Evidence of FLG organ harvesting? [Poll added]

Politics International Politics
1

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.

0 voters

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.

“[color=red]Every single item points in the same direction, and nothing points in the direction of innocence[/color],” 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. [color=red]Where every possible element of disproof we could
identify fails to disprove the allegations, the likelihood of the allegations being true
becomes substantial.[/color]
[/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. [color=red]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.[/color]
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?

2

More from the report…

[quote]The overwhelming majority of prisoners of conscience in Chinese prisons are Falun
Gong. An estimated two thirds of the torture victims in Chinese prisons are Falun
Gong. The extremes of language the Chinese regime uses against the Falun Gong are
unparalleled, unmatched by the comparatively mild criticisms China has of the victims the West is used to defending. The documented yearly arbitrary killings and
disappearances of Falun Gong exceed by far the totals for any other victim group.
Why does the Chinese government denounce so viciously and repress so brutally this
one group, more so than any other victim group? The standard Chinese refrain about
the Falun Gong is that it is an evil cult.
[color=blue]Falun Gong has none of the characteristics of a cult. It is not an organization. It has
no memberships, no offices and no officers. Falun Gong has no funds and no bank
accounts.[/color]
…
The Jiang government estimated in 1999 that there were 70 million adherents. That
year, the Communist Party of China membership was an estimated 60 million.
Before Falun Gong was banned in July, 1999, its adherents gathered regularly
throughout China to do their exercises. In Beijing alone there were more than 2000
practice stations.
…
The Communist Party, in April 1999, published an article in the magazine Science and
Technology for Youth, which singled out Falun Gong as a superstition and a health
risk because practitioners might refuse conventional medical treatments for serious
illnesses. A large number of Falun Gong adherents demonstrated against the contents
of the piece outside the Tianjin editor’s office. Arrests and police beatings resulted.
To petition the Government Petition Office in Beijing about these arrests, on April
25th, 1999, 10,000-15,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered from dawn until late at
night outside the Communist Party headquarters at Zhongnanhai next to Beijing’s
Forbidden City. The gathering was silent, without posters 28 . Jiang was alarmed by
the presence of these petitioners. The ideological supremacy of the Communist Party
was, in his view, in danger.
…
The Government of China set up a dedicated bureaucracy assigned with the task of
repressing the Falun Gong. This dedicated bureaucracy has representatives
throughout China. Because it was established on the tenth day of the six month of
1999, it is called, in shorthand, the 610 office. The 610 office has representatives in every province, city, county, university, government department and government-owned
business in China.
…
Former [color=red]president Jiang’s mandate to the 610 office 31 was to “eradicate” Falun Gong[/color].
An appendix gives extensive detail about this attempt at eradication through
persecution.
…
Repression of Falun Gong included sending thousands upon thousands of its
practitioners to prisons and labour camps beginning in the summer of 1999. The US
State Department’s 2005 country report on China 35 , for example, indicates that its
police run hundreds of detention centres, with the 340 re-education-through-labour
ones alone having a holding capacity of about 300,000 persons. The report also
indicates that the number of Falun Gong practitioners who died in custody was
estimated to be from a few hundred to a few thousand.
…
Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners travelled to Beijing to protest or to
unfold banners calling for the group’s legalization. People came almost daily. Author
Jennifer Zeng, formerly of Beijing and now living in Australia, informs us that by the
end of April 2001 there had been [color=red]approximately 830,000 arrests in Beijing of Falun
Gong adherents who had been identified[/color]. There are no statistics available of
practitioners who were arrested but refused to self identify. From our interviews with
released Falun Gong practitioners we know that the number of those who did not self
identify is large. But we do not know how large.

Large numbers of Falun Gong adherents in arbitrary indefinite secret detention alone
do not prove the allegations. But the opposite, the absence of such a pool of
detainees, would undermine the allegations. An extremely large group of people
subject to the exercise of the whims and power of the state, without recourse to any
form of protection of their rights, provides a potential source for organ harvesting of
the unwilling.[/quote]

Not just ugly - evil too!

