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In March 2006, Falun Gong-funded newspaper The Epoch Times alleged that the Chinese Communist Party and conducted systematic organ harvesting on practitioners of Falun Gong. The first allegations were directed at the Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital in Shenyang, Liaoning province. In July 2006, Independent Canadian MP David Kilgour, and Human Rights Lawyer David Matas, published a report of their investigation of the allegation that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners were victims of systematic organ harvesting, beyond the claims about Sujiatun. The allegations were dismissed by the Chinese government.

In August 2006, a Congressional Research Service report said that some of the report’s key allegations appeared to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations. United Nations special rapporteur Manfred Nowak said in March 2007 that the Kilgour-Matas report paints a "coherent picture that causes concern." In November 2008 the United Nations Committee Against Torture called for the Chinese state to immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.

The Sujiatun case

Throughout March 2006 The Epoch Times (ET) published articles containing allegations by a number of individuals claiming to be eyewitnesses, mostly anonymous, alleging organ harvesting in Sujiatun and beyond. One apparent eyewitness was said to have worked in the hospital and was aware of Falun Gong practitioners being kept alive in the basement, "After their organs were cut out, some of these people were thrown directly into the crematorium to be burnt," she alleged. ET cited another anonymous source, a senior military doctor, who confirmed the claims, and said that Sujiatun was just one of up to 36 such sites across China between which practitioners were rapidly transferred by closed freight train on special routes, "handcuffed like rotisserie chickens."

International response

A Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman rejected the claims as a “lie... not worth refuting.” The Chinese government maintains that the hospital is incapable of housing more than 6,000 persons, there is no basement for incarcerating practitioners as alleged, and that there was simply no way to cremate corpses in secret, continuously, and in large volumes. Dissident Harry Wu sent investigators to the Sujiatun scene 3 days after the story surfaced, but did not find evidence for the alleged concentration camp. He dismissed the claims as merely hearsay from two witnesses: "No pictures, no witnesses, no paperwork, no detailed information at all, nothing." David Ownby, an expert on Falun Gong, acknowledges that while organ harvesting does take place in China, he believes there is "no evidence proving it is aimed particularly at Falun Gong practitioners."

In April 2006 U.S. representatives were allowed to tour the facility and "found no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public hospital." The US embassy said their staff visited the site twice, the first time unannounced one week after the report surfaced, the second with official cooperation after three weeks. The report continues that "ndependent of these specific allegations, the United States remains concerned over China’s repression of Falun Gong practitioners and by reports of organ harvesting."

Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix TV aired a video claiming flaws in the Sujiatun allegations. The video claimed the hospital was not equipped for organ transplantation; the premises and staffing were inadequate for housing thousands of prisoners; that the incinerator was only used to heat water. The hospital denied The Epoch Times-witness was their employee and doctors interviewed also denied involvement. The video pointed out that the area around the hospital was in a dense conurbation where large movements of people would be noticed.

Amnesty International stated that it considers the Chinese government's statements to be "at odds with the facts in view of the widely documented practice of the buying and selling of organs of death penalty prisoners in China."

The Kilgour-Matas Report

On July 20, 2006, former Canadian MP David Kilgour and Human Rights Lawyer David Matas presented the findings of their two month investigation, conducted in response to a request by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong:.

The report presents 33 strands of evidence which the authors say leads to the positive conclusion. The authors maintain that, while taken individually the pieces of evidence do not prove the allegations, their combination was the deciding factor.

In 2007, they presented an updated report under the title: "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China"

Based on our further research, we are reinforced in our original conclusion that the allegations are true. We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners. We have concluded that the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centres and 'people's courts', since 1999 have put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers, corneas and hearts, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.

They admitted difficulty in verifying the allegations, due to the lack of independent bodies which investigate conditions in China, availability of eyewitness evidence and official information about organ transplantation. On July 6, 2006, Matas told reporters that the Chinese government refused entry visas to China for the pair to investigate further.

China has repeatedly denied the organ harvesting allegations.

