UN Reports the Chilling Facts on Organ Harvesting from Live Falun Gong Practitioners

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Suggests Mechanisms to Hold States Accountable

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On March 20, 2007, Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture issued a report that corroborates previous findings in 2006 about persecution, abuse and torture of Chinese citizens.

His report states, "Organ harvesting has been inflicted on a large number of unwilling Falun Gong practitioners at a wide variety of locations for the purpose of making available organs for transplant operations." Mr. Nowak issued his report to the Human Rights Council's Fourth session, as part of their Agenda item 2, the Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 60/251.

	Manfred Nowak, speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

On August 11, 2006, three UN Special Rapporteurs had sent an urgent appeal on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. This was a joint action by the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Mr. Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ms. Asma Jahangir and the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Ms. Sigma Huda.

Mr. Nowak further states in his report, "Vital organs including hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas were systematically harvested from Falun Gong practitioners at Sujiatan Hospital, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, beginning in 2001. The practitioners were given injections to induce heart failure, and therefore were killed in the course of the organ harvesting operations or immediately thereafter."

The report adds, "It is reported that employees of several transplant centres have indicated that they have used organs from live Falun Gong practitioners for transplants. After the organs were removed, the bodies were cremated, and no corpse is left to examine for identification as the source of an organ transplant. Once the organs were removed they were shipped to transplant centres to be used for transplants for both domestic and foreign patients."

Although the Chinese government denied the allegations, the Report states that China's passage of a law on July 1, 2006, prohibiting the sale of organs and requiring the donor to give written permission, indicates that China allowed organ harvesting before that time.

	Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir

"Moreover, evidence exists, for example, that at least up until April 2006, price lists for organ transplants in China were published on the Internet," states the report.

The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ms. Asma Jahangir, also addressed the harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners in her annual report on 250 countries. Regarding freedom of religion or belief, her report states, "The Special Rapporteur continues to be very concerned by the continued violations of freedom of religion or belief suffered by members of the Falun Gong. In her previous reports to the Commission on Human Rights, she explicitly mentioned members of the Falun Gong as targets of various human rights violations because of their beliefs and she strongly condemns the continued lack of freedom of belief of members of Falun Gong."

The Silence about Organ Harvesting

	70-Year-Old Falun Gong Practitioner Tortured until Skin and Bones

The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group initially described the organ harvesting issue in its newsletter, Sujiatun Death Camp: Putting Conscience On Trial". The news was met with silence.

On July 7, 2006, former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia Pacific) and MP David Kilgour and human rights attorney David Matas released their "Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China." Presenting 17 points of evidence on the harvesting of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners, they stated, "The allegations, if true, would represent a grotesque form of evil which, despite all the depravations humanity has seen, would be new to this planet. The very horror makes us reel back in disbelief. But that disbelief does not mean that the allegations are untrue." Kilgour and Matas have traveled the world discussing their findings with organizations and nations, but, as yet, no country and no major media have condemned this heinous practice.

Dr. Shizhong Chen, founder of The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (www.falunhr.org), when asked about the importance of the UN Report, observed, "David Matas condemned the organ harvesting as a new kind of evil that humanity has yet to see. Sadly, we have also seen a new kind of silence to this evil, silence from world governments and from the media.

"This report by the Special Rapporteur removes any excuse of silence, of not knowing, not trusting and not believing the appeals of Falun Gong practitioners whose lives are supplying China's burgeoning transplant market. It also belies the US State Department report that they found 'no evidence' of organ harvesting after Chinese officials organized two guided tours for their benefit."

Many Cases of Persecution and Torture in China

The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group has submitted many appeals to the United Nations Special Rapporteurs and has often spoken to the UN Human Rights Council. In his 2005 Report on his mission to China, Nowak observed, in Table 1, that 66% of all alleged victims of torture were Falun Gong practitioners. In 2006, Mr. Nowak sent many urgent appeals to the government of China concerning Falun Gong practitioners and other Chinese citizens who were abused and tortured.