It is suspected that the organs come mostly from those FG who refused to self-identify.

[quote]Falun Gong detentions, though in some ways they are just Chinese repression as
usual with the Falun Gong being the unlucky targets, present an unusual feature.
Falun Gong practitioners who came from all over the country to Tiananmen Square in
Beijing to appeal or protest were systematically arrested. Those who revealed their
identities to their captors would be shipped back to their home localities. Their families
would be implicated in their Falun Gong activities and pressured to join in the effort to get the practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. Their workplace leaders, their co-workers,
their local government leaders would be held responsible and penalized for
the fact that these individuals had gone to Beijing to appeal or protest.
[color=red]To protect their families and avoid the hostility of the people in their locality, many
detained Falun Gong declined to identify themselves. The result was a large Falun
Gong prison population whose identities the authorities did not know. As well, no one
who knew them knew where they were.[/color]

Though this refusal to identify themselves was done for protection purposes, it may
have had the opposite effect. It is easier to victimize a person whose whereabouts is
unknown to family members than a person whose location the family knows. This
population is a remarkably undefended group of people, even by Chinese standards.
Those who refused to self identify were treated especially badly. As well, they were
moved around within the Chinese prison system for reasons not explained to the
prisoners.

[color=red]Was this a population which became a source of harvested Falun Gong organs?
Obviously, the mere existence of this population does not tell us that this is so. Yet,
the existence of this population provides a ready explanation for the source of
harvested organs, if the allegations are true. [/color]Members of this population could just
disappear without anyone outside of the prison system being the wiser.

[color=blue]For the authors, the investigations which led to this report had many chilling
moments. One of the most disturbing was the discovery of this massive
prison/detention/labour camp population of the unidentified. Practitioner after
practitioner who eventually was released from detention told us about this population.[/color]
A collection of some of their statements is attached as an exhibit.
What these practitioners told us was that they personally met the unidentified in
detention, in significant numbers. Though we have met many Falun Gong
practitioners who were released from Chinese detention, we have yet to meet or hear
of, despite their large numbers, a practitioner released from detention who refused to
self identify in detention from the beginning to the end of the detention period. What
happened to these many practitioners? Where are they?[/quote]

3

And for some balance:

[quote]Asia News/August 9, 2006
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – There is no evidence that Falun Gong members are executed en masse to harvest their organs, this according to Harry Wu, a prominent US-based campaigner for human rights in China and an expert on Laogai (Re-education through Labour) camps.
Mr Wu, who spent 19 years in Laogai camps, has uncovered evidence that establishes that for quite some time Chinese prisoners have been used to supply organ banks and executed on demand for needy transplant patients.
His doubts are not over the practice but over the alleged spike in transplants and organs sale purportedly carried out at the expense of the Falun Gong.
Back in March the Falun Gong claimed that 6,000 of its practitioners had been sent to a secret concentration camp in Sujiatun district (Shenyang, Liaoning), and that at least 4,500 were killed to harvest their hearts, kidneys, corneas and skin (see Epoch Times, March and April 2006).
For Mr Wu, the Falun Gong’s claims are not corroborate by photos, documents or detailed information but are based on the testimony of few witnesses, neither of whom had first-hand information.
“I tried several times to see the witnesses, but they said no,” he explained. “Even today, I don’t know their names.”
The two witnesses, who are now in the West, have refused to meet international agencies to provide more detailed information. Since they claim to have knowledge about thousands of people whose lives may be in danger it would be essential they be more open.
Mr Wu said he sent his own investigators but they failed to find the concentration camp or corroborate the claims of forced organ removals.
US State Department said its officials visited the area several times in April and found no evidence to support allegations that a site in northeast China was used as a concentration camp to jail Falun Gong practitioners or as a facility to harvest thousands of organs.
Claims appear even shakier when considering where the organs allegedly sold, which, according to the witnesses, is mainly Thailand but also in other regions of the world. But there is no evidence of this trade in thousands of organs, according to Mr. Wu, who noted that in Thailand the law does not even permit organ donations, unless they are between immediate family members. And if the claims were correct, this “would mean 1,500 persons per year or at least 120 persons per month whose organs were removed”.
“This would be impossible to accomplish in an environment such as Sujiatun,” for it lacks the necessary medical facilities and where 2,000 corneas could not be removed in less than two years.
David Matas, an international human rights lawyer who co-authored an independent report which supports the Falun Gong claims, countered Mr Wu’s argument that it would be impossible to remove the corneas from 2,000 people in such a short time span.
“The process of removing the eyes takes only 20 minutes,” he said, adding that one surgeon could remove corneas from 2,000 bodies in just 83 days.
According to Mr Wu, whose statement appears online at www.cicus.org, Falun Gong’s claim that they are victims of an Auschwitz-like camp runs the risk of being treated as “political propaganda.” Still, in his opinion, the “Chinese Communist government is an evil regime that commits many atrocities, including the persecution of the Falun Gong.”
[/quote]

