In 2001, when bidding to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the People's Republic of China pledged to improve human rights—and won the bid. Many Chinese people were excited, but not all.
One of the most barbaric human rights violations of the 21st century had begun: Prisoners of conscience—Chinese people—were being used as living organ banks and their organs harvested for transplantation. They were being slaughtered like animals.
Only in 2006 did the world learn of these atrocities after witnesses fled China in order to tell of them. A doctor's wife risked her life in early 2006 when she publicly stated that her husband—then a surgeon in China—had removed corneas from 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners. A journalist likewise risked his life to report of Falun Gong practitioners detained near a hospital, where they were held until used for organ harvesting.
An investigative report by David Kilgour, the former Canadian secretary of state (Asia-Pacific) and David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, followed. That report estimated that over 40,000 adherents of the Falun Gong movement had been killed for their organs since 2001.
Kilgour and Matas recorded phone conversations with surgeons in multiple hospitals in China with shocking results.
Excerpts of one call in May 2006 read like a shopping trip to a mall: "Do you have organs from Falun Gong practitioners?"
Answer: "Yes."
Question: "Was it from healthy Falun Gong practitioners?"
Answer: "Correct. We would choose the good ones. ... It is very easy to get them."
Many Falun Gong practitioners who survived being held in the labor camps, where they were subjected to torture and brainwashing, reported being systematically blood tested. The good health of the victims is of no concern to the torturer.
Blood tests are expensive. Who pays for them? What is the payout? A transplantation will amortize the investment. A kidney transplant is offered for US$60,000 on the Web sites of some Chinese hospitals.
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