Mr. Nowak cited the persecution of many Chinese citizens in his report, among others, human rights lawyer, Mr. Gao Zhisheng.

The Persecution of Chinese Lawyer Gao Zhisheng

Mr. Gao Zhisheng has represented dissidents, religious believers, entire villages with disputes against officials, and Falun Gong practitioners. When he did his own personal investigation and found evidence of ongoing torture of Falun Gong practitioners, he wrote an open letter asking CCP leaders Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. As a result, the CCP started persecuting him. In November 2005, Mr. Gao met with Mr. Manfred Nowak, who at that time was in China investigating the use of "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

On December 2, 2005, 12 days after Mr. Nowak met with him, the Justice Bureau closed Mr. Gao's Shenghzhi Law Firm. Mr. Nowak "strongly protested to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs against the intimidation and surveillance by the security services that Mr. Gao was subjected to during their meeting in Beijing on November 20, 2005," and detailed the persecution suffered by Mr. Gao's wife, Ms. Geng He, their children of 13 and 2 years of age and his 70 year old mother-in-law. One time, two police officers beat Ms. Geng, ripped her clothing and tore off one of her fingernails. They followed Gao's daughter Gege at all times, including when she was in school and when she went to the bathroom. They even attempted to kidnap Gao's two-year-old son.

Other victims mentioned in the report include Ms. Mao Hengfeng whom Nowak interviewed on November 24, 2005, during his mission to China; Sun Xicheng, He Guoguang, Zhou Xiudi, Chen Zonglai, Wu Yuping, Jin Huijun, Mao Hengfeng, Chen Guancheng, Xu Zhiyong, lawyers Li Fangping and Li Subinhad, Ismail Semed, an ethnic Uighur from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR),), Mr. Chen Xiaoming, Ms. Fu Yuxia, and Mr. Han Zhongming, Ms. Ma Yalian, Yusuf Kadir Tohti and Abdukadir Sidik, Mr. Xu Shuangfu (also known as Xu Wenku) and Mr. Li Maoxing, Bu Dongwei (also known as David Bu), He Depu, whom the Special Rapporteur on Torture interviewed on November 22 and 24, 2005, at the Beijing No. 2 Prison, and Zhang Hongwei, a Falun Gong practitioner residing in Tonghua District, Jilin Province, currently detained at Jilin Prison.

The list of victims goes on and on...

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Suggests Mechanisms to Hold States Accountable

In an effort to help stop the use of torture, Mr. Nowak proposes that consideration be given to methods for holding accountable those States in which torture is systematic or widespread.

As an example, he suggests, "Such States might be required to contribute adequate funds to the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. In addition, the respective costs for treatment should ideally be borne by the individual perpetrators, their superiors and the authorities directly responsible."

Mr. Manfred Nowak's report is at:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/torture/rapporteur/

Click on the second report: A/HRC/4/33/Add.1

The information about China begins on page 45 and continues to page 70; the organ harvesting begins on page 60.

Mr. Nowak is the first UN Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture to visit China for a UN investigation on torture. The findings from his 2005 visit triggered worldwide attention to the communist government's use of torture on its own citizens. His China mission report can be found at:
http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/view01/677C1943FAA14D67C12570CB0034966D

Ms. Asma Jahangir's report is at:
http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=86

Click on "E" in the first report. The information on China begins on page 28.

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UN Report on Organ Harvesting in China

http://falunhr.org/reports/UN2007-org/Torture-UN-07.pdf

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To Sign the Online Petition:

http://falunhr.org/te/index.php?signature=1〈=en

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Background Information

What is Falun Gong?
Why the persecution in China?
Current situation of the persecution in China
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Japan's rich buy organs from executed Chinese prisoners

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing and David McNeill in Tokyo
Tuesday, 21 March 2006 The Independent UK

Hundreds of well-off Japanese and other nationals are turning to China's burgeoning human organ transplant industry, paying tens of thousands of pounds for livers and kidneys, which in some cases have been harvested from executed prisoners and sold to hospitals.

