ILLEGAL OPERATIONSChinese Government Allegedly Harvesting Organs of Political Prisoners
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Illustration by Sarah King
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 In 2006, David Matas, a prominent human rights lawyer, and his colleague David Kilgour released a report claiming that the Chinese government was using imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners as an unwitting organ transplant supermarket. Unsurprisingly, the government has denied this claim. It sounds like a story from a shitty horror film but, according to Matas, it couldn’t be more real.
Vice: What is Falun Gong?
David Matas: It is an exercise regimen, more a form of spirituality than an organised religion. People would go to parks and do these exercises together. In Beijing alone there were 3,000 exercise stations. It is rooted in ancient Chinese tradition and resonated with the population in the ideological vacuum after the events in Tiananmen Square.
Why the repression then?
The government originally encouraged it. What worried them was its ability to mobilise a crowd on short notice. If it were an organised religion it would have been easier for the government to get a handle on it. They could have appointed their own people to run it. But because of its amorphous nature they couldn’t.
The real trouble started in 1999, right?
There was a big debate about what to do with the Falun Gong. One argument was to encourage it—it was good exercise and would cut heath expenditure. But the other view that prevailed was that this group was not communist and represented an ideological threat. Some Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in April 1999 and there were protests. One of these crowds, in Tiananmen Square, was the largest ever assembled. That is when things got hard for the Falun Gong. The government was scared.
It wasn’t until 2006 that you became aware of this organ harvesting. How did the word spread?
It was the ex-wife of an ex-surgeon who originally approached me. He had told her that he and his colleagues had been harvesting the corneas of imprisoned practitioners.
So how do you go about harvesting someone’s organs?
We interviewed a lot of Falun Gong ex-prisoners. They had been subjected to extensive medical tests while in jail. In my view, the only possible explanation for the kinds of test being carried out on all Falun Gong and death row prisoners is that they are being tested to assess suitability for organ donation. One ex-medical staff member we spoke to told us about how he used to see the prisoners being given a prolonged sedative injection through a drip. He was told this was because they were being prepared for organ harvesting. In some cases the prisoners are executed and then the organs are harvested afterwards—the surgeons wait until the shooting stops. But as soon as you are dead, your organs start to deteriorate. So that’s the advantage of live harvesting.
So what sort of numbers are we looking at?
We estimate 10,000 organ-harvesting operations per year. With statistics it gets tricky as the Chinese government don’t really produce statistics. We did some extrapolation based on the number of organs available before the persecution of Falun Gong started, and after. We estimate 75,000 of those are Falun Gong. There is no other explanation for the increased volume of transplants available after 1999. The UN tried to get China to explain the evidence about transplants and the Falun Gong persecution, but they ignored the question.
Has there been any progress made in reducing this flow of organs over the last few years?
According to their own statements, the Chinese government have reduced the number of hospitals involved from about 600 to 150-ish. The other thing they’ve done is made local recipients a priority over foreigners. Frankly, as long as they have the death penalty and are persecuting the Falun Gong, then the problem won’t go away.
JULIAN CHRISTIE
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Nov 17, 2009 wrote:
And to continue the message i just posted below.
I ain’t a commie and i ain’t pro-china.
I lived in Hong Kong during the birth of Falun Gong and I witnessed that BS rising.
To be honest, most people in HK or China do find Falun Gong to be a scam but now that it’s gained a certain size of followers, it’s impossible to wipe it out without other countries interfering or getting accused of religious prosecution. | | Anonymous, on Nov 17, 2009 wrote:
Falun Gong is a scam.
Why the Chinese Government discouraged and oppressed Falun gong because it was preaching BS like practicing its special excerises or drinking its "holy" water can cure diseases and become bulletproof etc.
The founder of Falun Gong himself lives in America after profited millions for the cult.
The Communist Gov didn’t want a chinese version of scientology to spread through the country,
obviously the communists have failed since religions/cults always spreads like a plagues plus chinese haters just show supports for religious freedom in China without even thinking what type of crap they are supporting. | | Anonymous, on Nov 15, 2009 wrote:
what the hell your doing~!;/ | | Anonymous, on Nov 15, 2009 wrote:
what the hell your doing~!;/ | | Anonymous, on Oct 7, 2009 wrote:
To the person below me: You didn’t say why the Chinese government are worried about these Falon Gong practitioners. Is it because they are martial arts experts? They sound more akin to Tai chi practitioners to me... | | Anonymous, on Sep 29, 2009 wrote:
Biased and untrue.
