US Congressmen and NGOs Condemn Organ Harvesting in China
Rally held at US Capitol brings public attention to atrocity
By Angela Wang
Epoch Times Staff
A hospital run by the Chinese military is located near a re-education camp. The hospital has detailed health records of the detainees, many of whom are prisoners of conscience. When an order for an organ transplant arrives, a doctor selects a healthy inmate from a batch of profiles. Surgeons are called to the scene, where the prisoner of conscience’s organs are removed—while he is still alive.
This scenario is playing out in locations throughout China, according to investigators. Described as “an unprecedented evil on this planet” by Canadian international human rights lawyer David Matas, forced, live organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience was brought to the public’s attention by politicians and representatives of NGOs who spoke at a rally on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol on July 12.
Gregory Treat, a representative from Jubilee Campaign USA, a nonprofit organization which promotes the human rights and religious liberty of ethnic and religious minorities, condemned the Chinese Communist regime for its evil actions, and urged the Chinese people to help the victims.
“Political statements are meaningless while practitioners are subject to widespread organ harvesting, which is a euphemism for violating their rights and the theft of their organs that the authorities need. If there has been any real change, we should recognize that this is mainly due to a Chinese public that recognizes a moral bankruptcy of the Chinese Communist Party and is unlikely to cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party,” said Treat. “All of the people of China are beginning to question a government which claims the right to control every area of human life.”
The “practitioners” that Treat spoke of are Falun Gong practitioners, the largest group of victims of organ harvesting in China, according to research published by David Kilgour and David Matas in their book Bloody Harvest and by Ethan Gutmann in several articles on the subject.
Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that involves doing meditative exercises and living according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, was once practiced by at between 70 and 100 million people in the late 1990s in China, according to official Chinese estimates at the time. It has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist regime for more than 13 years. Falun Gong practitioners are the largest group of prisoners of conscience in the world.
Congressional Support
Representative Ted Poe (R-TX) explained how the CCP could launch a religious persecution like that against Falun Gong.
“Government is designed to serve people, organize a society so people can live freely. It institutes rule of law, and establishes order that protects the innocent and the right to believe what you want. That’s not what the communist government does. It has a different purpose, keeping itself in power to control over people, lives, and minds,” said Representative Poe (R-TX) at the July 12 rally.
Several U.S. congressmen expressed their intention of helping to stop organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese Communist regime.
“Yet as we mark over 60 years since the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights, it is a travesty that practitioners have been persecuted and tortured, including horrible acts beyond comprehension. According to the most recent State Department’s human rights report, ‘overseas and domestic media and advocacy groups continued to report instances of organ harvesting, particularly from Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghur,’” said Representative Sam Farr (D-CA).
“I will continue to ask in congress to promote peace in persecuted communities and work for a more just world. To fight for human rights and positive change, I will use my thumbprint to support Falun Gong and urge colleagues to support them, and will do so with the White House and the president, urging them to support you as well.”
Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) mentioned that a congressional hearing on the persecution will soon be held.
“There is an enormous amount of respect, especially for those who have suffered so horrifically in China, who have been tortured, maltreated with impunity by the dictatorship that reigns for now in Beijing, because of the work you have done in exposing organ harvesting, the problem of torture, which is practiced with horrible consequences with practitioners, the U.S. government and congress and all aspects of our society stand with solidarity with those victims and with those seeking to liberate the Falun Gong practitioners inside China,” said Congressman Smith.
“I chair The Congressional-Executive Commission on China which is tasked with monitoring and raising and exposing human rights abuses in China. We will be holding, vey soon, a hearing focused exclusively on the Falun Gong and ongoing terrible mistreatment that Falun Gong practitioners have experienced.”
First Report
The Epoch Times broke the story of the atrocity of forced, live organ harvesting in April, 2006 with reports about a hospital in Sujiatun, a suburb of Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, where the purged former Party heavyweight Bo Xilai was governor from 2000 to 2004.
The reports were initially based on the statements of two individuals from Sujiatun, who took the aliases of Annie and Peter.
Annie is the ex-wife of a neurosurgeon at Sujiatun who was in charge of removing corneas from living Falun Gong practitioners. Peter was a reporter who conducted research on Sujiatun before escaping to the United States.
Peter and Annie made their first public appearance at a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in July 2006.
“I have used large amounts of manpower, material supplies, and financial resources, and have finally found this facility in Sujiatun, where many Falun Dafa practitioners were detained, and their corneas, internal organs, and bone marrow were harvested while they were alive, and then their bodies were cremated,” said Peter at the 2006 rally. “Even their hair is made into wigs, and their skin and body fat is sold. The remainder of their bodies is then cremated to destroy all evidence.”
In the years following Annie’s and Peter’s appearance, organ harvesting in China still did not gain international attention.
“When the reports about this first emerged, little action was taken. Now the U.S. Department of State has included these allegations in their human rights reports. This is another example of the failure to act. We are guilty of looking away and remaining silent while the Chinese Communist Party commits human rights violations,” said Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation, at the July 12 rally.
“The truth is that as long as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in power, the Chinese people will continue to suffer and it will block the potential for China to emerge as a responsible world leader,” Scholte said.
A Time of Change
China is experiencing a time of change.
In February, the flight of Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu city triggered a crisis within the CCP that is still unfolding. Meanwhile, Chinese society steadily grows more restive, with hundreds of “mass incidents”—protests or riots involving large numbers of people—every day.
Adding to the pressure on the CCP is a movement called Tuidang that has inspired more than 100 million Chinese to renounce their affiliations with the CCP.
Adding to the pressure on the CCP is a movement called Tuidang that has inspired more than 100 million Chinese to renounce their affiliations with the CCP.
Annette Lantos, the wife of late congressman Tom Lantos, read a letter to the rally by her daughter Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, who runs the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice.
“Now, as China faces a period of political transition, there is evidence that those who have been involved in massive human rights abuses against the Falun Gong are determined to be succeeded by politicians who themselves are implicated in these crimes.
“Why? Because they want to ensure that they will have impunity for the wrongs they have done. These individuals would do well to remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘The arc of history is long but it bends towards justice,’” wrote Dr. Swett. She described the Communist Party’s practice of organ harvesting as “particularly appalling.”
Daniel G. Fefferman, a prominent member of the Unification Church of the United States and an activist for religious freedom, explained why murders for organ harvesting can take place in today’s China.
“Because Chinese Communist ideology teaches that human beings are animals, they think it is okay to take out their body parts and use them for research, even without permission,” said Fefferman at the July 12 rally. “What a horrible, disgusting crime the Chinese Communist Party has perpetrated against Falun Gong today!”