When Kenichiro Hokamura's kidneys failed, he faced a choice: wait for a transplant or go online to check out rumours of organs for sale. As a native of Japan, where just 40 human organs for transplant have been donated since 1997, the businessman, 62, says it was no contest. "There are 100 people waiting in this prefecture alone. I would have died before getting a donor." Still, he was astonished by just how easy it was.

Ten days after contacting a Japanese broker in China two months ago, he was lying on an operating table in a Shanghai hospital receiving a new kidney. "It was so fast, I was scared," he says. The "e-donor" was an executed man; the price: 6.8m yen (about £33,000).

Beijing does not reveal how many people it executes, but analysts estimate as many as 8,000 people are killed each year. Reports of Chinese authorities removing organs from executed prisoners have been circulating since the mid-1980s, when the development of a drug called Cyclosoporine-A made transplants a newly viable option for patients.

Until now, most of the evidence linking executions to the organ trade has been anecdotal and has not been helped by a lack of transparency in the Chinese criminal justice system or the secrecy that surrounds prison executions.

A recovering Mr Hokamura claims he is concerned with where his new kidney came from. "My translator said my donor was a young executed prisoner," says the businessman. "The donor was able to provide a contribution to society so what's wrong with that?"

"It was cheap," adds Mr Hokamura, now back in Japan. "I can always earn more money."

Rumours of problems with follow-up care and patients dying within one to two years of returning from China have failed to stem the tide.

A single broker has helped more than a hundred Japanese people go to China for transplants since 2004 and the trade is growing. Official figures almost surely underestimate the numbers of people, many of whom fly without government knowledge. Mr Hokamura says his family is so pleased that his daughter has put his experience on the internet. In her blog she says she feels sorry for others to have to wait years for transplants and provides a link to a support centre in Shanghai. "Other people should know about this," she writes.

Sources say the cost of a kidney transplant runs to £37,000 and for a liver up to £88,000. Mr Hokamura paid another million yen for transport costs. There is little attempt to conceal the origins of the organs, the bulk of which are taken from executed prisoners.

Alarmed by the growing traffic, the Japanese health ministry has begun a joint research project with transport authorities in a bid to gain some control on the trade. But the government is likely to find it difficult to stop desperate people who have money from making the short plane hop to China. Says Mr Hokamura: "I was on dialysis for four years and four months. I was tired of waiting."

The Chinese government insists it is trying to crack down on the market in illegal organs. According to regulations, even in the case of a donation by a close living relative, both patients and donors must provide legal proof of the relationship by blood or marriage or submit to a DNA test.

But the signs spray-painted on the walls outside clinics and hospitals in many parts of China tell a different story. Simple and direct, these show a mobile phone number and the character for shen, which means "kidney", written alongside. Postings on numerous online bulletin boards and other internet sites also offer kidneys for sale.

The sale of organs for transplants is illegal in China, but the black market is flourishing. And it's not just the small private hospitals and clinics springing up all over the country - even bigger hospitals in the capital Beijing and the business hub of Shanghai have adverts in toilet cubicles and on the walls of wards.

"We have to wipe off the notices again and again. They even visit doctors, make numerous calls or write letters again and again," said Professor Ding Qiang, the head of Urology at Huashan hospital, part of Fudan university in Shanghai. "Donations that are subsequently made are surely organ trading, but 'organ donation' for money is strictly banned," said Professor Ding.

However, China is a huge country and, as the proverb goes: the mountains are high and the emperor is far away. The legal ban may have an impact on the illegal organ trade in major public hospitals but the private clinics and small hospitals, which are run for profit, are extremely difficult to regulate, leaving room for profitable, illegal organ trading.

Generally, there is a lack of awareness in China about transplants. As in Japan, a cultural taboo, strongly related to Buddhist beliefs, has traditionally been associated with donating organs. The procedure is seen to make the body imperfect and, in some ways, it means the donor is being unfilial, even if the donation is to a family member.