Falun Gong and Live Organ Harvesting - Response

Response

The Kilgour-Matas allegations of involuntary organ removal from Falun Gong adherents have received considerable media coverage, particularly in Canada, Europe, and Australia. Several governments have tightened transplant tourism practices and requested more information from the Chinese government.

Questions as to the final answer to the allegations remain. Due to the nature of the claims and the availability of only circumstantial, rather than direct, evidence, several observers have expressed reservations with endorsing the Kilgour and Matas’s conclusions. Amnesty International at the time said it was “continuing to analyze sources of information” about the allegations; David Ownby, a professor of history at of the University of Montreal and expert on Falun Gong, wrote that while "it seems likely that Falun Gong practitioners who are part of the prison population would be candidates for harvesting," he had not seen evidence that the organ harvesting program is aimed particularly at Falun Gong."; a Congressional Research Service report by Thomas Lum said that the report relies on logical inferences and telephone call transcripts which, he suggests, may not be credible.

Chinese officials have repeatedly and angrily denied the organ harvesting allegations in the report. Upon release of the initial report on 6 July, a spokesperson immediately declared that China abided by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. They denounced the report as smears "based on rumours and false allegations", and said the claims had been investigated and found to be without any merit.

In August 2006 three Special Rapporteurs raised questions about the sources of organs, the short waiting times for finding perfectly-matched organs, and the correlation between the sudden increase in organ transplants in China and the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. These requests were met with categorical denials by the Chinese authorities. In May 2008 two Special Rapporteurs reiterated the previous request for the Chinese authorities to adequately respond to the allegations and to explain the source of organs which would account for the sudden increase in organ transplants in China since 2000. In November 2008 the United Nations Committee Against Torture noted its concern at the allegations and called for China to "immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims", and take measures "to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished".

In June 2011 the US added a question to its DS-160 application for non-immigrant visas. The application asks if the person has ever taken part in forced human organ transplantation.

In a novel by author Dean Koontz, a heart transplant recipient is unknowingly given the organ of an executed Falun Gong practitioner. The non-fiction writer Scott Karney also included the allegations in his book The Red Market, writing “No one is saying the Chinese government went after the Falun Gong specifically for their organs… but it seems to have been a remarkably convenient and profitable way to dispose of them. Dangerous political dissidents were executed while their organs created a comfortable revenue stream for hospitals and surgeons, and presumably many important Chinese officials received organs.”

At the recent EU-China summit in Helsinki, the organ harvesting issue was raised directly through the Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja meeting bilaterally with China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. The host government minister encouraged the minister from China to be proactively open about the matter, which was described as attracting much attention in Europe. Zhaoxing was also urged to seek an independent study about the allegations being made about organ harvesting in his country.

A petition of nearly 25,000 signatures calls on the United States to put pressure on China through the U.N. to stop the practice of forced organ harvesting. The petition, delivered on Sept. 26,2012, to the office of Susan E. Rice, the United States ambassador to the U.N., also calls on the U.S. government to release any information it has about the involvement of Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing, China, who was just sentenced to 15 years in prison, in organ harvesting activities.