Falun Gong and Organ Harvesting

Falun Gong And Organ Harvesting

The Kilgour-Matas report is an investigative report by Canadian MP David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas into allegations of organ harvesting from live practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in China, which was published July 2006 and revised in January 2007. The investigation was requested by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), and concluded that "there has been, and continues today to be, large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." The government of the People's Republic of China has repeatedly denied the organ harvesting allegations in the report.

The report received a mixed reception. In the US, a Congressional Research Service report by Dr. Thomas Lum stated that the Kilgour-Matas report relied largely on logical inference, without bringing forth new or independently-obtained testimony; the credibility of much of the key evidence was said to be questionable. U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak said in March 2007 that the chain of evidence Kilgour and Matas were documenting showed a "coherent picture that causes concern", which the United Nations Committee Against Torture followed up in November 2008 with a request for "a full explanation of the source of organ transplants", to investigate the claims of organ harvesting, and to take measures to prosecute those committing abuses. Investigations by Ethan Gutmann and European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott generally supported the findings of the Kilgour-Matas report. Based on extensive interviews with former prisoners, Gutmann estimated that between 450,000 to 1 million Falun Gong members were detained at any given time, and estimated that tens of thousands may have been targeted for organ harvesting.

Upon release of the initial report on 6 July, Chinese officials 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 Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them without any merit. A Congressional Research Service report said that some of the report’s key allegations appeared to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations. The US state department maintained that "ndependent of these specific allegations, the United States remains concerned over China’s repression of Falun Gong practitioners and by reports of organ harvesting." and "U.S. representatives have found no evidence to support allegations that a site in northeast China has been used as a concentration camp to jail Falun Gong practitioners and harvest their organs"

The US National Kidney Foundation expressed that it was "deeply concerned" about the allegations. Taiwan urged its citizens not to travel to China to receive transplants. The reports led to the Australian Health Ministry's abolition of training programs for Chinese doctors and the banning of joint research programs with China on organ transplantation, and to Kilgour and Matas receiving the 2009 award bestowed by the International Society for Human Rights. In 2009, the authors published the report as a book, titled "Bloody Harvest."

The report is now banned in Russia as extremist.