Bumper Harvests In China
by sarabeth at 6:00 am on July 7th, 2006 in GeneralChina claims a proud heritage as an ancient civilization. Yet this is how uncivilized they have become today. And the nature of contemporary world politics is such that no one can or will do anything more than make token protests in public (possibly accompanied by private assurances along the lines of “please understand we have to say these things from time to time but nothing should be allowed to interfere with our trade relations”).
A respected Canadian human rights lawyer and a former Canadian cabinet member lent their weight on Thursday to charges that China has been killing Falun Gong dissidents so it can use their organs.
The two men — lawyer David Matas, and David Kilgour, former secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific — spent two months investigating the accusations, which China has regularly denied.
“It is simply inescapable that this is going on,” Kilgour told reporters as he and Matas released their findings.
They provided transcripts of phone calls placed in Chinese to detention centers and organ transplant clinics in which officials said organs from Falun Gong practitioners could be made available for speedy use.
Some of the calls were placed on behalf of the Falun Gong by people inquiring about whether they could get organ transplants. Matas and Kilgour said they had carefully examined phone records and had sat with certified Mandarin translators as they listened to the taped conversations.
They also conducted interviews of their own and investigated government records and other evidence.
“Believe me, I used to be a prosecutor. I knew there would be cynicism and I did my utmost to make sure that everything was satisfactorily and properly and ethically done,” Kilgour said.
[…]
Kilgour released the transcript of an interview he conducted with a woman who said her former husband, a surgeon, had taken corneas from 2,000 people over two years. She said the victims would first be given an injection that would cause heart failure.China has banned Falun Gong, a spiritual group, since 1999. It rejects the organ harvesting accusations.
Matas said the practice amounted to a crime against humanity. “Our findings are shocking. To us, this is a form of evil we have yet to see on this planet,” he said.
He said that if China rejects the findings it should make sure hospitals keep records of the source of each transplant that would be available for inspection by human rights officials.
sarabeth wrote:
What I snipped out in the middle is the transcript of one of the phone calls they talk about. Please read it. It’s very chilling to hear a prison official talking about having a nice selection of live bodies available from whom organs can be harvested once a price is agreed upon.
Posted 07 Jul 2006 at 7:06 am ¶
sac wrote:
China is also bulldozing hundreds of alleyways in Beijing, corrdiors that have served generations of people and are vital to small businesses, to “clean up” the city in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. I hear they built some kind of dam, too.
Posted 07 Jul 2006 at 7:35 am ¶
puddle wrote:
combined with some regulation and e-commerce, this thing can really take off…
Posted 07 Jul 2006 at 6:55 pm ¶
sarabeth wrote:
Never thought of it that way. You, puddle, have a great future as a corporate CEO, if you’re so inclined.
Maybe this is why companies like google and yahoo have been bending over backwards to brown-nose the Chinese government, so that they can get in on the ground floor.
Posted 07 Jul 2006 at 7:02 pm ¶
bobby fletcher wrote:
Crank calls are serious proof for serious allegation like “Auschwitz”?
The report is one-sided and Kilgour’s claim of impartiality is entirely questionable:
- Kilgour can not divorce himrself from the fact his investigation is sponsored by a Falun Gong group in Washington DC that is evidently POLITICAL.
As the vilification Falun Gongt heaped on the Chinese government unrelated to this allegation demonstrates (such as The Nine [POLITICAL] Commentaries and “10 million quit the CCP” propaganda, in anticipation of Chinese leader’s stateside visit).
- The report failed to account for many contrarian facts that have brought question to Falun Gong’s claim, which are freely available outside China. Not able to go to China does not absolve him of his duty to critically examine ALL evidence:
* Two US government investigation started 2nd week of March/06 independently found the allegation not credible;
* Other media investigations, including Hong Kong newspaper Takunpao with circulation in Canada also found the allegation not credible. FYI Takunpao lost their government subsidies after they reported critically on Tiananmen Square Massacare.
* Other experts have doubted Falun Gong’s claim, including Harry Wu of Laogai Research Foundation;
* Malaysian government’s prior year visit to the alleged camp, which is a joint-venture and has been open to the public for years;
* Epoch Times’ rehashing of old, unrelated stories and mis-representing autopsy photo that do not prove torture or vivisection. The fact the photo show autopsy being performed and murder investigation held by the Chinese government proves the opposit.
Clear Wisdom’s original report on Wang Bin and Liu Yufeng had no mention of organ harvesting, yet years later these stories are rehased in Epoch Times’ 2006 story.
(all details in my blog link above)
By Ignoring these facts, Kilgour demonstrated his agenda and LACK OF impartiality.