rickross.com/reference/fa_lu … un314.html

Note that Wu isn’t questioning the practice itself, only that it is happening en masse.

And from the articles you posted:

[quote]Falun Gong has none of the characteristics of a cult. It is not an organization. It has
no memberships, no offices and no officers. Falun Gong has no funds and no bank
accounts.[/quote]

I disagree with this characterization. The definition of a cult is not limited to formal organizations. If so then the murderous Eastern Lightning, Three Grades of Servants, and other bizarre house church movements sweeping the country aren’t cults either. We can’t expect those groups to register themselves with hostile governments. However, in the US, Falun Gong and other Chinese cults are more organized, with hundreds of campus meetings nationwide, newspaper and magazine ads, representatives in malls and parks talking about the oppression of their group, etc. Falun Gong has been involved in plenty of litigation as well. I wonder how they are paying for those lawyers if they don’t have bank accounts.

Plenty of articles online discuss the nutty beliefs of such groups, including Falun Gong, and the typical cultish antics that inevitably accompany them: forced conversions, brain washing, refusing to allow converts to leave the group and kidnapping, assaulting, or killing them those who try, encouraging followers to cut off communication with family members and friends who criticize the group, and a lack of transparency regarding their true beliefs when speaking to non-believers.

I personally attended a few Falun Gong sessions when I was in college, and at first just thought it was some kind of meditation club. I had fun and didn’t think anything of it. A couple of weeks went by and I didn’t attend any meetings. Well one night there was going to be a session, but on a whim I decided to do a little research online before I went. Needless to say I was shocked to find out they had any religious beliefs at all, much less believing in evil spirits and aliens taking over the world. None of the Falun Gong members I met had ever discussed anything like it. Anyways I went ahead and showed up for the meeting, participated in the meditations, and afterwards asked about Mr. Li I-Can-Fly-Through-The-Sky Hongzhi, evil spirits, and the whole shebang. What happened next I will never forget. They all started speaking rapidly in Mandarin –at the time I had only taken one or two semesters and could not understand them very well- and gathered into a little group in front of me. An old man who was kind of the leader of the group asked me where I had heard about these things. I told him I had read it online. He said that it was probably from the Chinese government and I shouldn’t pay any attention to it, and should just come to more meetings and forgot about what people tell me. At first I felt a little relieved, because he seemed to be implying that the information I found online was incorrect. But I still felt uneasy, so I pushed further. More rapid conversation in Mandarin. A student –I think she was from Taiwan, but it may have been China- began to get involved. She had been in a corner of the room doing her own meditations after the group session ended. Anyways, she came over and asked me in English what the fuss was about. I repeated what I’d read. She spoke in Mandarin to the old man and some of the others (I was the only American who had stayed after). Then she walked over and closed the doors that had been left open by the other American students. I would have bolted right then and there, but there was not a young man among them. Just the old man, the girl, and several old women. I asked the girl what the hell was going on. Before she could answer an old woman who may have been the old guy’s wife said in broken English, “You not ready hear these things. You come next time. Maybe later you ready.”