Details on the source of transplant organs

Of 60,000 organ transplants officially recorded between 2000 and 2005, 18,500 came from identifiable sources; the source of 41,500 transplant organs could not thus be explained. In 2007, Kilgour and Matas said that traditional sources of transplants such as executed prisoners, donors, and the brain dead "come nowhere near to explaining the total number of transplants across China." They said that "the only other identified source which can explain the skyrocketing transplant numbers is Falun Gong practitioners."

Organ transplanting is a highly profitable industry in China. The report provides a list of prices in US dollars found on Chinese transplant websites in April, 2006. These range from US$62,000 for a kidney, to US$130,000-160,000 for a heart. K&M say that since China has no organized donation system, and a cultural aversion to organ donation, availability of voluntarily donated organs for transplant are scarce; hospitals are known to profit from illegally selling organs of death-row prisoners. The authors allege that this policy of might be easily transferred to Falun Gong practitioners because healthcare and army facilities in China are self-reliant for funding.

Investigation methods

Mandarin speaking investigators, posing as potential recipients or their relatives, called in to a number of hospitals inquiring about organ availability.

Chinese organ transplant websites

Kilgour and Matas assert information found on several Chinese hospital websites is "self-accusatory".

Many such websites show graphs with soaring organ transplantation figures—these start going up after 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong began. In addition, many such website state that the organs can be found "immediately". The CIOT website advertises the waiting time for a kidney transplant as being "as short as a week and no longer than a month", while the average waiting time for such a transplant in other countries is more than 5 years.

Recommendations

In the report's conclusion, the authors deduced that the allegations of China's harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners were true and that the practice was still ongoing. They called for a ban on Canadian citizens traveling to China for transplant operations.

Reception of the Kilgour-Matas report

Corroborative reports

On July 24, 2006, Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine in the University of Minnesota, Kirk C. Allison reinforced the findings of the Kilgour-Matas report and calling for academia and medical circles stop cooperation with China on organ transplantation. Allison also points out that the "short time frame of an on-demand system requires a large pool of donors pre-typed for blood group and HLA matching."

Tom Treasure of Guy's Hospital, London, considered the report plausible from a medical standpoint. He analyzes some of the events leading to the Holocaust in which medical personnel were involved and compares these to the circumstances surrounding the Falun Gong persecution, statistics on transplantation in China, and general practices related to transplantation. He makes specific references to the numerical gap in the number of transplants and short waiting times between China and other countries.

In May 2008 two United Nations Special Rapporteurs reiterated their previous request for the Chinese authorities to adequately respond to the allegations. They also asked the authorities to explain the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants in China since 2000. The request was a follow-up to previous communication on August 11, 2006, made with Sigma Huda, UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons. In 2006, Chinese authorities responded with categorical denials, and did not address the critical issues raised by the Special Rapporteurs, according to a syndicated MarketWire report. In November 2008, the United Nations Committee Against Torture made a statement on the matter. The Committee, citing the UN special Rapporteur's note that the increase in organ transplant operations coincides with “the beginning of the persecution of ”, stated that it was concerned with report. The Committee called for the state to immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.

Doubts and criticism

Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen raised issues which he perceived as difficulties with the Sujiatun story. He doubted that the hospital could have been the site of organ harvesting as alleged. McGregor also questioned the conclusion of the Kilgour-Matas report, and called into question the strength of some of the evidence. He referred to Harry Wu's doubts, noting the lack of official paperwork, and lack of people who have emerged to talk about the issue. Wrote McGregor: "Depending on who you believe, the Kilgour-Matas report is either compelling evidence that proves the claims about Falun Gong... or a collection of conjecture and inductive reasoning that fails to support its own conclusions". He said he was one of the few journalists who had not treated the report as fact, and that he had for this reason been compared to holocaust deniers by Matas and Kilgour. McGregor claimed that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN's Special Rapporteur on torture had not "confirmed" the reports of organ harvesting.

Amnesty International has stated that it is "continuing to analyze sources of information about the Falun Gong organ harvesting allegations, including the report published by Canadians David Matas and David Kilgour." The organisation points out that there is "a widely documented practice of the buying and selling of organs of death penalty prisoners in China." Their report continues to say that while "it is unknown how many Falun Gong practitioners are being executed by the Chinese authorities ... various sources indicate China may be executing between 10,000-15,000 people a year."

