Since July 20, 1999, Falun Gong has been persecuted brutally in China. Even under a strict information blockade, about 3000 Falun Gong practitioners are confirmed to have been tortured to death.

Since March 2006, a great deal of evidence has surfaced about the existence of massive and widespread organ harvesting from illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners throughout China. First, two witnesses exposed a secret concentration camp in Sujiatun District, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province where thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners were detained for the purpose to harvest their live organs for profit while they are still alive. Their bodies were cremated to destroy the evidence. Subsequently, another witness revealed that there are at least 36 such concentration camps in China.

Before the Sujiatun information was revealed, a number of witnesses have stated that the bodies of many Falun Dafa practitioners who had been tortured to death had their organs stolen, and the generally families were only given ashes after the practitioners had already been cremated by authorities without consent or notifying families or allowing them to see the bodies.

Based on the statistics from China, organ transplant operations have increase dramatically – by 2,500 percent – since the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999. The short tissue matching time (ranging from a few days to a month) implies that there is a large live organ bank in China, and the hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners held in detention centers are the most plausible organ suppliers. The waiting time for kidneys is only days in China, while other organs such as hearts and livers take only a couple of weeks. In the free world one has to wait for years. Chinese doctors who have been contacted by phone have admitted that the organs come from Falun Gong practitioners, and that they are taken from live people. Some hospitals are doing a dozen or more kidney transplants a day. There is an entire system set up and everyone gets paid, police, detention centers, courts, doctors – everyone benefits financially.

Exposing the organ harvesting under the tight information control in China, has caused the international community to realize that all the information about the persecution Falun Dafa practitioners have revealed during the past seven years through huge personal sacrifice was only a small fraction of the whole picture. When  the CCP has denied the existence of the Sujiatun concentration camp, and asked the international community to come and see for themselves, it is the duty for the international community to do so thoroughly, to investigate the persecution and organ harvesting independently and unrestricted by the CCP, in all facilities throughout China.

On April 4, the Falun Dafa Association and Clearwisdom.net announced that they were establishing an investigation committee. They invited people from all walks of life, international organizations, governments and media to form a coalition (CIPFG) for the purpose of independent, direct and unimpeded investigations into the persecution of Falun Gong and the organ harvesting issue in China. The effort has been supported by many individuals, officials, scholars and lawyers.

Some concerned individuals and organizations around the world have initiated independent investigations and collected abundant evidence. Former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer David Matas have launched a two month independent investigation. In their report (http://www.organharvestinvestigation.net/) of July 6 they wrote, “the government of China and its agencies 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 involuntarily for sale at high prices.”  They also said that from the official statistics published by the Chinese authorities, over 41,500 organ donations are unaccounted for and can only have come from Falun Gong detainees. Mr. Kilgour has stated, “Organ harvesting of unwilling donors where it is either systematic or widespread is a crime against humanity.”