Organ Harvesting in China The Monitor

Organ Harvesting in China

The Monitor's View (editorial) | 05.09.2006 07:17

This is an excellent editorial from the respected "Christian Science
Monitor"

A report from two respected Canadian human rights activists, featured
in today's Monitor and widely elsewhere, charges China with putting to
death "a large but unknown number of Falun Gong prisoners of
conscience" since 1999 and selling their organs - hearts, kidneys,
livers, corneas - at high prices to foreigners.

Headline: Organ harvesting and China's openness
Byline: The Monitor's View (editorial)
Date: 08/03/2006
The Christian Science Monitor

China is scurrying to welcome the world when it hosts the 2008 Olympic
Games. That event will bring thousands of visitors with laptops and
video cameras, along with TV networks. What kind of country will these
foreigners find? Will it be one whose government respects its own
citizens' rights?

Two paths lie ahead for President Hu Jintao and his unelected regime.
One is to accelerate openness and reform and present an admirable track
record of improved human rights to the world two years hence. The other
is to try to hide huge discontent bubbling near the surface by cracking
down on dissidents. The Hu government seems to be committed to the
latter.

Much has been said about the government's attempts to limit what its
people can learn about China and the world by blocking access to
Internet sites. This year alone, China has shut down more than 700
online forums, and eight search engines have been ordered to block
searches of about 1,000 banned words, including "Falun Gong" and
"Tiananmen Square," according to the South China Morning Post in Hong
Kong.

Now allegations that China is executing prisoners from the outlawed
Falun Gong spiritual movement, and harvesting their organs for
transplant, add to the possibility that unless China changes, it may
find itself squirming uncomfortably when the world comes calling in
2008.

The report's evidence is circumstantial, but persuasive. It includes a
sharp rise in transplants that parallels massive arrests of Falun Gong
members, websites listing organs for sale, officials at Chinese
hospitals and clinics admitting by phone that they have Falun Gong
organs on hand, and a shocking secondhand account from the wife of a
transplant surgeon.

The Canadians, David Kilgour, a former member of Parliament and cabinet
minister, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer, have put their own
considerable reputations on the line to stand behind their report.
Neither is a member of Falun Gong.

China has tried to change the subject by painting Falun Gong as a
dangerous cult whose members hold strange beliefs at odds with the
Communist Party's worldview. But it ought to be more concerned about
conducting an honest investigation into these possible atrocities,
whether they are the result of Beijing-directed repression, local
corruption, or a combination of both.

Falun Gong protests are just one visible edge of a discontented Chinese
society that longs to be pluralistic, with citizens able to openly
explore China's own traditional cultures and foreign influences, from
Western commercialism to various forms of Christianity and other
religions.

To gain the credibility it seeks for 2008, China should provide
transparent evidence to prove to the world that such outrageous
practices are not being conducted.