A Congressional Research Service report by Dr. Thomas Lum stated that the Kilgour-Matas report relied largely on logical inference, without bringing forth new or independently-obtained testimony. According to Lum, Kilgour and Matas' conclusions rely heavily upon transcripts of telephone calls with reported PRC respondents, and the credibility of the telephone recordings is questionable, due to the Chinese government's controls over sensitive information.

In response to the Kilgour & Matas report, David Ownby, a noted expert on Falun Gong, said "Organ harvesting is happening in China, but I see no evidence proving it is aimed particularly at Falun Gong practitioners."

Changing transplant policies

On August 14, 2006, a statement from the US National Kidney Foundation (NKF), referring to the Kilgour Matas Reports, stated that the foundation "is deeply concerned about recent allegations regarding the procurement of organs and tissues through coercive or or exploitative practices" and that "any act which calls the ethical practice of donation and transplantation into question should be condemned by the worldwide transplantation community." The statement from NKF also condemned organ transplant tourism in general.

In October 2006, the Chairman of the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Joseph Wu, stated that Taiwan condemned, "in the strongest possible terms", China's harvesting of human organs from executed Falun Gong practitioners. In August 2007, a statement from Hou Sheng-mao, Director of Taiwan's Department of Health, urged Taiwanese Doctors to not encourage patients to get commercial organ transplants in mainland China.

In December 2006, the Australian Health Ministry announced the abolition of training programs for Chinese doctors in organ transplant procedures in the Prince Charles and the Princess Alexandra Hospitals and the banning of joint research programs with China on organ transplantation. .

In February 2008, Canadian Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj introduced a bill that would make it illegal for Canadians to get an organ transplant abroad if the organ was taken from an unwilling victim. Wrzesnewskyj states that the final impetus to introduce the bill was the findings of the Kilgour-Matas report..

In early 2007, Israeli health insurance carriers stopped sending patients to China for transplants. This was in part related to an investigation in which Israeli authorities arrested several men for tax evasion in connection with a company that mediated transplants of Chinese prisoners’ organs for Israelis. One of the men had stated in an undercover interview that the organs came from “people who oppose the regime, those sentenced to death and from prisoners of the Falun Gong.”

In May 2007 Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv prohibited Jews from deriving any benefit from Chinese organ harvesting, "even in life-threatening situations". Other Rabbis oppose the use of Chinese organs for transplants.

Response of Chinese authorities

The Chinese Embassy in Canada replied to the first version of the Kilgour-Matas report immediately upon its release on July 6, stating that China abided by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. The authors were accused of wanting to smear China's image. "he so-called 'independent investigation report' made by a few Canadians based on rumors and false allegations is groundless and biased." The Chinese Embassy in Washington also said the allegations were "totally fake" and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them meritless.