At that point I was determined to find out. I know it sounds stupid now, but even then I still vaguely hoped what I’d read what BS. I pressed them again. Finally the old man said the person who had told him “the truth” (recruited him into Falun Gong) is a personal friend of “Master Li”, and has personally witnessed his “special powers”. The old women chattered in Mandarin, and the girl semi-translated, saying in effect that yes there are evil spirits in the world seeking to possess us all, and that yes they suspect I personally am being haunted. I was out of there in a flash.

I think that Falun Gong is bad news, but that does not excuse what China may be doing. I am still not convinced the organ harvesting is happening on a Holocaust-ish scale though.

4

I think the good part of FLG, other than those cool yellow t-shirts, is that they have incorporated a lot of White Crane Qigong into their routine. Not the hard stuff, just the easy movements…which are still very beneficial.

So thats a good thing.

5

I’d be slamming those fucking Western organ recipients in jail if it could be proved they were taking organs from FLG members.

6

people who need a new kidney are often blinded to the moral ramifications of their choice of organ donor or if they do know, don’t care. for them, it is really a matter of life and death.

the high demand among westerners (almost exclusively the patients are westerners or rich people from other countries, not so much used by chinese themselves) creates a market that china has used for many benefits to the regime: get rid of trouble makers in a permanent manner, get a reputation for being tough on dissent, make significant foreign exchange, and even get modern medical facilities into places that otherwise would not be on the list for many years to come. an organ transplant hospital is built within a ‘real’ hospital that then acts as cover for the vile practice of organ harvesting on demand.

it is undeniable that the amount of organ transplants in china is many times the rate it used to be, and some would say far higher than sustainable by random deaths. especially so in the case of the many new hosptials set up for western ‘visitors’, specifically located near remote prisons and re-education camps (a bit like auschwitz in many respects). it is not only FG adherents that are executed for ther organs: many ‘common’ condemned criminals are shot right next to the waiting organ harvesting teams. hell, the chinese govt has even boasted about its so-called ‘humane efficiencies’ in this matter. no big deal then that they have disproportionally the highest rate of executions, and shortest time to execution, of any nation on earth.

falun gong is a stupid cult, but people can believe what they want, as far as i am concerned, even becoming scientologists if they so feel, just like our heroes john travolta and tom cruise (and anyway, what is the difference between FG and the mystical church of old mother ron hubbard?). but it obviously threatens china in ways that seem vaguely ridiculous to us in the west.

7

The authors of the report claim that the standard organ stream from executed prisoners cannot explain the recent rise in transplants. They say about 60,000 organs transplanted between 2000 and 2005 had to come from somewhere other than officially executed prisoners. Unacknowledged Falun Gong detainees appear to be the most likely source. They use Amnesty International’s numbers to estimate the number of executed criminals, so it is unlikely to be a severe underestimate. Read from about page 42 in the report.

This math seems pretty solid to me, and combined with the fact that is is so simple to get an organ on very short notice, I agree with the authors’ assessment that something very fishy is going on.

If an investigative team is unable to find an alleged concentration camp, that is by no means acceptable as disproof.

