.org.cn). As of November 2009, the cstx.org website remains offline. The Internet Archive indicates that the cstx.org website was last updated in February 2006, at which time it clearly stated that it was sponsored by the Chinese Society of Organ Transplantation and implemented by the Organ Transplantation Research Institute of Tongji Medical School of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The website of the Chinese Society of Organ Transplantation affiliated with the Chinese Medical Association before it disappeared. Screen capture from an archive at: http://web.archive.org/web/20051201024138/www.cstx.org/xhjj2.htm.

11. “Organ deal behind the death of a beggar” – South Wind Window magazine

Cover and headline “Organ deal behind the death of a beggar” of South Wind Window magazine, Issue No. 14, 2007.

12. “Where did the organs come from?” – Cover story from Caijing magazine revealing a case of killing for organs

Caijing [Finance and Economics] magazine, Issue No. 18, 2009 (published on August 31, 2009), carried a cover story “Where did the organs come from?” which revealed the case of killing of a homeless person for his organs. Original link: http://magazine.caijing.com.cn/2009/cj245/ appears to be broken. A copy of the report was also found at http://www.transplantation.org.cn/zyienizhonghe/2009-09/3906.htm.

Note: Caijing magazine has been known for its courage in exposing the dark side of Communist bureaucrats and publishing sensitive news reports. However, a human resources shakeup took place in the second half of 2009, and over 150 editors and reporters, which was almost the entire staff, resigned during this period.

References

[68] Orient Organ Transplant Center in Tianjin, chart on the center’s own webpage has been deleted, and screen capture is taken instead from an archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20060412162605/http://www.ootc.net/

[69] Orient Organ Transplant Center in Tianjin, “Center’s Accomplishments” web link, http://www.ootc.net/CenterContent.aspx?newsID=12

[70] No. 2 Hospital of the Second Military Medical University (also known as Shanghai Changzheng Hospital), chart on the hospital’s own webpage has been deleted, and screen capture is taken instead from an archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20050317130117/http://www.transorgan.com/about_g_intro.asp

[71] Jiankangbao [Health newspaper], March 2, 2006, “The bar has to be raised for organ transplantation,” an article which has been deleted from the newspaper’s website after the exposure of organ harvesting, and screen capture is taken instead from an archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20060826070646/http://www.transplantation.org.cn/html/2006-03/394.html

[72] Science Times, “Organ shortage is the bottleneck of the growth of the transplantation course,” http://www.sciencenet.cn/html/showsbnews1.aspx?id=182075

[73] Xinhuanet.com, “Transcript of an interview with Shi Bingyi: A discussion over organ transplantation in detail,” http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2009-09/11/content_12035251_2.htm

[74] Huang Jiefu, Mao Yilei, and J. Michael Millis, “Government Policy and Organ Transplantation in China,” The Lancet, http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/series/china/comment11.pdf

[75] Wang Xuan, “Where do organs come from?” Caijing magazine, http://www.transplantation.org.cn/zyienizhonghe/2009-09/3905.htm

[76] Life Week magazine, “The difficulty of organ transplant regulation,” http://www.lifeweek.com.cn/2006-04-17/0005314976.shtml

[77] Huang Jiefu, Mao Yilei, and J. Michael Millis, “Government Policy and Organ Transplantation in China,” The Lancet, http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/series/china/comment11.pdf

[78] Dr. Lilyanna Trpeski, “Report on CORR Performance and Recent Trends in Donor, Transplant and Waiting Statistics in Canada-Preliminary Results,” http://www.cihi.ca/cihiweb/en/downloads/Clinical%20CAT 224a1cresentation_donors_2008_fial.ppt

[79] U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/latestData/rptData.asp

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

XIII. What you can do?

“My God! I can’t believe this is true!” This might have been your reaction when you first heard about live organ harvesting.

You are not alone. Sixty years ago, Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, said something similar when he learned about the Nazi killing of Jews.

1. An excerpt from Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust

Today we all know the unquestionable veracity of the Holocaust, the systematic killing of Jews in concentration camps by the Nazis. We tend to assume that when it was happening, the existence of the Nazi death camps was a well-known fact. People may wonder: how come everyone knows about the Holocaust, while few people know the inside story of live organ harvesting in China? Some have used the different reactions of the outside world as a reason to refute the organ harvesting allegations.

As a matter of fact, when the Nazis were killing Jews, the outside world did not know about it at all, except for very few who were desperate to get the word out. Sometimes the descriptions were sketchy and conflicting. It was as hard then as it is today to get the facts out regarding the CCP’s taking organs from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust gives a compelling story of extraordinary courage. Jan Karski, a Polish diplomatic courier, escaped a Soviet prison and endured Nazi torture. Karski snuck into the Warsaw ghetto and into a Nazi death camp so that he could witness the mass murder first hand. In 1942-43, Jan Karski reported on the extermination of Jews to British and American leaders. At the arrangement of Jan Ciechanowski, Polish Ambassador to the United States, Karski met Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, at his first dinner upon arriving in Washington D.C. The following conversation took place after this dinner.

The Supreme Court justice sat opposite Karski, looking into his eyes.

“Mr. Karski,” Frankfurter asked, “do you know that I am a Jew?”

Karski nodded.

“There are so many conflicting reports about what is happening to the Jews in your country,” Frankfurter said. “Please tell me exactly what you have seen.”

Jan spent half an hour patiently explaining how his missions to the Ghetto and the camp had come about and precisely, in gruesome detail, what he had witnessed. When Karski finished, he waited for the visitor to make the next move.

Frankfurter silently got up from his chair. For a few moments, he paced back and forth in front of Karski and the ambassador, who looked on in puzzlement. Then, just as quietly, he took his seat again.

“Mr. Karski,” Frankfurter said after a further pause, “a man like me talking to a man like you must be totally frank. So I must say: I am unable to believe you.”

Ciechanowski flew from his seat. “Felix, you don’t mean it!” he cried. “How can you call him a liar to his face! The authority of my government is behind him. You know who he is!”

Frankfurter replied, in a soft voice filled with resignation, “Mr. Ambassador, I did not say this young man is lying. I said I am unable to believe him. There is a difference.” [67]

Over 60 years later, this account is as pertinent as it was then. When you exclaim “My God! I can’t believe this is true!” upon hearing accounts of live organ harvesting, you may make an additional comment, as Justice Frankfurter did, “I did not say [he] is lying. I said I am unable to believe him.”

2. Even a single case of live organ harvesting amounts to a monumental crime

The CCP has consistently stonewalled outside investigations. It has guarded information related to death row inmates as state secrets. Efforts to analyze organ sources from death row inmates and living Falun Gong practitioners face a tremendous challenge. However, based on some public data and observations, the limitation of organs from death row inmates and the features of China’s organ market, especially with witness accounts from those with inside information, extensive telephone investigation, and testimony by organ mediation agents have all led us to believe that the drastic growth of China’s organ market from 2003 to 2006 has everything to do with organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Zhang Zhixin, a courageous young woman, was killed during the Cultural Revolution for questioning the CCP policy and its ultimate leader Mao Zedong. What shocked the entire nation was that before her execution, CCP officials cut Zhang’s throat to prevent her from shouting out anything inconvenient to the regime. Later on, many thought that the Cultural Revolution was a thing of the past. However, in 1999, the overwhelming slander and persecution against Falun Gong revived what was going on during the Cultural Revolution. Zhang’s reputation was restored, but the mechanism that killed her has not been dismantled in China. If the organ harvesting allegations are true, it represents, to quote Kilgour and Matas, “a disgusting form of evil which, despite all the depravities humanity has seen, are new to this planet.”

A single occurrence of such an atrocity, not to mention its appearance on such a systematic scale, amounts to a monumental crime. These are the most blatant reflections on the authoritarian regime’s utter disregard for life.

3. So-called “economic miracles” are no excuse for persecution

When discussing the CCP’s human rights abuses, some people have cited China’s economic growth as an excuse. Economic development cannot serve as an excuse or cover-up of the CCP’s suppression of the Chinese people. It took Adolf Hitler less than three years to accomplish Germany’s so-called “economic miracle”. Hitler successfully reduced the unemployment rate to nearly zero from over 30%, which raised Germany’s international status and made it a European power again in short order. However, the killing of Jews in concentration camps has defined Hitler’s era. No one ever praises Hitler for economic growth during his rule.

China’s growth in these years is much more fragile than that of Germany in the 1930′s. It has been achieved at the cost of environmental devastation, resource depletion, and moral collapse, a price that will be paid for generations to come. What it all boils down to is a society’s morality. If we do not raise our voices to stop such atrocities of live organ harvesting, China will have no future as a state or as a nation.

Many have been driven by economic interests and turned a blind eye to the CCP’s brutal suppression of its citizens. However, more and more people are speaking out against such crimes. In his April 2006 letter to President George W. Bush, Dana Rohrabacher, ranking member of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote, “The kind of moral complicity required for the non-consensual removal and sale of human organs is certainly unique. We as legislators, as statesmen and Americans, must not also become complicit in these crimes by keeping silent. History cares not whether we inked another trade deal or helped sell another Boeing 747, but history will judge us if we choose to look the other way when faced with truly indescribable human suffering on this scale.”

4. What can you do?

We have seen that the CCP has responded to organ harvesting charges by regulating China’s organ market to fool the outside world, while strictly preventing independent outside investigations from being conducted in China. This blatant rejection of outside investigations is an indication that the CCP is involved in a cover-up. The CCP is also hoping that others will forget the drastic growth of China’s organ market from 2003 to 2006 against the backdrop of the all-out campaign to suppress Falun Gong.

Czech writer Milan Kundera once described the struggle against Communism as “the struggle of memory against forgetting.” What the CCP wants is for people to “forget.” What the people of China are struggling for is to “remember.”

The CCP of the past cut Zhang Zhixin’s throat with impunity, just as the CCP of today can harvest organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. As long as the CCP, which is the source of decades of China’s misery, continues to exist, tomorrow’s victim could be anyone.

Everyone can do his or her part, in gathering evidence, demanding that the CCP allow independent, outside investigations to be conducted, exposing the truth about this episode in history, and putting an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, the persecution of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance.

