What’s your position on the FLG organ harvesting accusations?
- I’ve read the Kilgour report and I’m convinced.
- I haven’t read the Kilgour report but I’m convinced anyway.
- I’ve read the Kilgour report and I’m NOT convinced by it.
- I haven’t read the Kilgour report and I expect it is wrong.
I know there is a thread on this subject already, but even before the second page of posts it had degenerated into silly humour referencing various urban legends.
Just a couple of months ago, I looked a bit into the well known accusations of organized organ harvesting from Falun Gong practicioners in China. I wasn’t convinced at the time, but now I am, thanks to an exceedingly credible report co-authored by former Canadian secretary of state (sic) for the Asia Pacific region, David Kilgour, and human rights lawyer David Matas.
Former MP David Kilgour (back), and respected human rights lawyer David Matas (front) attend a press conference, in Ottawa July 6, 2006, to release their investigation report on organ harvesting of live Falun Gong practitioners. (Chun Zhu/The Epoch Times)
Kilgour has been one of Canada’s most respected MP’s for the last 25 years or more. A short quote from Wikipedia:[quote]
On May 3rd, the Globe and Mail’s Neil Reynolds wrote a column titled “Morality, not economics, is what matters” basing the piece on Kilgour’s continual commitment towards the issues affecting the worlds poor. Kilgour is again quoted saying Canada must support military intervention in Darfur. Reynolds concludes that “in the past 25 years, no Canadian could take this kind of moral time-test and pass with such flying colours as David Kilgour, the MP who changed parties twice but who walked away without changing principles once.”
[/quote]
The report is found here:
http://investigation.go.saveinter.net/report200701/report20070131.pdf
or here:
http://organharvestinvestigation.net
I don’t think it is possible to read it and not be convinced. It has certainly convinced mainstream news agencies. Here is one report from Fox:
[quote]Study: China’s Army Harvesting Body Parts From Live Prisoners, Particularly Falun Gong Members
Thursday, February 01, 2007
…
"Recipients often tell us that even when they receive transplants at civilian hospitals, those conducting the operation are military personnel,‘’ the report said.
Hospitals in Canada’s biggest cities — Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto — confirmed "a substantial number’’ of Canadians had travelled to China for dubious organ transplants, Kilgour said.
"We’re in the three digits, up over 100 (from Canada each year), and the trend is accelerating,‘’ Matas said.
To curb what they called a “disgusting form of evil,” the pair asked pharmaceutical firms to stop selling organ anti-rejection drugs to China.
They also asked countries to post travel advisories warning about China’s alleged organ harvest, asked states to cease offering follow-up care for patients who had dubious organ transplants in China and asked foreign doctors to cut ties with their Chinese counterparts suspected of such practices.[/quote]
[quote]FAITH UNDER FIRE
Exposed! China’s organ-on-demand transplants
‘Bloody Harvest’ says prisoners kept healthy until paying customer arrives
Posted: February 6, 2007 By Bob Unruh © 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
A new report called “Bloody Harvest” documents China’s “anything goes” transplant industry where a cornea is available to anyone with $30,000 and people are kept as prisoners until their organs are needed, when they are executed by a doctor’s needle just as soon as the cash hits the hospital accounting office.
The report from David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, the former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, was just released and updates previous documents alleging the existence of the billion dollar industry.
The new report, taken cumulatively, provides the proof, Kilgour told WND.
“We’ve talked to a lot of people who received organs, people who managed to get out [of China] by the skin of their teeth. We talked to a lady beaten up so badly she heard a doctor say she was going to die and her organs would be no good. We’ve looked at the web sites offering organs. We think we now have overwhelming evidence for any fair-minded or reasonable person,” he said.
“Every single item points in the same direction, and nothing points in the direction of innocence,” he said. [/quote]
The line I highlighted in red sums up the report’s rationale for proof. In the authors’ words:
[quote]When we began our work, we had no views whether the allegations were true or
untrue. The allegations were so shocking that they are almost impossible to believe.
We would have much rather found the allegations to be untrue than to be true. The
allegations, if true, represent a disgusting form of evil which, despite all the
depravities humanity has seen, are new to this planet. The very horror made us reel
back in disbelief. But that disbelief does not mean that the allegations are untrue.
We were well aware of the statement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
1943 to a Polish diplomat in reaction to being told by Jan Karski about the Holocaust.