[quote]The numbers of organ transplants in China is huge, up to 20,000 in 2005 according to
China Daily. China has the second largest number of operations done in the world,
just after USA.
The large volumes coupled with the short waiting times means that there has to be a
large number of potential donors on hand at any one time. Where is and who is this
large donor population?
There are many more transplants than identifiable sources. We know that some
organs come from prisoners sentenced to death and then executed. Very few come
from willing donor family members and the brain dead. But these sources leave huge
gaps in the totals. The number of prisoners sentenced to death and then executed
and willing sources come nowhere close to the number of transplants.
…
According to tabulations constructed from the Amnesty International reports of
publicly available information in China, the [color=blue]average number of prisoners sentenced to
death and then executed between 1995 and 1999 was 1680 per year. The average
between 2000 and 2005, was 1616 per year.[/color] The numbers have bounced around
from year to year, but [color=red]the overall average number for the periods before and after
Falun Gong persecution began is the same. Execution of prisoners sentenced to death
can not explain the increase of organ transplants in China since the persecution of Falun Gong began.[/color](p.43 s.27)

According to public reports, there were approximately 30,000 transplants in total done in China before 1999 and 18,500 in the six year period 1994 to 1999. Shi Bingyi, vice-chair of the China Medical Organ Transplant Association, says there were about 90,000 transplants in total up until 2005, leaving [color=red]about 60,000 transplants in the six year period 2000 to 2005 since the persecution of Falun Gong began.[/color][/quote]

8

I still say that while it’s very difficult to curb China’s production of organs, it would probably be very easy to make it known in these Western civilized countries that people found to have received dodgy organs will face very heavy penalties.

9

I would like to reserve my opinion on FLG charges. I’m sure China is doing a lot of unethical things to secure a steady supply of organs, but the FLG also seems ready and willing to inflate and make this an FLG-under-persecution issue.

Anyhow, a transplant in China could be hazardous to your health as well as probably inethical. (the following is an excerpt and translation)

libertytimes.com.tw/2007/new … -life4.htm

A fifty year old man went to China a few months ago for a kidney transplant. After being hospitalized for more than a month, the surgical wound still failed to heal. Chinese doctors assured him everything would work out, but he insisted on flying back to Taiwan.

Doctors at NTU emergency room were astonished that his wound leaked not blood but urine. The patient suffered from diabetes and his blood circulation was already poor. He should not have been a candidate for surgery. The wound would not easily heal.

10

Ah shit, not again. I thought we’d buried this Falun Gong shit already.

11

I disagree. I think that corroborting eye witness testimony with hard evidence is important. And it isn’t just Wu who doubts the scale of these claims. The US State Department is involved as well.

[quote]Mr Wu said he sent his own investigators but they failed to find the concentration camp or corroborate the claims of forced organ removals.

US State Department said its officials visited the area several times in April and found no evidence to support allegations that a site in northeast China was used as a concentration camp to jail Falun Gong practitioners or as a facility to harvest thousands of organs.

Claims appear even shakier when considering where the organs allegedly sold, which, according to the witnesses, is mainly Thailand but also in other regions of the world. But there is no evidence of this trade in thousands of organs, according to Mr. Wu, who noted that in Thailand the law does not even permit organ donations, unless they are between immediate family members.[/quote]

12

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]I think the good part of FLG, other than those cool yellow t-shirts, is that they have incorporated a lot of White Crane Qigong into their routine. Not the hard stuff, just the easy movements…which are still very beneficial.

So thats a good thing.[/quote]

Thanks for the helpful contribution.

13

Glancing through the links, it seems that the authors assumed that the PLA=private business, and that the presence of PLA surgeons=for profit organ harvesting and transplant program that exploits FLG members.

I have a problem with this for a couple of reasons. For one, the PLA is NOT the profit seeking conglomerate that it used to be. That sort of shit was heavily curtailed in the mid and late 90s. Second, one reason, and I’m not concluding that it is the only reason, that transplant procedures on the mainland are performed almost exclusively by PLA surgeons is because these are the only doctors on the mainland who have the training to do it. PLA doctors are the only doctors, as a group, who have gone through training comparable to what doctors in the west go through. Most non-PLA doctors that the general public go to receive a lower level of training-basically a 4 year bachelor’s degree in medicine AFAIK. Aside from a few private hospitals in larger cities, PLA medicine is where really sick people go if they can afford first world standards of care.

