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Petition to Stop the Unethical Human Organ Harvesting in China
I (we), the undersigned, hereby condemn as unethical any activity that transgresses an individual's human rights in relation to being an organ donor in China. I (we) also have concerns about:
I (we) call for urgent, open and independent investigation into all prisons, detention centres, labour camps and related hospitals by the United Nations, World Health Organisation and other relevant international organisations without the Chinese Communist regime's sanctions on information. All signed statements will be compiled and sent to the United Nations, World Health Organisation and relevant international organisations. Only your name, country and comments will be publicly displayed. Please be assured that NONE of the information you provide will be used for any other purpose or passed to any other organization.
China's history of organ harvesting from prisoners In 1998, Fresenius Medical Care AG, a German kidney dialysis company, pulled out of China, claiming that the Chinese military officials had probably made it an unintentional accomplice in the selling of organs from executed prisoners to wealthy foreigners. [2] In the same year, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the sale of organs of executed Chinese prisoners. In 2001 a Chinese doctor, Wang Guoqi, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights, where he described coordinated procedures between surgeons and Chinese government officials to extract prisoners' organs immediately after executions which were "intentionally botched" so as to not damage the organs. [3] In 2005, The Times reported that although China has denied for many years that organ harvesting of prisoners as a trade exists, Huang Jiefu, the Deputy Health Minister, acknowledged that the practice is indeed widespread. The article explains the main reason for using prisoners: "The supply of organs in China is severely restricted because of religious traditions that require the body to be whole when it enters the afterlife." [4] Faced with the accumulating evidence and numerous media reports, on 19 April 2006 the British Transplantation Society (BTS) publicly condemned the practice of extracting organs from executed prisoners without consent as an "unacceptable" human rights violation. Why Falun Gong prisoners of conscience are particularly
vulnerable Since the ban, these tens of millions of people have been placed outside the protection of the law in China. They are refused education and social support, fired from their jobs, imprisoned without trial, and are tortured in forced labour camps, where deaths of Falun Gong practitioners "count as suicide". Many practitioners who were arrested often refuse to disclose their names and personal details for fear of implicating their families, friends and colleagues. These situations make Falun Gong practitioners particularly vulnerable, since the regime can remove their organs without being held accountable for their actions. Victims' family members have no way of knowing what is happening to them and when it is too late, no legal recourse afterwards. Recent information of organ harvesting from Falun Gong
practitioners In April, 2006, The Weekly Standard interviewed the wife of a Chinese surgeon who claims to have performed organ removals for many years from Falun Gong practitioners at a secret organ extraction facility attached to the Liaoning Thrombus Treatment Centre in Sujiatun, near Shenyang, "he and the other doctors - some hired from the outside, each with a speciality, all constantly on call - would come in and remove the patient's kidneys, skin tissue, corneas, and other organs, seemingly to order." [7] The same woman told The Epoch Times: "Some [Falun Gong] practitioners were still breathing after their organs were removed against their will, but they were thrown into the hospital's incinerator anyway." Organs extracted from live persons are known to fetch higher prices. [8] The scale of the problem According to the Communist regime's official statistics, there were only 78 liver transplants in China during the eight years between 1991 and 1998. Since the regime started to suppress Falun Gong in 1999, the number of liver transplants rocketed from 118 in 1999 to over 3000 in 2003 [10]. This sharp rise during the time of a major suppression campaign may not be a pure coincidence. Investigations The Chairman of the British Transplantation Society Ethics Committee, Dr. Stephen Wigmore, recently called for an investigation by the United Nations and the World Health Organization on this issue. [11][12] The difficulty of conducting independent investigation in China is well known and this has been demonstrated again on 21st May when Edward McMillan-Scott, a European Parliament Vice-President, held a secret meeting with two Falun Gong practitioners in a Beijing hotel. One of them was subsequently held under house arrest, the other hasn't been heard from since. An American who facilitated the meeting was interrogated and deported. "The practitioners I met in Beijing told me of their imprisonment
and that of their wives, of the specially harsh treatment they suffered,
including sleep deprivation, degrading and humiliating punishments and
beatings... One said he knew 30 fellow practitioners who had been beaten
to death. They were aware of organ harvesting: one had seen the cadaver
of his friend and fellow practitioner after body parts had been
removed." On 8 May 2006, Canada's former Secretary of State (Asia Pacific) David Kilgour and international human rights lawyer, David Matas, launched an investigation into the allegations of organ harvesting from live Falun Gong practitioners. The 46-page report which was released on 7 July concludes: "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 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."[14]
Please sign the above petition or, alternatively, you may wish to consider writing your own support statement which you can send to Friends of Falun Gong at the address listed at the bottom of this page.
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