If you are a doctor who has participated in harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, we hope you will not be blinded by immediate interests. Your involvement in live organ harvesting was brought about by the CCP. Without the overwhelming slanderous campaign and the policy of “beating [Falun Gong practitioners] to death will be counted as suicide,” the environment for live organ harvesting would not have existed. What has happened has happened. Keeping your lips sealed and guarding the CCP’s secrets cannot alleviate the gravity of these crimes or your remorse. By bringing out the truth, you can live up to your conscience, and reduce or even offset the crimes that were committed knowingly or unwittingly. It is the only way out.

References

[67] E. Thomas Wood and Stanislaw M. Jankowski, Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust, Wiley and Sons, 1996

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

XII. The Chinese Communist government’s reactions to allegations of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners

1. Sujiatun cover-up

Three people with inside information made the allegations of live organ harvesting in March 2006. One was a senior Chinese journalist in Japan with the pseudonym “Peter;” another was a woman with the pseudonym “Annie,” whose ex-husband participated in removing corneas from Falun Gong practitioners; and the third person was an anonymous veteran military doctor from the Shenyang Military Area Command. Peter and Annie made a public appearance at a gathering in Washington, D.C., in April 2006. The specific crimes allegedly occurred at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine in the Sujiatun District, Shenyang City.

On March 28, Qin Gang, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, denied the charges for the first time–some 20 days after the allegations were made–and invited reporters to investigate on site. However, there was no record of this statement on the Foreign Ministry’s official website. On April 14, the General Consul of the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang City, accompanied by city officials, paid a pre-scheduled visit to the Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine for an hour. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in China stated subsequently that U.S. representatives “found no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public hospital.” Yet, this has not dispelled widely held suspicions that the CCP could have transferred inmates during the three weeks after the initial public exposure and conducted a cover-up. Sujiatun used to be an important military location. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, the Japanese Kwantung Army’s largest weapons warehouses were located here, and there was a sophisticated underground defense fortification system. Zeng Kelin, who served as the commander of the No. 16 Military Sub-region of the Eighth Route Army, recalled that, on one occasion when they opened up the warehouses in Sujiatun, they found enough weapons to equip an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. In one such underground system found in the Sujiatun District, the tunnels were about 7 feet wide and 6 feet tall, with a total length of about 1¼ miles. [65] A visit to aboveground buildings would not disprove the existence of the underground tunnels. What the outside world is interested in is not the visit that took place three weeks later. They are interested in what the CCP did within those three weeks, as well what happened before public charges were brought against the hospital.

Sujiatun allegations lift the curtain on live organ harvesting

Common sense tells us that the person who reports a case does not have to be the one who solves it. To demand that the reporter come up with all the evidence and solve the case is putting the cart before the horse. The Sujiatun allegations are just a lead supported by three people with inside information. The importance lies not in the absolute accuracy of their descriptions. What is important is the possibility that live organ harvesting has actually taken place. For example, someone passes by as a murder is taking place. He is at a distance and does not see everything. Based on what he does see, he believes there has been a murder, so he rushes to report the case to the authorities, which leads to a full investigation into a criminal organization. Was the person able to describe the crime scene with 100 percent accuracy? Did he know how many people were involved, who the murderers were, how many were killed, and what kind of weapons were used? It is unlikely that he saw everything, yet he still deserves credit for reporting the case.

The Sujiatun allegations have lifted the curtain concealing this nefarious activity. People have started to pay attention to the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners unlawfully held at hundreds of labor camps and other large-scale concentration camps. What happened to them? This series of reports has looked into the sudden increase in available organs for China’s organ transplant market from 2003 to 2006. It has attempted to find out where the organs could possibly have come from. The statistics support the allegations that organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners has indeed taken place.

On April 4, 2006, the Falun Dafa Association and the Minghui website published a notice announcing the establishment of The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG). Governments, NGOs, media, and individuals were invited to conduct an independent, on-site investigation to gather evidence in China–without intervention–in order to comprehensively investigate the facts surrounding the CCP’s holding of Falun Gong practitioners in labor camps and secret concentration camps for persecution.

2. Third party independent investigators denied visas

In response to the invitation from Qin Gang, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, journalists from independent media overseas started applying to go to China to investigate.

On the morning of April 19, 2006, Xu Lin, a senior journalist in charge of news reports on China from Sound of Hope radio, went to the consulate general to apply to enter China to investigate. She was denied a visa.

The following day, Zhou Lei, chief editor of The Epoch Times, went to the Chinese embassy in Berlin. Her visa application was denied.

On May 2, 2006, Zhang Fen, San Francisco bureau director of New Tang Dynasty TV, applied for entry into China. Her visa application was denied.

In June 2006, David Kilgour and David Matas applied for visas to enter China to conduct an investigation. Their applications were denied.

The outside world is aware that the invitation from China’s Foreign Ministry was just for show. What is ironic is that those Chinese CCP supporters living overseas who have turned a blind eye to the CCP’s long history of killing are disappointed in the CCP’s decision to reject the visa applications, thinking it is an opportunity to discredit Falun Gong. According to their logic, if there is no live organ harvesting, independent investigators should be allowed to enter China since they would not be able to come up with any evidence, and the allegations would be disproved. Yet the CCP will not issue the visas.

3. Denying the validity of the evidence so far collected

In response to the live organ harvesting charges, the CCP has not allowed any outside investigations and has categorically denied the charges.

Bloody Harvest by Kilgour and Matas gives many accounts of solid evidence, including transcripts of telephone calls in which doctors from different Chinese hospitals acknowledge procuring organs from Falun Gong practitioners. After a period of silence, the CCP used Phoenix TV, its overseas media for united-front propaganda, to deny the charges in the TV program “Investigation of the [two] Davids’ Investigation.” The video shows doctors listed in Bloody Harvest making statements that actually turn out to support the evidence in the book, in addition to providing contradictory statements. The following are two such examples.

Shi Bingyi’s data

Bloody Harvest uses data provided by Shi Bingyi, director of the Transplant Center of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The article “The bar has to be raised for organ transplantation,” which appeared in Jiankangbao [Health Newspaper] on March 2, 2006, quoted Shi’s estimate that there had been a total of 90,000 transplant cases in China [by 2005]. He was asked to make a denial on Phoenix TV, avowing, “I did not say that. Why? Because there has been no such number in my head.” It is known that Jiankangbao is the authoritative, organizational mouthpiece of China’s Ministry of Health. If Shi had not given the total of 90,000 transplant cases by 2005, instead of refuting Kilgour and Matas, he should have argued with Jiankangbao. In fact, Shi knows the numbers have been increasing and has thus been active in taking media interviews. In this report, we have also quoted the numbers when he was interviewed by Science Times as well as Xinhuanet.com.

Telephone investigation involving Lu Guoping of Nanning City Minzu Hospital in Guangxi Autonomous Region

Among the transcripts of telephone calls published in Bloody Harvest, one was a conversation with Lu Guoping, a doctor who worked at Nanning City Minzu Hospital and acknowledged the use of Falun Gong practitioners’ organs (see Chapter XI). In the Phoenix TV program, Lu was asked to deny what he said. However, Lu first admitted that it was he who took the telephone call on May 22, 2006. Kilgour and Matas consider this supporting evidence to the original telephone recording. Prior to this, the main doubt people had was whether it was actually Doctor Lu Guoping on the other end of the line. His identity has now been authenticated by the Chinese government.

In a follow-up report by New Tang Dynasty Television, snippets of Lu Guoping’s speech on Phoenix TV were shown. [66] Viewers were able to compare the voice on Phoenix TV with the original investigator’s phone conversation (see Chapter XI for links); both have the same pronounced dialect, which is hard to fake with current computer technology.

4. Suddenly expediting the overhaul of the organ market

After March 2006, the CCP expedited the overhaul of China’s organ transplant market. It issued a qualification regulation, reducing the number of transplant hospitals to 164 from over 600. A temporary regulation on human organ transplants went into effect on July 1, 2006. On May 1, 2007, the (permanent) Regulation on Human Organ Transplantations took effect.

The international community welcomed regulations over and management of China’s organ market. However, the introduction of regulations does not negate the crimes committed in the previous years. Simply brushing off the prior period by describing it as “chaotic” and praising the new regulations is nothing short of assisting a cover-up.

At the same time, the CCP closed down the websites of certain organ transplant hospitals and related organizations. The website of the Chinese Society of Organ Transplantation, affiliated with the China Medical Association, is one that disappeared. It went offline in March 2006 and has remained inaccessible as of November 2009 (see Appendix 10 for details). Also, major hospitals have removed statements regarding the extremely short waiting periods (as short as a week or two) that had been listed on their websites. And, the CCP has called off organ transplant tours targeting foreign organ recipients.

We cannot help but ask, what is the purpose of removing or changing the content of these websites? What is being covered up?

Note: Much of the data and relevant information cited in this report has been taken from Internet archives at the website http://www.archive.org, which is evidence that is outside the control of the CCP for deletion or revision.

5. Use of death row organs: from outright denial to a high profile admission

The CCP had been quite clear and consistent in denying the use of death row organs.

In March 2006, Qin Gang claimed in a press conference that reports of organs being removed from death row inmates in China were complete lies that had been fabricated to mislead the public.

On April 10, 2006, Mao Qunan, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry, denied overseas media reports that China arbitrarily took organs from death row inmates. He claimed that the primary source of organs in China was volunteer donors upon their passing away.

On October 10, 2006, in response to BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes’ article “Organ sales ‘thriving’ in China,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Qin Gang said, “Some foreign media fabricate news when reporting on organ transplants in China to attack China’s legal system.”

However, on August 26, 2009, China Daily, China’s official English newspaper, made a high profile admission for the first time that executed prisoners were currently providing two-thirds of all transplant organs. This was interpreted by the international community as the official number backed by the Chinese government.

However, the CCP’s transition from categorical denial of the widespread use of organs from death row inmates to a high profile admission took place as serious charges were being brought against it: procuring organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. How can people today believe the CCP’s denial of these serious new charges any more than its consistent denial of using organs from executed inmates?

Some Chinese organ transplant experts tried to increase the reported percentage of organs from executed prisoners as early as 2005. We cannot tell whether their purpose was to make public the use of death row organs or to cover up an even greater crime. However, the latter is a strong possibility, since these experts have been well aware of the facts of harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners.

