Organ 'horror' alleged Did China sell cons' parts?

By JIM BRONSKILL, THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA -- Calling it a crime against humanity, a new report alleges China is harvesting vital organs from devotees of the outlawed Falun Gong movement.

Hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas are removed from executed practitioners of Falun Gong and sold for transplant at hefty prices, sometimes to foreigners, the report says.

Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas and former Liberal cabinet minister David Kilgour, who undertook a two-month investigation, acknowledged yesterday their findings were almost too astonishing to comprehend.

"The very horror makes us reel back in disbelief," the report says. "But that disbelief does not mean that the allegations are untrue."

At a news conference, Matas called the practice a shocking "new form of evil" on this planet. "Who would have believed the Holocaust before it happened?"

Kilgour, former secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific region, said Canadians are among those who have travelled to China for illicit organs. "It's appalling," he said.

COULDN'T OBTAIN VISAS

The pair carried out the probe as volunteers at the request of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, a Washington-based group with a branch in Ottawa. Falun Gong is an outlawed sect in China.

Kilgour and Matas were unsuccessful in obtaining visas to visit China to investigate.

Instead they gathered testimony from witnesses in the West, consulted the websites of Chinese transplant centres and studied transcripts of Mandarin conversations with doctors and other officials at hospitals and detention centres in China.

The report says figures indicate about 60,000 transplants occurred in China from 2000 to 2005. Of these, an estimated 18,500 would have come from legitimate sources, leaving 41,500 unexplained transplants.