AFP
by Michel ComteThu Jul 6, 6:51 PM ET
A former Canadian cabinet member and a human rights lawyer issued a report alleging China harvests organs from unwilling live prison inmates, mostly Falun Gong practitioners, for transplants on a large scale.
The report's authors, Canada's former Secretary of State for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas, implicated dozens of hospitals and jails throughout China after a two-month investigation.
The pair also identified some 41,500 suspect transplants in China since 2000, saying they were unable to track the source of the organs used.
"We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners," they wrote in their report.
"This is a form of evil that we have yet to see on this planet, a new form of evil," Matas told reporters Thursday.
China, which has denied similar allegations, refused entry to both to investigate the claims further, he said.
The US-based lobby group The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China (CIPFG) asked the duo to investigate claims by several of their members.
China banned the spiritual group in 1999 and has vehemently denied the allegations of organ harvesting, accusing the group of spreading rumours in a bid to undermine the country's international relations and "social stability."
Kilgour and Matas noted that much of the claims were second-hand, but that there is enough evidence to warrant a broader investigation.
"There are investigative difficulties in establishing these allegations because ... the victim is dead, the perpetrator is not going to confess and the scene of the crime leaves no trace; it's an operating room," Matas said.
"I don't know if this is policy or corruption, but it's widespread," he added.
The two called on Chinese authorities, the United Nations and international human rights organizations to investigate the claims further.
They also asked world governments to consider a ban on Chinese doctors seeking to travel abroad for transplant training and stronger organ trafficking laws worldwide to stem what Matas characterized as "crimes against humanity".
Canada's Conservative government and opposition parties have expressed interest in the report, Kilgour noted.
Matas and Kilgour said they interviewed several Falun Gong members and the former wife of a surgeon who told her he had removed the corneas from some 2,000 anaesthetized Falun Gong prisoners in northeast China over two years prior to October 2003.
They said they listened, with the help of certified interpreters, to more than 30 veiled calls made from Canada and the United States to Chinese officials who admitted to the surgeries from March to May.
Transcripts of the telephone calls implicated some 30 hospitals and jails, including the Public Safety Bureau in Shanxi, the Eye Department at the People's Liberation Army Hospital in Shenyang, and Army Hospital 301 in Beijing.
On June 8, an official identified only as Mr. Li at Mishan city jail in Heilongjiang province said at least five male Falun gong prisoners under 40 years old were available for organ harvest.
"Do you have Falun Gong (organ) suppliers?" the caller asked.
"We used to have, yes," replied Mr. Li.
"What about now?"
"Yes," Li said.
"Can we come to select, or you provide directly to us?"
"We provide them to you," Li said, adding a price would be discussed later in person.