Admitting the wide use of death row organs and denying allegations of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners, while resolutely opposing any independent investigation into these allegations, is the CCP’s current stance. Its overly high profile campaign to reform death row organ procurement and its overly sensitive attitude to charges of live organ harvesting indeed raise suspicians of a systematic cover-up.

6. Another peak in organ transplants?

The establishment of an organ sharing system across China, the legislation to allow organ donation from brain dead patients, raising awareness of volunteer organ donation, and encouraging donation among family members may end up expanding China’s organ market to surpass the large figures from 2003 through 2006. Given China’s one and a half million patients waiting for organs, organ transplantation will continue to make headlines. Experts and scholars are expected to join the media effort to promote and extol the new rules and regulations. Through these efforts by the CCP, will the crimes against Falun Gong practitioners killed for their organs be covered up and forgotten?

During the drafting of this report, the authors have been reminded by kindhearted people that the CCP may publish carefully manipulated data to defend the skyrocketing of China’s organ market during the years from 2003 to 2006. Regardless, given the fact that the CCP instigated the persecution of Falun Gong in the first place–and on such an unprecedented scale and with such cruelty–which led to allegations of live organ harvesting, any further actions the CCP takes can only diminish its credibility in the eyes of the Chinese and the world over and ultimately accelerate its demise.

References

[65] CCP Sujiatun District Organization Department, “Japanese Army Fortification System Appears in Our District,” August 8, 2005, http://www.sjtdj.gov.cn/xuancuan/show.asp?ids=2643

[66] New Tang Dynasty Television, “Doctor Lu Guoping’s Voice at the 18^th minute of the Phoenix TV footage,” Zooming In, No. 94, http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2009/04/08/a278863.html#video

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

X. The killing of a beggar and a homeless person reveals lack of bottom line in Chinese doctors’ ethics

If some people still question whether doctors could engage in harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, then let’s take a look at some other cases. Chinese media have reported two instances in which doctors were suspected or implicated in killing a beggar and a homeless person in order to procure their organs. These incidents raise the question of which is more valuable in Communist China: human decency or human organs?

1. Organ deal behind the death of a beggar

South Wind Window magazine (Issue No. 14, in 2007) published a report entitled “Organ Deal Behind the Death of a Beggar.” Tong Gefei was a beggar from Xingtang County, Hebei Province. The magazine reported that local resident Wang Chaoyang was alleged to have conspired with Chen Jie, a post-doctoral researcher at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, and several other doctors from Wuhan and Beijing. The doctors spent about 20 minutes in a deserted electrical power substation. The operation was performed under the illumination of several flashlights. They harvested Tong’s liver, spleen, pancreas, and two kidneys, a total of five organs. A doctor later surrendered himself to the authorities. Chen Jie of Tongji Hospital paid 65,000 yuan to Tong’s family in compensation and expected his family not to implicate the doctors. It was reported that Wang Chaoyang lied to the doctors, saying that Tong was a death row inmate. However, all the doctors involved in this case should have known that to procure organs from a body, an official death certificate issued by the courts has to be presented, as well as a statement of consent from the donor him or herself. Of course, there were no such documents. If a death row inmate is executed, surgery to procure the organs takes place on the execution grounds, as the procedure has to start within a minute of the victim’s death. Defendant Wang Chaoyang confessed at a court hearing, “After the procedure was underway, Tong Gefei suddenly raised his arm and grabbed a doctor’s shoulder. Another doctor stepped on Tong’s arm. The surgery was soon over.” This can only be described as live organ harvesting. The report in South Wind Window portrayed the case as “an extremely horrible story, which will alarm anyone who hears about it.” (See Appendix 11) [57] Many people were unable to believe that doctors could engage in such a despicable act as harvesting organs from living people for monetary gain until they learned about this case.

The Chinese-edition website of Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster, did an exhaustive follow-up on the tragic death of this beggar. It reported that Tongji Hospital put the issue to rest simply by removing only one employee–an inconsequential deputy director of the Organ Transplant Research Institute. According to people familiar with the case, Chen Zhonghua was director of the institute from 2000 to July 2006. During his tenure, the institute violated regulations by procuring organs from irregular and illegal sources. When the Deutsche Welle reporter reached Chen over the phone in the hope that he could explain the situation, Chen replied that he could not grant interviews. It is clear that the issue of organ sourcing has become a sensitive topic. [58]

2. Homeless person killed for his organs

Caijing [Finance and Economics] magazine (August 31, 2009 issue) had a cover story on someone else being killed for his organs. It revealed that a homeless person, nicknamed “The Eldest,” died as a result of having his organs harvested in Weishe Town, Xingyi City, Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province. His body, abandoned in a reservoir, was discovered by local fishermen. The fishermen noticed that all of the body’s organs had been removed. The report citied witnesses who said that, a few days before his disappearance, “The Eldest,” who had worn dirty, worn-out clothes, was suddenly wearing clean clothes. His hair was shaved off and so was his beard. Others recalled that he was taken to a hospital for blood type matching. It was reported that the police found evidence that led them to the No. 3 Zhongshan Hospital in Guangdong Province. In the end, the police narrowed the suspects to Zhang Junfeng, deputy chief physician of the No. 3 Zhongshan Hospital, and two other doctors. Zhang is an M.D., the deputy chief physician, an advisor to graduate students, and a member of the editorial board of Chinese Modern Surgery Journal. He was a participant in the project “A Study of the Applications of Liver Transplants,” which won the Ministry of Education’s First Award for Scientific Progress and Promotion. Zhao Cheng, a physician who operates a private clinic in Weishe Town, was also implicated. A doctor from Weishe Hospital told Caijin reporters that a few days after the death of “The Eldest,” Zhao Cheng went to the local countryside credit union to deposit 200,000 yuan in cash, which gave away his involvement in the abduction and killing of the homeless man. (See Appendix 12) [59]

Doctors are supposed to fulfill their duty to save lives. But as seen from these examples, driven by money and fame, some have become ruthless, willing to kill those whose lives they consider worthless (which includes beggars, the homeless, or those considered enemies of the CCP) just for their organs.

These cases dispel the notion that organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners requires sophisticated medical equipment. In fact, that is not necessary. As mentioned above, the killing of beggar Tong took place in a deserted electrical power substation lit up only by flashlights.

References

[57] South Wind Window magazine, No. 14, 2007, “Organ Deal Behind the Death of a Beggar,” http://www.qikan.com.cn/Article/nafc/nafc200714/nafc20071413.html

[58] Chinese-edition website of Deutsche Welle, “What responsibilities the medical community has – Organ deal behind the death of a beggar,” http://www.dw-world.com/dw/article/0,2708033,00.html

[59] Ouyang Hongliang and He Xin, “The case of killing for organs,” Caijin [Finance and Economics] magazine, http://www.transplantation.org.cn/zyienizhonghe/2009-09/3906.htm

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

IX. Broadened definition of death row inmates

Some people remain incredulous of the live organ harvesting that Falun Gong practitioners have fallen victim to. With regard to the substantial increase of organ transplant cases, conventional thinking has driven these people to search for an answer among the donor source of death row inmates. Some have even broadened the concept of death row inmates. Then which groups of people fit the broadened definition? The following conversation, though fictional, accurately frames the issue while illustrating how many people try to avoid dealing with it.

1. Vulnerable groups broadening the definition of death row inmates

A: The CCP has done a lot of things wrong. Still, it’s unlikely that they would harvest organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. After all, times have changed.

B: Times have changed–and things don’t necessarily change for better. Haven’t we had to deal with lots of fake products of poor quality? Poisonous food, poisonous milk powder for infants–these things are fairly recent. Put lowered moral standards and greed together, and what terrible things won’t they commit? And speaking of organ harvesting, where have all these kidneys and livers come from?

A: Who else other than death row inmates? It’s an open secret. Taking organs from living Falun Gong practitioners is too incredible.

B: Isn’t it more incredible that the waiting period for organs is several years in developed countries, while in China it’s only a week or two? How can something that incredible take place in China?

A: In China, things are rather complicated. You can’t use the narrow definition of death row inmates, that it is only those sentenced to death and executed with bullets. Let me tell you, it is really easy for prison inmates to die, not just those who are on death row. Beat them to death, and they become death row inmates. This is a broadened definition of death row inmates, isn’t it? Simply beat them, beat up the ones who the guards don’t like or those who are not well connected. When the inmate is close to death, he or she is carried to the hospital for organ harvesting. It’s even simpler than removing organs at the place of execution. You know how crafty some people can be. Like you said, driven by greed, what terrible things won’t they commit?

B: What you described are isolated cases. The increase in organs had to account for a large number of people beaten to death. It would have to be group after group of prisoners killed.

A: Think of it this way: Those who are well connected won’t be thrown into prison. The ones who end up in prison are among the vulnerable social groups in society. They have no power or influence whatsoever. It costs nothing to kill them. No court even takes up cases related to their deaths.

B: You mentioned vulnerable social groups in society. Which group is most vulnerable at present? You can’t find any more vulnerable than Falun Gong practitioners, considering the way they have been slandered and have been deprived of their political, economic, and legal rights. The CCP has taken Falun Gong as its Number One enemy. Overwhelming propaganda in state-media has smeared practitioners to the extent that no matter how they are mistreated, no one is allowed to speak out for them. In addition, the number of practitioners unlawfully arrested is at least in the range of tens of thousands. Doesn’t your broadened definition of death row inmates apply most fittingly and most conveniently to them?

A: Well, if you look at it that way, it could very well be the case.

2. Contrasting the tragedy of live organ harvesting with a “joyful moment” on the White House lawn

It was April 2006, shortly after the exposure of live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, when CCP leader Hu Jintao visited the White House. The Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. organized a group of people to greet the delegation from China. Across the street, protesting groups were gathered, including many Falun Gong practitioners who demanded a thorough investigation into the alleged live organ harvesting. One news reporter from the Western media asked the organizer of the Embassy’s welcoming group for his comment on the over 2,000 people protesting the visit right across the street.

The organizer replied, “The Chinese leaders’ visit is a joyful moment. I don’t know if their charges [of organ harvesting] are valid or not. However, to protest at this moment is inopportune.”