Posted 07 Jul 2006 at 7:53 pm ¶
Makina wrote:
Listen to a great coverage by Australia ABC Michael Edwards who comments on the report MP3 (Report alleges Chinese Govt harvesting body organs of political prisoners).
And BTW Bobby - take a look — the Communist Embassy shares your pro-CCP views too. Here’s what Kilgour-Matas had to say about it…makes sense to me!
The Government of China released a statement in response to our report titled ‘Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China’ dated July 6, 2006. The statement can be found here. We have these reactions to this statement:
1. The statement of the Government of China was released the same day as our Report. The statement of the Government of China dismisses our Report out of hand. We view this reaction is unconsidered. It means that the Government of China has engaged in no investigations to determine whether or not what the report contains is true.
2. The statement of the Government of China begins with the phrase–”In order to extricate itself from an awkward position after its lie about “Sujiatun Concentration Camp” has been laid bare, Falun Gong has shifted…”
This phrase is incorrect in a number of different ways. First, it suggests that our Report is a Falun Gong report. Yet, it is not. We are not Falun Gong practitioners. We did this report as volunteers and were not paid for this report by Falun Gong or anyone. Our report represents our own judgment. We have not acted on the instructions of Falun Gong or anyone else in coming to the conclusions we did.
3. The assertions about Sujiatun Concentration Camp to which the Chinese statement refers originated from the ex-wife of a surgeon at Sujiatun Hospital. This person is not a Falun Gong practitioner. This person has not changed or shifted her story at any time. David Kilgour interviewed her. An excerpt of the interview can be found at Appendix 13 of our report.
4. It is our own opinion, expressed in our report, that this woman was not lying. We concluded that she was credible.
5. In our report we did not rely on this witness alone to come to our conclusions. In our report, this is what we said about the testimony of this witness:
“The testimony of the wife of the surgeon allegedly complicit in Falun Gong organ harvesting seemed credible to us, partly because of its extreme detail. However, that detail also posed a problem for us, because it provided a good deal of information which it was impossible to corroborate independently. We were reluctant to base our findings on sole source information. So, in the end, we relied on the testimony of this witness only where it was corroborative and consistent with other evidence, rather than as sole source information.”
Our report is not a shift from what this witness says, but rather an expansion, with a larger focus than just Sujiatun Hospital.
6. The Chinese statement then says:
“It is obvious that their purpose is to smear China’s image.” We reply that we have no wish to smear China’s image. Our sole concerns are respect for the truth and human rights.
7. The Chinese statement then says:
“China has consistently abided by the relevant guiding principles of the World Health Organization endorsed in 1991, prohibiting the sale of human organs and stipulating that donors’ written consent must be obtained beforehand and donors are entitled to refuse the donation at last minute.”
This statement that China made is denied by the facts. The China International Transplantation Network Assistance Centre Website until April of this year set out a price list for transplants. The price list was removed from the website in April, but is still archived. To see the web site now, go here. To see the archived site, go here. As well, many individuals can attest to paying for organ transplants in China.
8. The statement that China has consistently abided by the principle stipulating that donors’ written consent must be obtained beforehand is also belied by the facts. Human Rights Watch has reported that consent is obtained from executed prisoners in only a minority of cases. The organization writes that even in this minority of cases “the abusive circumstances of detention and incarceration in China, from the time a person is first accused of a capital offense until the moment of his or her execution, are such as to render absurd any notion of “free and voluntary consent.”
*Organ Procurement and Judicial Execution in China*, August 1994
9. The China statement goes on to say:
“China has issued a regulation on human organ transplants, explicitly banning the sale of organs and introducing a set of medical standards for organ transplants in an effort to guarantee medical safety and the health of patients. The regulation requires medical institution which is qualified for practising human organ transplant to register at provincial level health department. Unregistered medical institutions are forbidden to practice human organ transplant. If the government finds any registered institution violating the regulation, it will cancel the registration and punish the people responsible.”
We acknowledge that this is so, and wrote about it in our Report. We also noted that this legislation came into force only a few days ago on July 1st. It is not an answer to our findings about what happened before that date. Moreover, in China, there is a huge gap between enacting legislation and enforcing it.
10. The Government of China then writes:
“It is very clear that Falun Gong’s rumour has ulterior political motives.”
None of our findings are based on rumour. Every finding we make is sourced and independently verifiable.
11. The China statement then says:
“Therefore, the so called “independent investigation report” made by a few Canadians based on rumours and false allegations is groundless and biased. We do believe that lies are always lame, and will never become the truth even if being repeated 1000 times. We hope that the Canadian people will not be deceived by the disguise of the Falun Gong, and more people will be aware of the nature of “Falun Gong” as an evil cult.”
This conclusion is an attack both on us and Falun Gong. The Report has to be judged on its merits. Attacking its authors is not an appropriate response.