I also have difficulty believing that none of the medical professionals involved in any sort of organ harvesting program would not have exposed it. This whole story basically relies on the idea that a good number of PLA doctors are nasty boogeymen who have no problem parting out a FLG practitioner to make a profit for himself or PLA medicine. I have great difficulty buying that. I’m not saying that everything about the PRC’s organ transplant programs is on the up and up, but I just can’t believe this MPs report.

14

Well, nobody could believe the claims made against Germany during WWII. The difficulty of believing in organized sadism is not grounds for ruling out the possiblity.

The report itself should be read by those who wish to make counterclaims. I also disbelieved the claims of FLG when they first emerged. But I believe the methodology behind the report is quite sound. It needs to be read in its entirety for one to realize that the authors strived to make it as airtight as possible.

Their basic methodology was to explore every avenue of disproof they could think of. None of these avenues supported the conclusion that the FLG claims were false.

BTW, not finding an alleged camp in “northeast China” honestly cannot be considered disproof. Northeast China is an awfully big region. If such camps exist, they are doubtlessly well hidden. I really must strongly object to such logic. My God, who, other than perhaps the PLA itself could possibly conduct a thorough search of “NE China”? Get real.

15

I keep a couple of Falungongers in the fridge here in Shanghai in case I need a liver or new pair of lungs. You never know. (They’re much better quality than the political prisoners who are very badly fed.)

16

At least you know they exercise.

17

This is not a funny subject. You make yourselves look crass, likely not just in my eyes.

One does not need to be a Falun Gong supporter to be concerned about this issue.

18

It would be standard operating procedure for the State Department to cooperate with the intelligence community to gather intel/maps/local scouts before conducting such an investigation. I am not saying the camp absolutely does not exist merely because the State Department could not find it, but I don’t think we brush of their investigation so lightly.

Jive Turkey made some good points. The Reich ordering doctors to screen concentration camp arrivals or face the court-martial is not comparable to swarms of medical personnel harvesting organs for profit. When I did a study on Joseph Mengele I learned that most of the other doctors at Auschwitz loathed their assignments. Many drink incessantly, constantly begged for transfers; much disorderly conduct on their part was overlooked. Mengele, on the other hand, whistled merrily as he inspected the new arrivals. There are sure to be some Mengeles in this organ harvesting program, if it exists, but it stretches credulity to claim there are what? hundreds, even thousands? of medical professionals cutting out prisoners’ organs for money.

19

How about this? The Nazi ‘final solution’ and the alleged FLG organ harvesting do have a creepy similarity. This bit from the report in particular lends me toward making the Nazi comparison.

[quote](Section 26, page 39) Blood testing and organ examination

Falun Gong practitioners in detention are systematically blood tested and organ
examined. Other prisoners, who are not practitioners, sitting side by side, with
practitioners are not tested. This differential testing occurs in labour camps, prisons
and detention centres. [color=blue]We have heard such a large number of testimonials to this
effect that this differential testing exists beyond a shadow of a doubt.[/color] These tests
and examination happen whether practitioners are held at labour camps, prisons or
detention centres. Interview statements testifying to systematic blood testing and
organ examination of Falun Gong practitioners to the exclusion of other prisoners are
attached as an appendix to this report.

The practitioners themselves are not told the reason for the testing and examination.
It is unlikely that the testing and examination serves a health purpose. For one, it is
unnecessary to blood test and organ examine people systematically simply as a health
precaution. For another, the health of the Falun Gong in detention is disregarded in
so many other ways, it is implausible that the authorities would blood test and organ
examine Falun Gong as a precautionary health measure.
Blood testing is a pre-requisite for organ transplants. Donors need to be matched
with recipients so that the antibodies of the recipients do not reject the organs of the
donors.
The mere fact of blood testing and organ examination does not establish that organ
harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners is taking place. But the opposite is true. If
there were no blood testing, the allegation would be disproved. [color=red]The widespread
blood testing of Falun Gong practitioners in detention cuts off this avenue of disproof.[/color][/quote]

This may be one of the weaker sections of the report. The line I highlighted in blue may arouse suspicion in some readers. I have yet to examine the appendices and reference links (There are many n the report.) but I am willing to extend the authors some credibility too. I think Kilgour is an honest man and if he was convinced the differential testing happened, I feel there must be some significant amount of that happenning.