In any county, things as wicked, cruel and serious as live organ harvesting are things the highest leadership of the nation would be informed of. Any reasonable government would order an independent investigation immediately to get at the root of the issue. But simply because the victims are Falun Gong practitioners, this organizer did not have the least bit of sympathy nor the least respect for life. His “joyful moment” was more important than the life of a fellow citizen, due to the fact that this citizen is part of a peaceful group that is being targeted by a nationwide propaganda campaign. This type of mentality has, in turn, facilitated the crimes of live organ harvesting.

3. Revelation of Gresham’s Law – demonizing propaganda drives indifference to life

About 400 years ago, Sir Thomas Gresham, a British financier, made an interesting observation that “bad money drives out good” under legal tender laws, that is, when there are two forms of money in circulation with similar face value, people will collect the ‘good’ coins made of more precious metals and use the ‘bad’ coins made of cheaper metals as payment. Soon all the coins in circulation are ‘bad’ coins. This is known as Gresham’s Law.

Under the unprecedented persecution, Falun Gong practitioners, who have followed the principle of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance, have been demonized as “bad money.” The CCP had already indoctrinated the population with atheist propaganda for decades. Many people find it hard to have spiritual beliefs because the CCP has labeled them all as “feudal superstitions,” and believers are thought of as fools. The overwhelming CCP smearing of Falun Gong practitioners, for example, accusing them of “committing suicide,” “killing others,” “self-immolation,” and “being mentally deranged,” has fostered hatred against them in society. The CCP regime went on to label Falun Gong practitioners’ efforts to spread the facts about the persecution as “disrupting order by anti-China forces and reactionary organizations.” These political labels have further damaged Falun Gong practitioners’ reputations.

During the persecution, police officers and detention center, labor camp, or prison guards have not been held responsible after torturing practitioners to permanent disability or beating them to death. Practitioners have been prohibited from appealing to any levels of authorities, and have been arbitrarily dismissed from work or expelled from school. Practitioners have not even been able to hire attorneys to defend them because the few attorneys who have stood up to defend practitioners have faced persecution themselves. Falun Gong has been under fierce attack not only in work units and government organizations, but even in textbooks used in elementary through senior high schools that have been revised to carry dedicated sections demonizing Falun Gong and slandering practitioners. In labor camps and prisons, all other inmates have advantages over Falun Gong practitioners. It is not uncommon for death row inmates to be assigned to monitor practitioners in prison cells. Practitioners are deprived of any and all fundamental human rights.

One inmate who was released from prison told a chilling story. An elderly Falun Gong practitioner refused to renounce his belief and was tortured. He went on a hunger strike to protest. After he became extremely weak and his condition deteriorated, the guards dragged him to the hallway and left him there. Guards simply walked by, completely ignoring his existence. For days the elderly practitioner lay in the fetal position, his life withering. When he passed away in silence, he was carried away. This was the end of a life. This exemplifies the indifference and contempt of those carrying out “law and order” on behalf of the CCP.

When a college student was beaten to death in a temporary custody house in 2003 for not carrying and presenting his identification paper, there was outrage over the Internet against the custody and repatriation system in China. However, little has been heard over the brutality of this all-out suppression of Falun Gong that has lasted for a decade, impacting millions of innocent people. People do not believe that the abuse, torture, and killing have taken place on such a scale. When confronting charges of live organ harvesting, many are in self-denial without looking further into the issue, only because the victims and plaintiffs are Falun Gong practitioners. This unwillingness to look into this serious matter has, in turn, contributed to the persecution’s taking place and continuation.

It would appear that CCP operatives suspected of killing Falun Gong practitioners figured that it was a lot more safe and convenient to harvest organs from Falun Gong practitioners, as in the current political climate they have been absolved of all legal responsibility. These live, low cost organs from young and healthy Falun Gong practitioners drove out the more costly organs from other sources per Gresham’s Law.

The lies and slander spread by the CCP state-run media have created the environment for harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. Who makes up the broadly defined death row inmates? Falun Gong practitioners, treated as the Number One enemy by the CCP and unlawfully arrested and imprisoned on a massive scale, fit the broadened definition of death row inmates more than anyone else.

Gresham’s Law also hints that during these years of persecution, it is likely that the organ source of traditional death row inmates could be on the decline, whereas more organs are being taken from living Falun Gong practitioners.

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

XI. Additional evidence

1. Whistleblowers expose live organ harvesting

On March 9, 2006, The Epoch Times published an interview with a senior journalist with inside information, who revealed that the CCP had set up a secret concentration camp in the Sujiatun District of Shenyang City in northern Liaoning Province that rivaled those of Nazi Germany. Held in the camp were thousands of Falun Gong practitioners. [60] On March 17, 2006, The Epoch Timesreported an interview with a female witness who worked at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine. She presented further evidence that the concentration camp was located underground, beneath the hospital. [61] When live organ harvesting took place, her husband at the time, a chief surgeon, participated in removing corneas from living Falun Gong practitioners. On March 31, a letter from a veteran military doctor was published in The Epoch Times confirming the existence of the underground concentration camp in Sujiatun District, Shenyang City. [62] By then, the dark curtain over the CCP’s live organ harvesting atrocities had been lifted.

2. Recordings from telephone investigations

Following the initial live organ harvesting reports, several overseas organizations started to make telephone investigations. Presenting themselves as people seeking consultations for their relatives who might need organ transplantation surgeries, the investigators called organ transplant sections in numerous hospitals across China. They specifically asked whether the hospitals were able to acquire organs from Falun Gong practitioners. These investigations further validated the allegations that Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs.

Lu Guoping of Nanning City Minzu Hospital, Guangxi Autonomous Region acknowledged organs taken from Falun Gong practitioners

Independent investigators David Kilgour, Canada’s former Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region, and David Matas, an award-winning international human rights attorney, published the transcript of a telephone conversation with Lu Guoping, a surgeon at the Nanning City Minzu Hospital in Guangxi Autonomous Region in Bloody Harvest – Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China. During the conversation, Lu acknowledged several times that Falun Gong practitioners were the source of organ supplies. He said, “Some are from Falun Gong. Some from families of patients.”

The following is an excerpt of the conversation between Lu and an investigator:

Investigator: Then did your classmate tell you that the [organ transplantation] operations they performed were all [with organ sources from] Falun Gong, is that right?

Doctor Lu: Some are from Falun Gong. Some from families of patients.

Investigator: Oh. Then if I want to find this type for my child, this type [of organ] from Falun Gong, do you think he can help me find any?

Doctor Lu: He definitely can find it for you.

[....]

Investigator: What you used before [organs from Falun Gong practitioners], was it from detention center[s] or prison[s]?”

Doctor Lu: From prisons.

Investigator: From prisons? And it was from healthy Falun Gong practitioners…?

Doctor Lu: Correct. We could choose the good ones because we assure the quality in our operations.

Telephone recording: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/Dr.Lu-Voice-Recording/2006-05-22-Dr.Lu-guangximinzuyiyuan.mp3

Transcript: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/Dr.Lu-Voice-Recording/Guangxi-mingzu-ch.pdf (English version: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131-eng.pdf)

Representative of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army No. 307 Hospital brokered for kidneys from Falun Gong Practitioners

During the investigation, World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) investigators contacted a broker representative of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army No. 307 Hospital in Beijing, in the name of helping family members and friends to find suitable kidneys for their transplant requests. The contact lasted for several weeks and the conversation time totaled several dozen minutes. WOIPFG has compiled a complete record of the conversations and other forms of evidence. If any interested organizations or individuals need further information, please contact WOIPFG. This report will be updated as new evidence becomes available in the future.

Excerpt of conversations:

Investigator: then you go ahead and help me check it out, whether….

PLA No. 307 Hospital Representative: I told you before, didn’t I? I told you before that we told you the real story, we have done two cases. You know, we did two cases.

Investigator: You mean two operations involving Falun Gong practitioners as source?

PLA No. 307 Hospital Representative: That’s right, we did two cases. The prison told us they did that with Falun Gong. I also told that lady that we indeed performed such operations. Now, however, it is getting more difficult than before.

[....]

Investigator: Where did you find the kidney sources before?

PLA No. 307 Hospital Representative: From Xicheng District [in Beijing].

[....]

Investigator: Alright, besides it, how could you be so sure he (the source) was a Falun Gong practitioner, did you find out for sure?

PLA No. 307 Hospital Representative: How to positively identify as Falun Gong practitioner, well, when the time comes — when the time comes our side, our Boss will have people showing you information, you know, he will show you the information and data, you can be sure.

Investigator: Oh, that’s fine.

Telephone recording: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/cn/upload/audio/Investigation_Organharvest.mp3

Transcript: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/cn/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=1437&pop=1&page=0 (English version: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=175&pop=1&page=0)

Li Honghui, a director of Yuquan Hospital, or No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University, admitted that organs were taken from Falun Gong practitioners

On April 28, a Sound of Hope journalist made contact with Li Honghui, director of the Kidney Transplant Department, Yuquan Hospital, also known as No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of Tsinghua University. Li admitted that organs were taken from Falun Gong practitioners.

Excerpt of conversation:

Li Honghui: It happened that for the past several years that donor organs were from Falun Gong practitioners.

Investigator: Do you mean that this type of donor was quite easy to get several years ago?

Li Honghui: That’s true.

Telephone recording: http://media.soundofhope.org/audio01/2006/4/30/tsendu_military_hospital.mp3

Transcript: http://epochtimes.com/gb/6/5/1/n1304909.htm (English version: http://theepochtimes.com/news/6-5-2/41097.html)

More telephone recordings

WOIPFG subsequently published more telephone investigations, including phone calls to the following hospitals with call dates:

Director Song Wenli, Tianjin No. 1 Central Hospital, also known as the Orient Organ Transplant Center, March 15, 2006, telephone number: 86-13920128990
Zhongshan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University in Shanghai, March 16, 2006, telephone number: 86-21-64041990
Qianfoshan Liver Transplant Center in Shandong Province, March 16, 2006, telephone number: 86-531-82968900
Doctor Dai, Affiliated Hospital of Jiaotong University in Shanghai, March 16, 2006, telephone number: 86-21-63240090
No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of Hubei Province Medical University, April 2, 2006, telephone number:8627-67813104 ext. 2960 or 2961
Tongji Hospital in Wuhan City, March 30, 2006, telephone number: 8627-83662688 ext. Kidney Transplant Section (or Urological Surgery Section)

Recordings and transcripts: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/cn/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=789&pop=1&page=0 (English version: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=167&pop=1&page=0)

3. Testimony from intermediaries

On November 17, 2006, Yediot Achronot, Israel’s largest newspaper, reported that four men accused of pocketing millions of dollars that patients had paid for organ transplants were arrested in Israel. Yaron Izhak Yodukin, CEO of Medikt Ltd. and his associates, faced charges of not reporting incomes earned by mediating organ transplants for Israelis in China and the Philippines. The arrests followed months of investigation after the main suspect admitted to an Israeli newspaper that the organs were coming from Chinese death row inmates and prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong practitioners.