Secondly calling the Falun Gong an evil cult exemplifies the vilification heaped on the Falun Gong. It is this sort of slander which, in China, depersonalizes and dehumanizes the Falun Gong and makes possible the violation of their basic human rights.
Calling a group of innocent civilians an “evil cult” is a form of incitement to hatred, unacceptable in Canada. It is an abuse of their diplomatic presence in China for China to engage in this form of incitement.
Posted 12 Jul 2006 at 8:18 pm ¶
bobby fletcher wrote:
Makina, you banned me from your blog, so don’t pretend you are up for honest discussion.
The Kilgour report is biased. Even the report itself contains contrary evidence, which Kilgour convienently ignored.
Specifically, in the report, Appendix 12, Case 1:
- It mentioned Mr. Wang’s brain was removed. There is no such thing as brain transplant.
- The alleged victim, Mr. Wang, appeared in 11/2000 ClearWisdom (another Falun Gong media outlet) article but no organ harvesting was mentioned:
http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2000/11/16/6164.html
The article mentioned autoply was performed as part of Mr. Wang’s murder investigation, and jail official implicated in Mr. Wang’s murder was arrested as result of this investigation.
- Organ removal is typical of autopsy. The elaborate incisions on the neck (where no neck organ can be harvested for transplantation) is to reveal the hyoid bone for evidence of strangulation. Removal of heart and brain is also a routine, per the “Rokitansky method”.
- I have shown the photo exhibited in Appendix 12, Case 1, to Dr. Friedlander, Chairman of Pathology Dept. at Kansas City University of Medicine, and he disagrees with Falun Gong’s assertion.
In fact the photo shows autopsy being performed and murder investigation held by the Chinese government proves th opposit is ture. I can only surmise Epoch Times mis-represented the photo to generate emotional responses.
Matter of fact all the gory photos Epoch Times used in their 3/2006 story are recycled from old stories. Another one is Wang Yufeng, and in 2005 original story there was no mention of any organ removed from her body.
Shame on Falun Gong for fabricating these lies, and shame on you for perpetuating it.
Posted 31 Jul 2006 at 2:15 pm ¶
matt wrote:
who is makina?
no one banned you.
what the fuck are you going on about?
Posted 31 Jul 2006 at 2:31 pm ¶
sac wrote:
Finally, some interesting content around here. Ha.
Posted 31 Jul 2006 at 2:38 pm ¶
bobby fletcher wrote:
Matt, I’m not saying 1115 banned anything. Makina, the FLG practioner in BC is the person I’m responding to. She banned me from her FLG blog when I cited contrary evidence, such as US government investigations, Malaysian government’s relationship with the joint venture hospital FLG accused, etc.
Posted 01 Aug 2006 at 3:41 pm ¶
bobby fletcher wrote:
Matt, Chinese dissident Harry Wu of Laogai Research Foundation released an open letter on his investigation of Sujiatun that started 2nd week of March; he found the allegation not credible as well:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm
Wu also covered the political stuff, like when his conclusion didn’t agree with Falun Gong, they turned on him.
Posted 13 Aug 2006 at 10:34 pm ¶
Makina wrote:
Bob,
I banned communist propaganda from my blog–was that your stuff?
As you know both Harry Wu’s and the US State Dept.’s investigation were after March 9th which is when the the Epoch Times broke the news. That was too late for SJT was already cleaned up! Don’t you read any rebuttals….the answer is NO.
It’s obvious that you are on robotic mode here and speed pasting your comment on the web.
Kilgour Matas’s investigation report http://investigation.go.saveinter.net backed up by Dr. Allison’s report http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-7/44668.html , including Edward McMillan Scott’s visit http://clearharmony.net/articles/200606/33776.html to China confirm heaps of evidence that amounts to genocide. Organ harvesting targeting Falun Gong across China is really happening…they rip the vital organs off the body which they cremate afterwards—selling the fresh organs to the highest bidders.
Totally disgusting! Bobby if you would care for your Chinese people you wouldn’t be trying to discredit those reports but you’d want to help in resolving the situation.
We’ve already been through all of this time and again on hundreds of blogs.
Posted 27 Aug 2006 at 1:36 am ¶
sarabeth wrote:
I suspect that nobody here has very much interest in this little call-and-response soap opera. Why don’t the two of you take it somewhere private? You know, get a room or something…
Posted 27 Aug 2006 at 6:23 am ¶
Makina wrote:
Sarabeth, I apologize for imposing on your blog but I was under the impression that the conversation was on topic and that the debate was good. Blogs create a venue to present facts to contrarian views. Again my sincere apologies and I wish you well.
Posted 29 Aug 2006 at 12:16 pm ¶