Japanese benefit from Chinese organ harvesting City lawyer, ex-MP exposing practice

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
2006.10.18

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CP Wire Richard Smith TOKYO -- Allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China have brought Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas and former MP David Kilgour here to Japan this week, armed with their own report on the disturbing claims.

"Harvesting" is actually a favourable term to describe the inhumane allegations of imprisoning members of the Falun Gong religious cult without trial or even charge, and putting them on a list for organ recipients.

"The organs were harvested, the people were killed, their bodies were cremated," Matas told about 20 Japanese and foreign press at a conference he held with Kilgour earlier this week at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.

And Japanese nationals are surely among the recipients, Winnipeg native Kilgour affirmed, saying "550 Japan nationals have gone to China to date to get organ transplants," citing records from Japan's own Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

"In our own view, it is highly likely that a substantial proportion of those people got an organ transplant from Falun Gong practitioners who were killed in the process," Kilgour said.

Founded in 1992, Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual movement, touting special exercises and meditation for improvements to body and mind.

The issue of organ theft came up in Washington, D.C. last March, when the ex-wife of a surgeon from Sujiatin hospital in China said her husband had been involved in cornea harvesting of 2,000 Falun Gong members.

The U.S. embassy in Beijing sent a representative to Sujiatin, who could not find any facilities where such actions were committed.

Democracy activist Harry Wu, working out of Washington, D.C., sent investigators to Sujiatin who also could not substantiate the allegation.

A non-governmental organization called Coalition to Investigate Persecution Against the Falun Gong then asked Kilgour and Matas to make an assessment of the allegations.

Hard proof, such as bodies, was impossible to find, but corroboration came in the form of covert inquiries to Chinese hospitals trying to solicit organs from Falun Gong practitioners.

"We had callers calling hospitals in China, pretending to be customers or relatives of customers, asking the hospital if they had organs from Falun Gong practitioners, on the basis that Falun Gong (practitioners) are healthy and therefore their organs are healthy," Matas said.

"And we got a number of admissions throughout China," he said.

The investigators now have 10 more indicators to support the conclusions they formed in their original report and plan to publish a revised report before the end of the year.