4. Testimony from Falun Gong practitioners and other inmates

Many Falun Gong practitioners released from labor camps and prisons recounted that they were taken for blood tests while in custody. In July 2008, David Matas, co-author of Bloody Harvest, located someone released from a prison in Jiangsu Province, who is not a Falun Gong practitioner. Between March 2005 and early 2007, he was taken to 17 different prison cells. Inmates who had been held several years in the cells told him that over the course of 2002 and 2003, at least two or three Falun Gong practitioners in each cell were killed for organs. A video production, Between Life and Death, produced by New Tang Dynasty Television, published the telephone interview with this witness. [65]

5. Investigative report by David Matas and David Kilgour

David Kilgour and David Matas published the results of their extensive investigation in their report,Bloody Harvest. According to data in the public domain, the authors argued that the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period of 2000 to 2005 is unexplained. When they first published their report in July 2006, they had gathered 18 elements of evidence to substantiate the charges of the CCP’s organ harvesting atrocities. When the revised edition of the report was released at the end of January 2007, the evidence had increased to 33 elements. The authors have traveled to over 40 countries around the world to report the results of their investigation, while continuing to gather new evidence. [66]

Bloody Harvest: The book

In November 2009, Seraphim Editions, a Canadian publisher released a revised, book form of Bloody Harvest: The killing of Falun Gong for their organs. This is the third edition of the investigative report by Matas and Kilgour. It now lists 52 different elements of evidence. Mr. Kilgour pointed out that although no element of evidence alone can prove the crime of live organ harvesting, all of the evidence combined almost irrefutably proves the allegations.

References

[60] The Epoch Times, “Exposing Shocking Horrors Inside Sujiatun Concentration Camp,” March 9, 2006, http://epochtimes.com/gb/6/3/9/n1248687.htm (English version: http://theepochtimes.com/news/6-3-11/39169.html)

[61] The Epoch Times, “New Witness Confirms Existence of Chinese Concentration Camp, Says Organs Removed from Live Victims,” March 17, 2006, http://epochtimes.com/gb/6/3/17/n1257362.htm (English version: http://theepochtimes.com/news/6-3-17/39405.html)

[62] The Epoch Times, “Sources Reveal Other Chinese Concentration Camps,” March 31, 2006, http://epochtimes.com/gb/6/3/31/n1271996.htm (English version: http://theepochtimes.com/news/6-3-31/39910.html)

[63] Minghui.net, Between Life and Death, a video production by New Tang Dynasty Television, http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/9/1/207542.html

[64] David Matas and David Kilgour, Bloody Harvest, 2007, http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131-ch.pdf (English version: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131-eng.pdf)

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

VIII. Evolution of live organ harvesting

1. Isolated cases

Over the years, the process of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners evolved. The initial alleged cases of organ harvesting occurred on those practitioners who died in forced labor camps as a result of torture. As early as 2000 there were reports of death cases related to organ harvesting. This could explain why the number of organ transplants in mainland China began to increase in 2000.

On December 22, 2000, the Minghui/Clearwisdom website posted the following news from China: “According to insiders, some police officers in Mainland China are plotting with doctors and looking to sell the organs of Falun Gong practitioners for huge sums of money.” “One source indicates that a certain hospital in the city of Shijiazhuang specializing in Chinese medicine has received six such requests.” [47] This might have been the earliest report of the CCP’s organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.

On February 16, 2001, Ren Pengwu, male, 33, a technician at the Harbin City Third Thermal Power Plant in Heilongjiang Province, was arrested for distributing informational materials exposing the staged Tiananmen “Self Immolation” incident. He was detained at the No. 2 Detention Center in Hulan County. Before dawn on February 21, he was tortured to death. Without obtaining the family’s permission, the police authorities removed all of Ren Pengwu’s organs before hastily cremating his body. [48]

Hao Runjuan, female, a practitioner from the Baiyun District in Guangzhou City, was arrested in late February 2002. She died on March 18, 2002, after suffering brutal torture in the Baiyun Detention Center. The police autopsied the body while the family members were unaware of anything at all. When the family was notified to identify the body, it had been rendered unrecognizable. [49]

Sun Ruijian, male, 29, a practitioner from Ningde City, Fujian Province, was arrested in November 2000 when he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. On December 1, 2000, his family was notified that Sun Ruijian had died from “jumping out of a moving car” while under public security escort. When his wife saw Sun’s body, it had been autopsied, and Sun’s eyes had a noticeable bulge. [50]

Fu Keshu, 53, a practitioner and a retired teacher from the No. 1 Elementary School in Kaiyang County, Guizhou Province and her nephew, 34-year-old Xu Genli, disappeared in the Jinggang Mountain area in November 2005. In late April 2006, their bodies were discovered in the Wuzhi Peak area of Jinggang Mountain. Their heads had been shaved, and there were no eyebrows on their faces. Their eyeballs were missing. Xu’s chest and abdomen had been cut open. Their families believed that their organs might have been harvested and their bodies disposed of. [51]

According to a person who was detained in the Baiyun District Drug Rehabilitation Institute, several drug addicts beat up a Falun Dafa practitioner, which was seen by the Institute’s doctor. The doctor said, “Don’t hit his kidneys, they’re useful!” On several occasions he heard doctors there tell the drug addicts when they were suffering from withdrawal, “If you want some drugs, go beat up those Falun Dafa practitioners, but be careful not to touch their eyes and abdomens.” [52]

2. Large-scale live organs harvesting

The transition of individual organ harvesting cases to large-scale live organ harvesting was enabled by the following conditions:

Condition 1: The appearance of “concentration camps”

We have discussed in previous sections that many practitioners who refused to reveal their names or addresses were detained in undisclosed locations. These military-controlled concentration facilities provided the physical conditions needed for large-scale, live organ harvesting.

Condition 2: Policy to “defame their reputations, bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically”

The persecution of Falun Gong was initiated by Jiang Zemin, who mobilized the entire state apparatus in his campaign. The 610 Office adopted a policy to “defame their reputations, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically” in an attempt to eradicate Falun Gong.

According to Li Baigen, former director of the Reconnaissance and Design Administration Division of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning and Design, and who currently lives in the United States, on November 30, 1999, three senior officials at the 610 Office summoned 3,000 government officials and held a conference in the Great Hall of the People to discuss the persecution of Falun Gong, since more and more Falun Gong practitioners had continued to come to Beijing to appeal, despite several months of harsh suppression. During the conference, Li Lanqing, head of the central 610 Office, verbally relayed the new policy from Jiang Zemin, which was to “defame their reputations, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.”

This policy was never communicated as a written document. The outside world learned of this through practitioners who were detained in the brainwashing centers, forced labor camps, or prisons. Many of them stated in articles published on the Minghui website that, while in detention, they had heard the police or 610 Office personnel mention this policy.

A derivative of the policy is “beating them to death counts as suicide,” another common practice of some police officers in dealing with practitioners who refuse to give up their beliefs. Although the number of death cases of practitioners who died as a result of the persecution continues to grow (by 2009, at least 3,300 practitioners are confirmed to have died), the police officers responsible for these deaths were never punished by the CCP regime. On the contrary, they were recognized as model officers of the anti-Falun Gong campaign and rewarded with promotions and financial incentives.

Condition 3: Huge financial profits from the organ transplants

As stated earlier, expensive fees make organ transplants tremendously profitable, which is a powerful motivating force, particularly in an officially atheist country.

Condition 4: Hatred instigated by slanderous propaganda, from the staged “Tiananmen Self Immolation” incident to live organ harvesting

Since the beginning of the persecution, the CCP regime has fabricated countless lies to slander Falun Gong. A typical example is the “Tiananmen Self Immolation,” staged by the CCP regime in an effort to instigate nationwide hatred of Falun Gong. Live organ harvesting is part of the physical genocide of Falun Gong practitioners, driven by this hatred and the temptation of financial gain.

During the 53^rd session of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion

and Protection of Human Rights, International Educational Development had discovered that the self-immolation cited by the Chinese Government, which was being submitted as “proof” that Falun Gong was an “evil cult,” had in fact been staged. [53]

The CCP’s overwhelming deceptive propaganda indeed instigated hatred among the general public in China, paving the way for those who participated in the live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners several years later, but who otherwise may have refrained out of moral concerns.

It was the persecution by the CCP and the huge financial incentives that drove the individual cases of organ harvesting to large-scale live organ harvesting. According to insiders, large-scale live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners began to surface in late 2001.

The following diagram illustrates this evolution:

At present, there are still a large number of Falun Gong practitioners detained in the hundreds of forced labor camps in China. Many reports published on the Minghui website reveal that families of those who died from torture could not see their loved ones’ bodies, which were forcibly cremated by the police. We have enough reason to believe that organ harvesting still continues on practitioners who die from torture, and it will not end until the persecution stops and all detained practitioners are released.

3. A small step from “using death row organs” to “live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners”

The initial reaction of many people when they first heard of the live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners was, “How could that be possible? How could doctors do such a thing?”

If China had an organ donation system as many western countries do, and if there had never existed the practice of organ harvesting from death row inmates, then the allegations of live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners might indeed seem far-fetched. However, organ harvesting from death row inmates has been in practice for several decades. Some executed death row inmates were not completely dead when their organs were removed. Their cases were close to live organ harvesting. With this as a backdrop, and after the CCP regime labeled Falun Gong practitioners as “enemies of the state” ( a worse situation than that of death row inmates), moving from “using death row organs” to “live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners” was but a small step.