If you’ve ever been to China and see the Falun Gong practitioners, you’ll understand why the Chinese government thinks it’s a threat. And I highly doubt they harvest organs in the first place. I’d like to see real evidence, and not some propaganda that China does not supply statistics. Will the UN really accept an "unanswered" question from a big power such as China? | | Anonymous, on Feb 25, 2009 wrote:
Let’s not be racist bigots, now. | |
| anonymouse, on Feb 12, 2009 wrote:
"new" world superpower? what noodle bowl have you been hiding under? | | Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote:
tiny pecker syndrome strikes again | | Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote:
they use the excess skin in eggdrop soup. | | Anonymous, on Feb 11, 2009 wrote:
the chinese government is making sure to only persecute the really reeaalllyyy threatening forces... such as babies with their "one-child policy" and now these evil Falun Gong meditators... imagine if their was a baby Falun Gong practitioner. China’s worst nightmare! Even worse than Godzilla! | |
| dogs rule big time, on Feb 10, 2009 wrote:
It’s gonna be awesome when China is the new world super power | |
| smokey robinson crusoe, on Feb 10, 2009 wrote:
the bodies exhibit was already controversial enough. don’t you think the producers would jump through every hoop to make sure their multi-million dollar investment didn’t blow up in their face? | | Anonymous, on Feb 10, 2009 wrote:
"i’m willing to bet the curators made sure they were getting legitimate unclaimed bodies that died from natural causes."
Why are you willing to bet that? I’m willing to bet that they took the cheapest easiest solution and that if the government was giving them mangled, organless corpses they would have kept their mouth closed. | | |
| smokey robinson crusoe, on Feb 10, 2009 wrote:
yes, the bodies for the "bodies" exhibit do come from china, but i’m willing to bet the curators made sure they were getting legitimate unclaimed bodies that died from natural causes. don’t you think the embalming people could easily tell if their organs had been taken? duh. | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
You have all seen this. At least if you went to the Bodies Exhibit. Oh and you thought it was cool. Bad You! | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
Falun Gong is actually pretty fucked and horrible. Obviously it’s not OK to chop their guts out and sell them, but being oppressed doesn’t justify killing mixed race babies because they’re "bad qi", either. And its damn sure a cult. | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
My ex boyfriend’s father has a friend who bought a heart from China, apparently for a million dollars. I don’t know if it had anything to do with this, but the story was that the man gave up his life so that his family would be able to support themselves financially. This is extremely fucked up. | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
I’m confused. Are the organs being harvested while the people are alive or after they die? And if they are alive.. what exactly does that mean? unconscious? sedated? what? | |
| oh_okay, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
**used as organ donors. organ donation is an extremely beneficial practice. AS LONG AS IT IS DONE HUMANELY...which i think is where the Chinese got it wrong. | | |
| oh_okay, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
Really what seems to be the fucked up practice here is that the Chinese government is persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in the first place. It is yet another example of the government’s extreme paranoia and mistrust in it’s people. However, I can’t say that I am opposed to organs of prisoners on death row being | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
Wow. Think if the ladies at Central Park doing Tai Chi were snatched up and thrown in jail, possibly to have their livers removed. This is insane. It’s reprehensible that the Chinese government admits to this happening yet we continue to trade with them and the IOC give them the summer olympics. | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
This problem is much deeper than only the organ harvesting. Human rights have become non-existant and many are being tortured and killed because of their association with Falun Gong. Faluninfo.net has a lot of information on the largest persecution in the world. | |
| cynthia, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
yay, china! you now only have 150 hospitals performing illegal organ harvesting! give yourself a pat on the back. | | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
holy
shit
farectification.wordpress.com/2007/06/16/live-organ-ha
rvesting-from-falun-gong-practitioners/
| | Anonymous, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
is the chinese government getting a cut of this? i don’t really see why they’d be interested if not. other than maybe tormenting the falun gong people. | |
| duck duck goose, on Feb 9, 2009 wrote:
so the chinese government is so paranoid they are worried that a bunch of meditators are going to rise up against them? haha. what a fucking joke. first google, now meditation. nice job, china. now give us some fucking pandas. | | Anonymous, on Jan 25, 2009 wrote:
Anonymous, on Jan 23, 2009 wrote:
As terrible and secretive as the Chinese government is; the US has its own fucked up prisons in Guantanamo
not for much longer! obama just signed an order that will shut it down. | | Anonymous, on Jan 23, 2009 wrote:
Were all just chimps living on the edge ready to kill. shit were worse, were the only animal that kills for recreation. lets face it were fucked. how about this for an idea, stop crying about it, todays China is yesterdays germany and tomorrow, who knows it might be you doing the killin, or the dyin? | | Anonymous, on Jan 23, 2009 wrote:
As terrible and secretive as the Chinese government is; the US has its own fucked up prisons in Guantanamo | | | Next 30 comments > |
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