References

1. ^ Worse Than Any Nightmare—Journalist Quits China to Expose Concentration Camp Horrors and Bird Flu Coverup, Epoch Times, March 10, 2006
2. ^ Ji Da, New Witness Confirms Existence of Chinese Concentration Camp, Says Organs Removed from Live Victims, Epoch Times, March 17, 2006
3. ^ AFP(July 6, 2006)"China 'harvests live organs'", News24.com, retrieved July 7, 2006
4. ^ Congressional Research Service report, http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RL33437.pdf, page CRS-7, paragraph 3
5. An Interview with U.N. Special Rapporteur on Organ Harvesting in China
6. ^ United Nations Committee Against Torture, CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 19 OF THE CONVENTION: Concluding observations of the Committee against Torture, Forty-first session, Geneva, 3-21 November 2008
7. Source Reveals Other Chinese Concentration Camps, Epoch Times, March 31, 2006
8. "China negatives Falun Gong allegations of organ harvesting" (March 28, 2006) Pravda, retrieved July 8, 2006
9. Wu Hongda's Statement on the Sujiatun Concentration Camp: My Knowledge and Experience with the Falun Gong media reporting on the Sujiatun Concentration Camp problem, Zonaeuropa, July 18, 2006
10. Frank Stirk, Canadians probe Chinese organ harvesting claims, Canadian Christianity
11. ^ Glen McGregor, "Inside China's 'crematorium'", The Ottawa Citizen, November 24, 2007
12. ^ http://www.radio-canada.ca/apropos/lib/v3.1/pdf/revfalungongenglish.pdf
13. ^ U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alleged Concentration Camp in China
14. "The truth behind the so-called "Falun Gong practitioner concentration camp"". Phoenix TV. 2007-06-28. Retrieved 2008-08-15.
15. Amnesty International, Falun Gong Persecution Factsheet,
16. US Newswire(July 20, 2006) "Independent Investigators to Present Findings From Investigation on China's Organ Harvesting From Prisoners of Conscience", US Newswire, retrieved July 26, 2006
17. Canadian Press (July 7, 2006) "Report claims China kills prisoners to harvest organs for transplant", canada.com, retrieved July 8, 2006
18. CTV.ca News Staff (July 6, 2006) "Chinese embassy denies organ harvesting report", CTV.ca, retrieved July 8, 2006
19. ^ David Matas and David Kilgour, China harvests organs, November 28, 2007, accessed 5/3/08.
21. Cite error: The named reference theage060708 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
22. Chinese Version of International Organ Transplant Website Reopened, Epoch Times
23. Website of The British Columbia Transplant Society
24. Kirstin Endemann, CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen (July 6, 2006)"Ottawa urged to stop Canadians travelling to China for transplants", Canada.com, retrieved July 6, 2006
25. Calgary Herald (July 5, 2006)"Rights concerns bedevil China--Doing trade with regime must be balanced with values",Canada.com, retrieved July 8, 2006
26. "Mounting Evidence of Falun Gong Practitioners used as Organ Sources in China and Related Ethical Responsibilities", The Epoch Times, August 7, 2006
27. Committee on International Relations, OPEN HEARING OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, U.S. House of Representative
28. Tom Treasure, "The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the holocaust and ourselves," JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE Volume 100 March 2007 J R Soc Med 2007;100:119–121
29. ^ United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteurs Reiterate Findings on China's Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong Practitioners, May 9, 2008, accessed 9/3/09
30. Amnesty International Fact Sheet on Persecution of Falun Gong, Falun Gong Persecution Fact Sheet, Amnesty International
31. National Kidney Foundation Statement about Alleged Human Rights Violations in Organ Donation National Kidney Foundation, August 14, 2006, retrieved 2006-08-18
32. National Kidney Foundation Statement about Alleged Human Rights Violations in Organ Donation, New York, August 15th
33. China Post: Taiwan condemns China's organ harvesting
34. Taiwan: Director of Department of Health Orders Doctors in Taiwan Not to Get Involved with China's Inhumane Organ Transplantation
35. Australian Associated Press (December 5 2006). "Hospitals ban training Chinese surgeons". The Age. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
36. The Epoch Times: One Member of Parliament's Crusade to Quell a Gruesome Trade
37. Jewish Committee rallies against Killing of Falun Gong Practitioners for Organs
38. Jewish Committee rallies against Killing of Falun Gong Practitioners for Organs
39. Mathew Wagner, Chinese TV airs Elyashiv's opposition to organ harvesting, Jerusalem Post, Jun 3, 2007
40. Chinese Embassy in Canada, , July 6, 2006, accessed July 12, 2009

External links

• The Kilgour and Matas report
• Videos of a press conference with Kilgour and Matas
• China's Gruesome Organ Harvest by Ethan Gutmann, Adjunct Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Cover Story in The Weekly Standard.
• "CNN Caught In Genocidal Correctness" by China democracy activist, John Kusumi.
• Report on Harvesting Falun Gong Practitioners' Organs Groundless from the Embassy Of The People's Republic Of China In The Republic Of Bulgaria.

See also

• Persecution of Falun Gong

• Articles to be merged from August 2009
• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from August 2009
• Falun Gong
• Political repression in the People's Republic of China
• Religious persecution