Continued from Part 1 -
State Organs
Transplant Abuse in China
Transplant Abuse in China
Edited by David Matas and Torsten Trey
China’s organ transplant numbers are second only to the United States. Unlike any other country, virtually all Chinese organs for transplants come from prisoners. Many of these are prisoners of conscience. The killing of prisoners for their organs is a plain breach of the most basic medical ethics. State Organs explores the involvement of Chinese state institutions in this abuse. The book brings together authors from four continents who share their views and insights on the ways to combat these violations.State Organs aims to inform the reader and hopes to influence change in China to end the abuse.
“It seems to me that I cannot control what goes on in China. … But, we can control what goes on among ourselves. We can control what goes on in our journals, our meetings, our events, and our conferences. This is ours. At least we can control what goes on in our media.”
~ Gabriel Danovitch, MD
~ Gabriel Danovitch, MD
“Organs that are harvested unethically or criminally will yield clinical trial data that is criminal or unethical.”
~ Eric Goldberg, MD
~ Eric Goldberg, MD
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The book comes out at a time of leadership transition in China.
Organ transplant abuse is part of the mix.
David Kilgour and David Matas began their investigative work
in this area because a woman using the pseudonym Annie, then
in Washington, D.C., told the Epoch Times a story of how her
ex-husband harvested corneas of Falun Gong practitioners in
Sujiatun Hospital between 2003 and 2005. Epoch Times published
the story in its March 17, 2006, edition. Annie said other doctors
at the same hospital harvested other organs of these victims, that
Falun Gong were killed during the harvesting and that their bodies
were cremated.
Annie’s interview led to a controversy about whether or not she was
telling the truth. The Government of China, as one might expect,
denied what she said. The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of
the Falun Gong (CIPFG), a Washington, D.C. based NGO, then
asked David Kilgour and David Matas to investigate her claims.
Sujiatun is a district in the city of Shenyang. Shenyang is a city in
the province Liao Ning.
Bo Xilai, considered to be a “princeling” because his father was Vice
Premier of China, was appointed Mayor of Dalian City in Liao Ning
Province from 1993 to 2001. He was further appointed Deputy
Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party for Liao Ning Province
in 2000. From February 2001 to February 2004, he was Governor
of Liao Ning Province.
While he was in Liao Ning, Bo developed a reputation as a brutal
leader in the persecution of Falun Gong. The period that Annie’s
husband worked in Sujiatun Hospital and the period that Bo Xilai was
Governor of the province in which the hospital was located overlapped.
Bo, in February 2004, went to Beijing where he became Minister of
Commerce. While Minister of Commerce, Bo Xilai travelled around
the world to promote international trade with China and investment
into China. His travelling gave victims the opportunity to serve him
with lawsuits for his role in the persecution of Falun Gong in Liao
Ning Province. Lawsuits commenced against him in thirteen different
countries including Canada, the U.S., and Australia.
Bo’s vulnerability to foreign lawsuits became a reason to move him
out of his then position and prevent him from acquiring any new
position which required foreign travel. Bo went from Minister of
Commerce in Beijing to Mayor of Chongqing in November 2007
and became then a member of the 25 member Communist Party
Central Committee.
Wang Lijun was the head of the Jinzhou City Public Security
Bureau On Site Psychological Research Center (OSPRC), Liao Ning
Province from 2003 to 2008. He conducted research on a lingering
injection execution method which would allow organ removal for
transplants before the person died from the injection. He conducted
further research to prevent patients who received organs of injected
prisoners from suffering adverse effects from the injection drugs.
In September 2006, he received the Guanghua Science and
Technology Foundation Innovation Special Contribution Award for his
research and testing of this lethal injection method. In his acceptance
speech, he talked about “thousands” of on-site organ transplant cases
from injected prisoners in which he and his staff participated.
Wang worked under Bo in Liao Ning Province in 2003 and 2004.
In 2008, shortly after Bo was moved from Beijing to Chongqing, Bo
brought Wang from Liao Ning Province. Wang held various positions
in public security in Chongqing and in 2011 became deputy mayor
of the city under Bo.
Wang, to international amazement, in February 2012 attempted to
defect to the United States, seeking asylum in the U.S. Consulate in
Chengdu. Neither the Americans nor Wang have made public the
reason for this attempted defection, though there are many rumours.
The Americans decided against giving Wang asylum, and he was
handed over to the Chinese authorities. He remains in detention as
this introduction is being written.
Bo was expected to become a member of the nine member
Communist Party Standing Committee in the fall of 2012. Instead,
shortly after Wang’s attempt at defection, Bo was purged from his
position in Chongqing and from the Central Committee.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, at a closed Communist party
meeting in Zhongnanhai shortly after these events, is reported to
have addressed organ harvesting and Bo Xilai’s involvement.
A source attributes to Wen these remarks:
Without anaesthetic, the live harvesting of human organs and
selling them for money – is this something that a human could
do? Things like this have happened for many years. We are about
to retire, but it is still not resolved. Now that the Wang Lijun incident
is known by the entire world, use this to punish Bo Xilai.
Resolving the Falun Gong issue should be a natural choice.
What happens in China behind closed doors at Communist party
meetings is, by its very nature, not a matter of verifiable public
record. What could be seen though by anyone at this time was the
lifting of censorship on the killing of Falun Gong for their organs.
In late March 2012, search results about organ transplants on the
officially sanctioned Chinese search engine Baidu showed information
about the work David Kilgour and David Matas did, Bloody Harvest
and the involvement of Wang Lijun in organ harvesting.
It is hard to let a genie just a little way out of the bottle. Knowledge
spreads, even in a society subject to censorship. Selective leaks and
references to organ transplant abuse by those involved in the power
struggle within China are bound to have an effect beyond the power
struggle itself, to have a real impact on the abuse. Our hope through
this book is to magnify that impact.
David Matas
Dr. Torsten Trey
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Why Jiang Zemin and CCP Persecute Falun Gong?
[VIDEO] Why Jiang Zemin and CCP Persecute Falun Gong?