Testimony of Annie, whose ex-husband participated in live organ harvesting

In Bloody Harvest, The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, one of the authors, David Kilgour, interviewed Annie (pseudonym), the ex-wife of a Chinese surgeon who removed corneas from Falun Gong practitioners.

According to Annie, her ex-husband began to take corneas from Falun Gong practitioners at the end of 2001. His hospital was only responsible for the removal, not the transplant. He was a neurosurgeon but was asked to remove corneas. Before being pushed into the operating rooms, the Falun Gong practitioners were given an injection to cause heart failure. Initially he did not know these living people were Falun Gong practitioners. In the beginning, fearing information could leak out, different organs were removed by different doctors in different rooms. Each time after the surgery he would receive a large sum of money, and given cash awards several dozen times his normal salary. Later on, as the doctors continued to get money, they no longer feared repercussions. They started to remove the organs together. During one operation when he collaborated with other doctors, he learned that the bodies were Falun Gong practitioners. Annie learned this information in 2003. Later that year they divorced.

We can see that the customary practice of harvesting the death row organs played a key role in live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. With the policy of “beating them to death counts as suicide,” plus the deceptive and slanderous propaganda against Falun Gong, doctors became insensitive towards the “donors,” treating them as death row inmates.

Flowchart of Live Organ Harvesting

Based on information provided by Annie, the following diagram illustrates the flowchart of live organ harvesting.

Different parties are involved in different steps, as seen on the flowchart. The doctors who perform organ harvesting may or may not be the ones who do the organ transplant surgeries. Therefore not every doctor is likely to know the whole picture. If asked where the organs come from, different doctors may provide different answers due to their involvement at the different steps in the process. More importantly, given that the source of organs is controlled by the military, it is very difficult for the outside world to know the entire procedure.

“Death row inmates” used as an excuse to shirk responsibility

From what we have learned, the common mentality of most organ transplant surgeons in China is that they are unwilling to ask questions about the true identities and backgrounds of the donors. The more surgeries they do, the more money they make, the better they get recognized, the more research papers they can publish, the faster they get promoted, and the less they want to learn about the source of organs. They do not have any qualms as long as they can make themselves believe that the organs were indeed from death row inmates. They follow the process to perform surgeries and do not give too much thought to whether the donors are indeed death row inmates or Falun Gong practitioners.

Every party in this process chooses to believe that the organs were harvested from death row inmates to shirk their responsibility:

1. As a result of CCP brainwashing, the military police have treated Falun Gong practitioners as mental patients or death row inmates.
2. Doctors who performed organ harvesting chose to believe that the donor lying on the operating table was a death row inmate, even if the donor was still alive, since they were accustomed to harvesting organs from executed death row inmates who were not completely dead.
3. Doctors who did not participate in organ harvesting but performed organ transplant surgeries were more likely to believe that the organs they received were from death row inmates instead of Falun Gong practitioners.

In Annie’s ex-husband’s case, he initially believed that the donors were death row inmates. By the time he learned that they were Falun Gong practitioners, he had become indifferent and was driven by the desire to make more money. Since death row organ harvesting has become a common practice, participants in the live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners tend to treat them as death row inmates.

Yet, those Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested alive are not traditional “death row inmates.” Live organ harvesting amounts to cold-blooded murder. As the truth became known, out of fear, those participants decided to keep silent, and this has added to their crimes.

Doctors addicted to organ transplant surgeries

On January 26, 2005, Jiefang Daily published a story entitled “Nine-Hour Miracle,” on Xia Qiang, director of the Organ Transplant Center in the Shanghai Renji Hospital, who was “addicted to liver transplant surgeries.” On one occasion, Xia drove 140 kilometers to take a 72-year-old patient to the hospital for a liver transplant. The patient had several life-threatening illnesses – cirrhosis, liver cancer, stones in both kidneys and renal failure, and had been bedridden for a couple of months. The patient needed a liver-kidney transplant. Xia was driven to break the liver-kidney transplant record in Asia, where the oldest recipient was 65. Xia told the reporter: “I am crazy about liver transplants. I am addicted to them. I have to see patients every day, otherwise I do not feel settled. I have to do at least two to five liver transplant surgeries a week, and I am not afraid of failures. I’ll learn my lessons and continue the next day.” [54]

It is a good thing for a doctor to be so committed, and there is nothing wrong with pursuing success. However, when a doctor is addicted to organ transplants and has to do several surgeries a week to get satisfaction, all he will care about is how to get endless organ supplies. In that case, how many of them would care whether the donors are death row inmates or Falun Gong practitioners?

“Life unworthy of life” – How the Holocaust happened

Many historians believe that the Holocaust was a natural result of Hitler’s promotion of racial cleansing under the Nazis. In 1920, Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche introduced a new concept, “Life unworthy of life,” in their book, Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life. Those considered to be “deviant” or a “source of social turmoil” in Nazi Germany and the occupied areas of Europe fell under this designation, which included the mentally ill, people with disabilities, political dissidents, criminals, Jews, and “non-whites” or non-Caucasian peoples. [55]

According to psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, the author of Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, the policy went through a number of iterations and modifications: “Of the five identifiable steps by which the Nazis carried out the principle of ‘life unworthy of life,’ coercive sterilization was the first. There followed the killing of ‘impaired’ children in hospitals; and then the killing of ‘impaired’ adults, mostly collected from mental hospitals, in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas. This project was extended (in the same killing centers) to ‘impaired’ inmates of concentration and extermination camps and, finally, to mass killings in the extermination camps themselves.” [56]

While it is a huge step from “respect of all lives” to “mass killing of Jews,” it was only a small extra step from “destruction of life unworthy of life” to “mass killing of Jews.”

Similarly, it would have been a huge step to “live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners” had there never been organ harvesting from death row inmates. But it was only a small extra step from “harvesting death row organs” to “live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.”

The following graph depicts the environment and conditions under which live organ harvesting could exist.

References

[47] Clearwisdom.net, “Policemen Scheme to Sell the Organs of Jailed Falun Gong Practitioners,” December 22, 2000, http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2000/12/22/5759.html (English version:http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2000/12/31/3661.html)

[48] Clearwisdom.net, “Falun Gong Practitioner Ren Pengwu Was Murdered and All His Bodily Organs Were Removed by the Hulan County Police in Heilongjiang Province,” April 19, 2001,http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2001/4/19/10084.html (English version:http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/4/21/6812.html)

[49] Clearwisdom.net, “Further Facts Regarding the Death Case of Dafa Practitioner Hao Runjuan, Fatally Tortured at Baiyun District Detention Center of Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province,” July 6, 2002, http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/7/6/32910.html (English version:http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/7/11/24004.html)

[50] Minghui.net, “Request to Investigate the Cause of the Death of Sun Ruijian,” December 16, 2000,http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2000/12/16/4707.html

[51] Clearwisdom.net, “Organ Harvesting Suspected in the Murders of Ms. Fu Keshu and Mr. Xu Genli, Practitioners Visiting the Jinggang Mountain Area (Photos),” August 8, 2006,http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/8/8/135079.html (English version:http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2006/8/12/76758.html)

[52] Clearwisdom.net, “International Community’s Immediate Attention Needed: Bodily Organs Removed and Sold From Falun Dafa Practitioners Tortured to Death in China,” June 16, 2004,http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/6/16/77099.html (English version:http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/6/25/49505.html)

[53] United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, “Terrorism, Transnational Corporations, Traditional Practices Discussed,” Press Release by United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, 53rd session. August 14, 2001,

http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/0/D1D7C610CB97B340C1256AA9002678B0?opendocument

[54] Jiefang Daily, “Nine-Hour Miracle,” http://old.jfdaily.com/pdf/050126/jf05.pdf (content no longer accessible)

[55] Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens (Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life), 1920.

[56] Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, 1986.

(Clearwisdom.net) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, “Bloody Harvest,” by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime’s chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence–the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation–by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

VII. Sources of extra organs

If the annual number of organs from death row inmates is around 6,000, and with the number of relatives willing to be donors very limited between 2003 and 2006, where did all the extra organs come from to supply the more than 12,000–and as many as 20,000–organ transplants per year?

1. Features that likely characterize the new source of organs

1. The number of people that make up the donor supply base is larger than the number of current death row inmates.
2. Because this is an illegal undertaking, the donors need to be readily accessible and just as readily hidden once outsiders discover the new source of organs.
3. Despite the illegalities involved, the participants bear no legal consequences. In other words, current government policies tolerate the exploitation of this source of organs. Harvesting organs from this source would be “turning waste into a useful thing.”
4. These individuals need to be held in large numbers in given locations to increase the probability of organ matching.
5. Last but not least, doctors bear no legal responsibility or moral obligation for killing these people for their organs.

2. Illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners – a new source of organs

Using death row organs requires legal authorization. Hospitals cannot casually go to a prison and harvest organs from death row inmates. But what about a group that is outside the justice system and is being suppressed and defamed by the government? And what if there is an illegally detainedsizable population of that group? The possibility of this group being an ideal live organ supply base is very high. In particular, organ transplant hospitals for the army and armed police forces would view this as an ideal source. So which suppressed group fits this category?

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained. These detained practitioners were quickly viewed as an ideal source of organs because:

1. They fall outside the justice system. Many practitioners are sent to forced labor camps without due process. Many practitioners who go to appeal for Falun Gong do not reveal their names and address to protect their families as well as to avoid implicating their workplaces. These practitioners are detained in large, concentrated numbers.
2. They represent a huge supply base. Practitioners are detained for no other reason than to be persecuted and executed. As a result, the waiting period for organs can be shortened to 1-2 weeks–a most attractive feature that has allowed China to become a center for global organ transplant tourism.
3. They are available for live organ donations. Live organs are always far better than organs from cadavers and are always the most sought-after by overseas patients who are willing to pay a premium. Use of live organs in transplants also increases the survival rate of patients; this means a live source is attractive to Chinese transplant doctors who are interested in furthering their careers.
4. The quality of their organs is very high. Contrary to most death row inmates who are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs, Falun Gong practitioners are required to refrain from such substances and are generally very healthy. In particular, young practitioners from rural areas are thought to have become a key target for live organ harvesting.