If a person is arrested for an non-capital offense, why any need for blood testing?

The end of the report reproduces some phone conversations of investigators posing as customer/recipients. Lots more were gathered, but the ones printed in the main body of the report are shocking. Here’s one.

quote Mishan City Detention Centre, Heilongjiang province (8 June 2006):
M: “Do you have Falun Gong [organ] suppliers? …”
Li: “We used to have, yes.”
M: “… what about now?”
Li: “… Yes.”
…
M: “Can we come to select, or you provide directly to us?”
Li: “We provide them to you.”
M: “What about the price?”
Li: “We discuss after you come.”
…
M: “… How many [Falun Gong suppliers] under age 40 do you have?”
Li: “Quite a few.”
…
M: “Are they male or female?”
Li: “Male”
…
M: “Now, for … the male Falun Gong [prisoners], How many of them do
you have?”
Li: “Seven, eight, we have [at least] five, six now.”
M: “Are they from countryside or from the city?”
Li: “countryside.”[/quote]

20

Shocking, no? How about this?

quote Nanning City Minzu Hospital in Guangxi Autonomous Region
(22 May 2006):
M: “…Could you find organs from Falun Gong practitioners?”
Dr. Lu: “Let me tell you, we have no way to get (them). It’s rather difficult to
get it now in Guangxi. If you cannot wait, I suggest you go to Guangzhou because it’s
very easy for them to get the organs. They are able to look for (them) nation wide. As
they are performing the liver transplant, they can get the kidney for you at the same
time, so it’s very easy for them to do. Many places where supplies are short go to
them for help…”
M: “Why is it easy for them to get?”
Lu: “Because they are an important institution. They contact the (judicial)
system in the name of the whole university.”
M: “Then they use organs from Falun Gong practitioners?”
Lu: “Correct…”
M: “…what you used before (organs from Falun Gong practitioners), was it
from detention centre(s) or prison(s)?”
Lu: “From prisons.”
M: “…and it was from healthy Falun Gong practitioners…?”
Lu: “Correct. We would choose the good ones because we assure the quality
in our operation.”
M: “That means you choose the organs yourself.”
Lu: “Correct…”
M: “Usually, how old is the organ supplier?”
Lu: “Usually in their thirties.”
M: “… Then you will go to the prison to select yourself?”
Lu: “Correct. We must select it.”
M: “What if the chosen one doesn’t want to have blood drawn?”
Lu: “He will for sure let us do it.”
M: “How?”
Lu: “They will for sure find a way. What do you worry about? These kinds of
things should not be of any concern to you. They have their procedures.”
M: “Does the person know that his organ will be removed?”
Lu: “No, he doesn’t.”[/quote]

These were recorded phone calls done under supervision of respected authority figures, not by FLG propagandists. [color=red][EDIT: This is a false claim. Apologies for my faulty memory and stretching the facts. There seems to be nothing in the report indicating who the phone investigators are, only that Kilgour and Matas trust the veracity of the call recordings.][/color]

Reports from returning transplant tourists invariably corroborate the picture painted by the report. Or, so says David Kilgour if you prefer.

Perhaps someone could outline what would amount to convincing proof other than the collection of hard evidence, say an FLG prison camp (but they keep them all over the country, wherever organs are needed) or a live operating room (but they often do the surgery at night, on sudden notice and sometimes in secretive locations according to actual recipients).

How long do you think it would take to assemble “proof” considering the nature of the alleged crime?