On July 6, 2006, in Ottawa, Canada, international human rights lawyer David Matas and former Member of Parliament David Kilgour released an independent report following their two-month inquiry into allegations that vital organs are being harvested from live Falun Gong practitioners across China.
Mr. Matas has been the attorney for many cases heard before the Canadian Supreme Court, and a member of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. He has played a leading role in key human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Canadian Council for Refugees, and the International Commission of Jurists, and has received many outstanding achievement awards. The list of books and manuscripts he has written is no less impressive. Mr. Kilgour has served in the Canadian House of Commons, and was Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa from 1997 to 2002, and for Asia-Pacific from 2002 to 2003.
The report concludes:
"the government of China and its agencies in numerous parts of the country, in particular hospitals but also detention centers 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 hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas, were virtually simultaneously seized for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries."
During the two-month investigation, witnesses were interviewed in Canada, Australia, France and the United States.
Among the most significant incriminating evidence, however, were certified translations of recorded conversations in Mandarin with doctors and other officials at hospitals and detention centers located in various parts of China.
Another piece of significant evidence is the transcript of an interview during which the former wife of a Chinese surgeon recounted the admission of her husband who operated on and removed corneas from over 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners. One doctor gave the Falun Gong practitioners an injection that caused heart failure, then their corneas were removed, and then they were passed on to different doctors who removed other organs.
We have reprinted these transcripts in the following pages with permission of the authors of the report.
Other critical evidence included in the report:{mospagebreak}
- Translations of recent and continuing postings on numbers of websites of transplantation centers within China, which also played an important role in convincing the inquiry that the only fair conclusion was that the organ harvesting is widespread and ongoing.
- Testimony from Ms. Yuzhi Wang, now living in the Vancouver area, who stated she spent most of 2000 and 2001 in labor camps because of being a Falun Gong practitioner. She suffered internal damage from beatings, and is convinced that these injuries were the only reason she did not end up an unwilling "donor" and was able to leave China.
- Testimony from Xiaohua Wang, now living in Montreal, who reported that in 2002, because he practiced Falun Gong, he spent two years in a forced-labor camp working 16 hours a day with chemicals. During his incarceration, he and every other Falun Gong practitioner received a comprehensive forced medical exam, including electrocardiograms, whole-body X-rays, liver and kidney checks, and blood tests—none of which were administered to non-practitioners in the camp. Later, he was able to emigrate to Canada.
- Testimony from Ms. Na Gan, now living in Toronto, who stated that the police beat her when she unfurled a Falun Gong "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" banner in Tiananmen Square. As a result, her Chinese Communist Party membership and salary as a customs employee at the Beijing airport were revoked and she was sent to the local women’s labor camp. In mid-2001, she reported that only the Falun Gong members of the group had their blood, urine, and eyes examined at a nearby hospital. She too managed to leave China for Canada.
The following are some key recommendations made in the report:
1. As organ harvesting is a crime against humanity, the authorities in China should conduct a criminal investigation for possible prosecution.
2. Organizations—intergovernmental, governmental and voluntary—should take the allegations seriously and make their own determinations as to whether or not they are true.
3. As the United Nations Protocol to prevent trafficking in persons bans the removal of organs, the U.N. should investigate whether China is in violation.
4. Foreign governments should ban the entry of Chinese doctors seeking training in organ transplantation. Any doctor there, known to be engaged in such work, should be permanently barred from visiting foreign countries.{mospagebreak}
5. All countries should tighten their laws against organ trafficking and doctors should, for example, be required to report to their respective authorities any evidence that a patient has received an organ from a trafficked person abroad.
6. Governments should deny or revoke the passports of nationals who are traveling to China for organ transplants.
7. No governments should participate in any China-sponsored meeting or research on organ transplantation. No private company should provide goods or services to any Chinese transplant program.
Right after the release of the report on July 6, 2006, the Chinese communist government—through the website of the Chinese Embassy in Canada—issued a statement denying the findings of the report.
A full copy of the report can be obtained at: http://investigation.redirectme.net/
Xiao Tian is a correspondent for Chinascope.