3. Uncertain whereabouts of many Falun Gong practitioners

Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led campaign against Falun Gong started, practitioners have regularly visited local and Beijing government appeal offices or unfurled banners in Tiananmen Square to draw the world’s attention to the violations of Falun Gong practitioners’ human rights. The report “The Journey of Falun Dafa: A Bright But Arduous Path” on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website states, “According to internal information from the Public Security Bureau in Beijing, by the end of April 2001 there had been a total of 830,000 arrests of Falun Gong practitioners for appealing in Beijing for the right to practice Falun Dafa. This number does not include those who refused to give their names or were not recorded by the police at the time of arrest.” [38] In its “2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau),” the U.S. Department of State stated, “Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in RTL camps, while Falun Gong sources overseas placed the number even higher.” [39]

The CCP adds “implication of workplace” to the ancient practice of “implication of the nine generations of a family”

A phenomenon worth mentioning here is that the CCP has adopted a vicious implication policy in its persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Members of a practitioner’s family can be fired from their jobs; supervisors at the person’s workplace can be punished; co-workers can lose their bonuses; in some cases, even local government officials can lose their positions. Through this policy, the CCP isolates Falun Gong practitioners and turns everyone against them. As a result, others are more willing to participate in the persecution. Those who previously sympathized with Falun Gong become resentful when they lose their bonuses, and local government officials do everything they can to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal so they can save their positions. Local public security members have been dispatched to Beijing to stop local practitioners from appealing to the Central Office of Letters and Calls; the Beijing Office of the local government has turned into a police station to arrest and detain Falun Gong practitioners who have gone to Beijing.

Many Falun Gong practitioners who refused to reveal their names and addresses went missing

Many practitioners who went to appeal refused to reveal their names and addresses to the authorities. Based on practitioners’ sharing articles on the Minghui website, resisting the demands to reveal identity and location became a common practice. What has happened to these practitioners? Many of them went missing and likely were detained in large concentration camps. In hindsight, the detention of these practitioners in large numbers would have helped facilitate large scale live organ harvesting.

In their book, Bloody Harvest, The killing of the Falun Gong for their organs, authors David Matas and David Kilgour interviewed many Falun Gong practitioners around the world who had been detained in China. These practitioners all mentioned that they had met many practitioners in detention centers who refused to reveal their names and addresses, and they eventually went missing. At the same time, many of the missing practitioners’ families did not know that these practitioners had gone to appeal for Falun Gong and therefore had no idea of their whereabouts. The harsh reality is they do not know where to find their loved ones.

Guo Guoting, a Chinese lawyer living overseas, confirmed that one of his clients, Huang Xiong, whom he represented while he was in Shanghai, was in a similar situation. Huang Xiong went missing from his dorm in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

In “New Leads in the Investigation of the Sujiatun Concentration Camp,” a practitioner stated, “After December 20, 2000, the number of practitioners sent to detention centers suddenly increased to dozens or even over a hundred each day, whereas previously only about one dozen practitioners would be sent there… All practitioners were assigned a number… Within a few days the cells were full. The guards interrogated them each day and asked for their names. They used electric batons and other forms of torture on the practitioners and also encouraged the inmates to beat the practitioners. Most of the practitioners still refused to tell their names. The guards finally stopped asking and said, ‘Ok, if you refuse to tell me, I’ll send you to a place where you will tell.’

“In early 2001, groups of practitioners were sent away in big buses in the early morning every other day. An 18-year-old girl from Shandong Province shared the same cell with me. Her number was K28. One morning her number was called by mistake. She got on the bus but later returned. She said all of the practitioners were being taken to northeastern China. Later, the guards openly told us that they were sending the practitioners to northeastern China. During that period, many of them were sent there from Beijing.” [40]

Existence of “Concentration Camps”

An insider who worked in a mainland Procuratorate once told us that no forced labor camp or prison in China would detain an inmate who did not have a name or address for long because they could not complete the registration process. These inmates would be transferred to other locations.

Then what happened to those missing Falun Gong practitioners? In March 2006, a whistleblower alerted the world to the possibility of live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners at the Sujiatun Detention Center in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. Thus, a potential new source of organs was identified.

Shortly afterward, the word “Concentration Camp” began to appear in media reports to describe the facilities where a large number of Falun Gong practitioners were detained.

According to practitioners who were released from the detention centers and the forced labor camps, some detained practitioners who were extremely firm in their belief and refused to be “transformed” were transferred to unknown locations. The existence of the concentration camps provided a possible clue to their whereabouts.

Military-controlled concentration camps

Since the judicial system cannot accept inmates without names or addresses, based on the CCP’s usual practice, they would likely let the military take over these cases. According to sources inside the CCP, concentration camps are directly linked to military-controlled areas.

After the allegation of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners was made public in March 2006, a senior military doctor in the logistics service in the army in Shenyang Military Zone wrote to The Epoch Times and revealed that there were several dozen of such concentration camps around China. He further reminded the outside world to pay attention to military facilities, because organ transplants were being administrated by the military, implying that many military facilities were being used as concentration camps. [41]

The advantages of having the military in charge of the source of organs will be elaborated on in later sections.

4. Blood testing of detained Falun Gong practitioners

Some Chinese prisons have a regulation to provide “periodic physical exams” for inmates. In reality that is hard to carry out. However, the health checklist for Falun Gong inmates is different from the one used for regular inmates. According to a 2004 Xinhuanet website report on the Shanghai Tilanqiao Prison, common physical exam items for regular inmates included “taking blood pressure, listening to the heart and lungs, palpating the liver and spleen area, and taking chest X-rays,” which would cost roughly 60 yuan. [42] Blood tests are not done routinely on regular inmates. For detained practitioners, on the other hand, blood tests, which are a key step in organ matching, were very common.

In July 2009, during the taping of “Between Life and Death,” New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) interviewed several practitioners who had undergone such blood tests during their detention.

Ms. Gan Na, who currently lives in Toronto, Canada, was from Beijing. She was a former customs official at the Beijing Airport. In 2001, when she was detained for the third time at the Xin’an Women’s Forced Labor Camp, she was given a blood test, X-rays, an electrocardiograph test, and eye exams. She told NTDTV, “It seemed very strange to me at the time. The guards at the forced labor camp had never treated us like we were human, yet we were given this thorough physical exam. It felt very strange.”

Ms. Zhang Yijie, former director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the International Division of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), was detained seven times for practicing Falun Gong. The last time she was detained was in June 2001, when she was held at the Beijing Women’s Forced Labor Camp. Ms. Zhang said, “MOFTEC used to offer cadres one physical exam every six months. For a routine liver function exam, usually they took a small tube of blood. The amount of blood they took was pretty consistent. But they took more than the usual amount of blood for the blood test in the forced labor camp. We all asked why they took so much blood.”

In January 2000, Ms. Zou Yuyun from Guangzhou was taken to Chatou Women’s Forced Labor Camp in Guangzhou, where she was detained for 22 months. After she was released from the labor camp, she was arrested and detained in five different brainwashing centers. Ms. Zou told NTDTV, “I was eventually transferred to the brainwashing center in the Tianhe District in Guangzhou. The doctor there took me to the hospital specifically for a very thorough physical exam. They did an electroencephalograph test, and, of course, a blood test, on me.”

In Bloody Harvest, authors Matas and Kilgour also interviewed several Falun Gong practitioners who had been detained in China regarding the blood test issue. The blood testing and the physical exams are a puzzling issue for those who had firsthand experience. On the one hand, practitioners were subjected to inhumane torture and mistreatment while in detention. They were pressured to denounce Falun Gong and to sign statements to quit the practice. Since the “transformation” rate is directly linked to the political accomplishments of the local government, torture is commonly used on practitioners, many of whom have been tortured to death. On the other hand, the authorities also carried out systematic blood testing and physical exams on practitioners. Many practitioners have mentioned that the blood testing specifically targeted Falun Gong practitioners. What is more suspicious is that if, indeed, they found any health problem during the physical exam, the authorities would leave that practitioner alone instead of providing medical treatment. In other words, the physical exam was used to find healthy practitioners.

So far we have only gathered information on blood testing in forced labor camps and prisons. We have no information on the practitioners who were put in concentrated detention in undisclosed locations.

5. Detained Falun Gong practitioners – a reservoir for large-scale matching and live organ harvesting

We mentioned earlier that, in principle, in any given location at any given time, the organs from executed death row inmates can only be matched with the patients in that specific location at that specific time. Soon after death row inmates are executed, the organs are no longer usable. As an organ source, they have limitations, because executions take place in different locations at different times. Without an organ sharing system, death row organ matching is a “small sampling” process.

Detained Falun Gong practitioners, on the contrary, can be matched multiple times until a proper match is found. They are a “reserve resource.” At the same time, a large number of them have been detained in concentration in several undisclosed locations in China, so they are also a “large sampling resource.”

More importantly, the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners provides an explanation for all the unique features of the organ transplant market in China between 2003 and 2006.

6. Bypassing “the courts” in the handling of Falun Gong practitioners to facilitate organ harvesting

A key player in using organs from executed death row inmates is the court, which is left out of the process in handling of Falun Gong practitioners, many of whom have been sent to forced labor camps or detained in concentration camps without due process. In addition, CCP authorities discourage Chinese lawyers from representing Falun Gong practitioners, thereby cutting out the judicial system. The practice of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners thus bypasses the courts and is handled directly between the hospitals and the detention facilities. The consequences are grave:

1. Without the involvement of the courts, Falun Gong practitioners potentially become a large, unrestricted source of organs.
2. Without court involvement, hospitals or organ intermediaries deal with the detention facilities directly, without the need to go through any legal procedures or the inconvenience of having to harvest the organ at the site of an execution. The process is much more efficient .
3. Without court involvement, the perpetrators are worry free. Going through legal procedures means that cases are handled out in the open, subject to restrictions from the outside as well as the families of the donors. The fact that the whereabouts of detained Falun Gong practitioners are unknown to their families makes them easy targets.

A point of clarification: The lack of court involvement only means that there is no legal protection for Falun Gong practitioners while they are being persecuted. It does not mean that the courts have not participated in the live organ harvesting.

Based on available media reports, we have illustrated the following flowchart, which shows the process of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners:

7. Live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners follows the “military driven model”

A key feature in the harvesting of organs from living practitioners is that the source of organs is controlled by the military and the participating hospitals are dominated by the military or those that have close ties to the military. Due to the nature of military security, the truth is concealed from the outside world.