Frankfurter said: “I did not say that this young man was lying. I said that I was unable to believe
what he told me. There is a difference.”
After the Holocaust, it is impossible to rule out any form of depravity. Whether an
alleged evil has been perpetrated can be determined only by considering the facts.
…
The allegations, by their very nature, are difficult either to prove or disprove. The
best evidence for proving any allegation is eye witness evidence. Yet for this alleged
crime, there is unlikely to be any eye witness evidence.
The people present at the scene of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, if it
does occur, are either perpetrators or victims. There are no bystanders. Because the
victims, according to, the allegation are murdered and cremated, there is no body to
be found, no autopsy to be conducted. There are no surviving victims to tell what happened to them. Perpetrators are unlikely to confess to what would be, if they
occurred, crimes against humanity. Nonetheless, though we did not get full scale
confessions, we garnered a surprising number of admissions through investigator
phone calls.
The scene of the crime, if the crime has occurred, leaves no traces. Once an organ
harvesting is completed, the operating room in which it takes place looks like any
other empty operating room.
…
We have had to look at a number of factors, to determine whether they present a
picture, all together, which make the allegations either true or untrue. None of these
elements on its own either establishes or disproves the allegations. Together, they
paint a picture.
Many of the pieces of evidence we considered, in themselves, do not constitute
ironclad proof of the allegation. But their non-existence might well have constituted
disproof. The combination of these factors, particularly when there are so many of
them, has the effect of making the allegations believable, even when any one of them
in isolation might not do so. Where every possible element of disproof we could
identify fails to disprove the allegations, the likelihood of the allegations being true
becomes substantial.
[/quote]
So… what should the world do now that something close to proof has been made available for all to see? This is surely the vilest crime perpetrated since the Holocaust - more vile than Rwanda or Cambodia because it is an organized program sanctioned and protected by officials of a modern and powerful government. Will the world turn a blind eye? The Chinese officials in question appear to be counting on it. Have we achieved a world where the crimes of Hitler and his cronys wouldn’t matter any longer? Everybody says Cambodia and Rwanda (and other crimes against humanity) were allowed to happen because they happened in places the West is less interested in. Now we shall see.
Kilgour and Mattas, in their report, explain very clearly just why this disgusting tragedy is playing out in China:
[quote]When China moved from a socialist to a market economy, the health system was part
of the shift. From 1980, China began withdrawing government funds from the health
sector, expecting the health system to make up the difference through charges to
consumers of health services. Since 1980, government spending dropped from 36%
of all health care expenditure to 17%, while patients’ out-of-pocket spending rocketed
up from 20% to 59%.4 A World Bank study reports that reductions in public health
coverage were worsened by increases in cost by the private sector 5 .
According to cardiovascular doctor Hu Weimin, the state funding for the hospital
where he works is not enough to even cover staff salaries for one month. He stated: “Under the current system, hospitals have to chase profit to survive.” Human Rights
in China reports: “Rural hospitals [have had] to invent ways to make money to
generate sufficient revenue”.
…
The military, like the health system, has gone from public financing to private
enterprise. The military in China is a conglomerate business. This business is not
corruption, a deviation from state policy. It is state sanctioned, an approved means of
raising money for military activities. In 1985, then President Deng Xiaoping issued a
directive allowing the People’s Liberation Army units to earn money to make up the
shortfall in their declining budgets.
Many of the transplant centres and general hospitals in China are military institutions,
financed by organ transplant recipients. Military hospitals operate independently from
the Ministry of Health. The financing they earn from organ transplants does more
than pay the costs of these facilities. The money is used to finance the overall military
budget.
There is, for instance, the Organ Transplant Center of the Armed Police General
Hospital in Beijing. This hospital boldly states:
"Our Organ Transplant Center is our main department for making money. Its
gross income in 2003 was 16,070,000 yuan. From January to June of 2004
income was 13,570,000 yuan. This year (2004) there is a chance to break
through 30,000,000 yuan."7
Military involvement in organ harvesting extends into civilian hospitals. Recipients
often tell us that, even when they receive transplants in civilian hospitals, those
conducting the operation are military personnel.[/quote]
The report goes on to explain that nearly a million Falun Gong practicioners were essentiall “disappeared” in 1999, 2000 and 2001. They became the harvest pool.
How should humane people react to this?