Labour Camps and Organ Harvesting & Trafficking

Less than two weeks after Lens magazine in mainland China blew the whistle on the torture taking place in China’s Masanjia Labor Camp, another magazine from the same company has revealed the existence of a nationwide network involved in trading organs. This more recent article hints at an even larger story yet unreported by mainland China’s media involving atrocities committed by the regime.

On Feb. 27, the Taipei Bar Association hosted a roundtable discussion in response to the recently published book State Organs, which discusses transplant abuse by the Chinese regime.

Afterwards, the Taipei Bar Association issued a public statement condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s involvement in organ harvesting—a step not before taken by a bar association.

On March 12, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China announced that the job of deputy minister of health, currently held by Huang Jiefu, would be eliminated in the latest institutional restructuring plan. Huang’s firing came on the heels of remarks he made on Feb. 25 suggesting that less reliance on executed prisoners would be necessary for reform of the organ transplantation system in China.

For years in wealthy and developed countries around the world, there has been a shortage of organs for transplant. In response, rich people in need of an organ sometimes simply travel abroad to get a quick liver or kidney—with no scruples as to how the organ was obtained.

The trial for the largest gang accused of trafficking in human kidneys in China was canceled recently, on the same day that it was announced that Bo Xilai, the disgraced official, would be stripped of his position in the Communist Party’s legislature, the National People’s Congress.

The Legal Evening News reported that the 15 defendants who are suspected of involvement in the organized sale of human organs have been arraigned in the Haidian Court for trial.

At 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 26, the defendants’ families and their attorney arrived for the 10:00 a.m. hearing.

A high-ranking retired Chinese military doctor has been caught in a phone call placed by a human rights group admitting that he used the organs of political prisoners in a joint research project with Wang Lijun, the former right-hand man to disgraced Party official Bo Xilai.

Chen Rongshan, former director of Urology of the 205 People’s Liberation Army Hospital in Jinzhou, was asked in a May 25 telephone call: “Wang mentioned to us that some of your organ donors were imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners. Is that true?”

Chen answered: “That had been approved by the court.”

The Chinese Internet is buzzing with speculation over the source of bodies used to make plastinated corpses that have been touring in exhibitions around the world. The intense discussion on microblogs, major Chinese news portals, and in the mainland press, was set off by a series of articles in the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times.

Netizens have grieved over what these revelations mean for China, but they and the Chinese press have steered clear of the political dynamite contained in The Epoch Times reports.

The U.S. State Department’s 2011 Human Rights Report, published on May 24, 2012, addressed the issue of illicit organ harvesting in China, mentioning Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs.

WOIPFG 12/12/2009

Case Summary: A special investigator of World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) carried on a conversation lasting almost 30 minutes with one person (“witness”). We have withheld his name out of concern for his safety. With the consent of the witness, the entire conversation was taped. The witness revealed a case of live organ harvesting on a Falun Gong practitioner that he witnessed several years ago.

Clearwisdom 19/11/2009

Canadian Parliamentary Friends of Falun Gong held its first public event on the afternoon of November 16, 2009, a book launch ceremony for the book "Bloody Harvest." The event took place on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The book's two authors explained the new evidence of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners presented in their new book.