China has a vast military medical system. There is the General Hospital of the PLA, and each military medical university has its own affiliated hospital. The various branches of the military all have their own hospitals. Organ transplantation is one of the most rapidly developing fields in the military hospitals. Zhang Yanling, Minister of Health of the General Logistics Department of the PLA and former president of the Second Military Medical University, was quoted in a December 17, 2008, article on the Xinhuanet website: “In 1978, there were only three hospitals in the military that could perform kidney transplants. Now there are 40 hospitals in the military that can perform liver, kidney, heart, lung, and multiple organ transplants. This is one quarter of the national total.” [43]

The most important enabler for the big leap in military organ transplants has been the control of organ resources.

Life Week magazine reported in April 2006: “98 percent of China’s supply of organs is controlled by systems outside the Ministry of Health.” In fact, whether it is harvesting organs from executed death row inmates or the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, military hospitals, including armed police hospitals, have the advantage. The non-military hospitals that do large-scale organ transplants all have close ties to military hospitals. In many cases their organ transplant surgeons are from military hospitals.

Military and Armed Police Forces hospitals, as well as hospitals along China’s coastline, are the primary impetus behind live organ harvesting

After enjoying rapid growth over a short period of time, the former organ transplant center in the Tianjin No. 1 Central Hospital changed its name to the Oriental Organ Transplant Center, which is the largest in Asia. In 2003, Shen Zhongyang founded the “Liver Transplant Research Institute of the Armed Police Forces” in the General Hospital of Armed Police Forces in Beijing and became its first director. The fact that Shen Zhongyang (and the several transplant facilities he manages) has ready access to organ supplies is largely because this facility is part of the armed police forces.

Shi Bingyi is another key figure that is very active in China’s organ transplant community and often in the media spotlight. He is the director of the Organ Transplant Center of the PLA, which is located in the General Hospital of the General Staff of the PLA, also known as the 309^th Hospital.

In Bloody Harvest, Matas and Kilgour interviewed several patients who went to China for organ transplants. The surgeons of these patients all had military backgrounds. One of the patients was admitted at the Shanghai No. 1 People’s Hospital. His surgeon was Dr. Tan Jianming, who is the chief surgeon of the Fuzhou General Hospital of the Nanjing Military Region (formerly known as the 93^rdHospital). Tan also does surgeries at the PLA’s 85^th Hospital of the Nanjing Military Region in Shanghai.

Another patient went first to Huashan Hospital in Shanghai (affiliated with Fudan University) for a liver transplant. He was placed under the care of Qian Jianmin, deputy director of the liver center at Huashan Hospital. When no matching organ could be found after several days, Qian suggested that he be transferred to Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai, which is affiliated with Second Military Medical University, saying that it was easier to get organs there. A matching liver was found for the patient on the day he transferred to Changzheng Hospital.

The authors also interviewed a patient who went to the Taiping People’s Hospital in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, for a kidney transplant. His surgeon was Dr. Gao Wei. Taiping People’s Hospital is a non-military general hospital, but Dr. Gao Wei is also a doctor at the Kidney Transplant Department in Zhujiang Hospital, which is affiliated with First Military Medical University. Dr. Gao is also a part-time surgeon at the Shenzhen Armed Police Forces Coastguard Hospital in Guangdong Province.

Sound of Hope Radio interviewed Dr. Peng Xuemei in September 2009. Dr. Peng works at the Anesthesiology Department in the Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Hospital and assists in organ transplant surgeries. Dr. Peng revealed that the hospital had many channels through which it could get organs. She said, “In many cases, Nanfang Hospital would get the kidneys first and then send them to our hospital. That’s why I said there are many channels. But we can’t discuss this openly.” Nanfang Hospital is the first affiliated hospital of Southern Medical University, which is the former First Military Medical University, which was handed over to the Guangdong provincial government in 2004.

In August 2008, the Minister of Health in China launched the “Chinese Scientific Registry of Kidney Transplantation,” or CSRKT (www.csrkt.org). Its data center is run by the 309^th Hospital. This gives us a clear idea of the role military hospitals play in China’s organ transplant community.

As China became the center for global organ transplant tourism, hospitals along China’s coastline were particularly favored for their location. Having attracted a growing number of patients, they needed to develop more channels for organ supplies. The organ intermediaries for these hospitals would do all they could to establish close ties to military hospitals or hospitals with a military background.

Although the outside world knows little about how the military conducts live organ harvesting, the active roles the military and armed police forces hospitals play in the organ transplant market and their advantage over organ supplies is the result of the control it has over the concentration camps and associated organ sources.

8. Additional open questions

Story behind the “Kidney for Sale” advertisement

While on the topic of organ resources, some readers may have seen a “Kidney for Sale” advertisement posted on utility poles. How big of a market can these donors, who are advertising one of their kidneys to make a living, create?

First of all, this type of organ trade is illegal. Those involved can be sentenced to jail. The potential kidney sellers are taking advantage of a legal loophole regarding live donors among relatives. In this case, the seller would need to forge a document to prove that the donor and the recipient are related. It is risky business, but the high profits have driven this widespread behavior. On January 14, 2004, the Xinhuanet website posted a report from the Morning News. The report said that restrooms in hospital wards were where most of the “Kidney for Sale” ads were posted. One nurse told the reporter, “There are ‘Kidney for Donation,’ ‘Kidney for Sale’ ads all over the place. They cannot be washed off with water and have to scraped off. There is nothing we can do to stop them.” [44]

Another question is how many of these people successfully sold their kidneys. In reality, the probability of organ matching remains the biggest issue. Experts have stated, “The chances for two complete strangers to meet by accident and have matching organs are rare, unless the parties have done good preparation prior to hospital tests. But there exists another hurdle–no Chinese doctor would encourage or even get involved with this type of underground trade because it is illegal.” [45]

Some doctors stated that the costs to harvest organs from executed death row inmates are low, and the process takes only a few minutes. In addition, there is no need to pay the donors, nor is there a need for post-procurement medical care for the donors (similar in the cases of live organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners). On the other hand, the cost to purchase a kidney from a private seller would be much higher. Not only does it cost between 10,000 and 30,000 yuan for one kidney, post-organ donation medical care, such as a hospital stay, also needs to be provided to the seller. In an interview with Huashang Newspaper in late 2004, Wu Gang, associate professor of the Organ Transplant Department at the First Hospital of China Medical University, told the reporter, “To rashly purchase kidneys illegally from total strangers solely based on ads is to risk losing money and wasting time on unusable organs.” [46]

We should state that illegal kidney sales do exist, and there are people who have obtained kidneys through this channel. Nevertheless, it cannot be a sizable organ resource. Even the Chinese government admitted that the growth in China’s organ transplant market is largely driven by the huge profits in this market. The introduction of private sellers’ organs would increase costs, especially in comparison to organs harvested for free with no post-procurement medical care, and reduce the hospital’s bottom line. AAlthough “Kidney for Sale” ads are found in many areas, private kidney sellers as organ resources cannot drive the “vigorous development” of China’s organ transplant market. More importantly, between 2003 and 2006, detained Falun Gong practitioners provided a better source of organs. Wu Gang also revealed in the 2004 interview, “There is no market for those ‘Kidney for Sale’ ads because currently there are plenty of kidneys in Shenyang City!”

The China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center, or CITNAC, which is under the First Hospital of China Medical University, claimed on its website that the shortest waiting period for a kidney was one week, with an average waiting period of less than a month. If the surgery failed, a second surgery could be scheduled within a week. It also claimed that the waiting period for a liver was less than one month. (See Appendix 7) Where did these abundant organs come from? Obviously not from the “Kidney for Sale” ads posted on utility poles or in hospital restrooms. We also should note that, between 2003 and 2006, liver transplants increased significantly while few “Liver for Sale” ads were seen.

Starting in 2007, the source of organs from large-scale harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners began to disappear or decline. In order to develop a new source of organs, the Chinese government has launched vigorous propaganda campaigns to promote live donors among relatives. This might have opened a door for forged relationships and stimulated more rampant underground kidney trading, but this is a different issue. The focus of this report is on the period between 2003 and 2006, when China’s organ transplant market skyrocketed.

Can the increase in the number of organ transplant hospitals drive the increase in organ transplants?

Some may wonder whether the big increase in the number of organ transplant hospitals was the cause of the big increase in the number of organ transplants. This is not the case. The shortage of organ supplies is the greatest bottleneck for organ transplants. If the supply of organs could not even satisfy a smaller number of hospitals, the increase in the number of hospitals would only worsen the situation instead of creating more donors. Furthermore, according to the estimation formula we discussed in previous sections, the number of organs from executed death row inmates is fixed. An increase in the number of hospitals simply cannot produce more donors.

[38] Clearwisdom.net, “The Journey of Falun Dafa: A Bright But Arduous Path,”http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/9/26/52823.html

[39] U.S. Department of State, 2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau), February 25, 2009, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119037.htm

[40] Clearwisdom.net, “New Leads in the Investigation of the Sujiatun Concentration Camp,”http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2006/3/22/71075.html

[41] The Epoch Times, “Military Doctor Reveals the Official Process of the CCP’s Stealing and Selling of Organs from Live Falun Gong Practitioners,” http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/6/4/30/n1303902.htm

[42] Xinhua Net, “Hearing of Commutation Cases Is a Beneficial Exploration,”http://news.xinhuanet.com/comments/2004-06/10/content_1518473.htm

[43] Xinhua Net, “Thirty Years of a Big Leap in Chinese Military Health Care Condensed in Seven Groups of Data,” http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-12/17/content_10520230.htm

[44] Morning News, “Kidney for Sale Ads Taking Advantage of Internet, Shanghai Government Trying to Cut Underground Chain of Kidney Trade,” http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2004-01/14/content_1274416.htm

[45] Sina News Center, “Illegal Kidney Trading Rampant in Shanghai, Black Market Built on Legal Loophole,” http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2004-01-14/15361586708s.shtml

[46] Huashang Newspaper, “Hospitals Infested with Organ for Sale Ads, Doctor Claims Shenyang Has Plenty of Kidneys,” http://news.hsw.cn/gb/news/2004-12/24/content_1520547.htm