18:40:01 EDT Jul 6, 2006
OTTAWA (CP) - Calling it a crime against humanity, a new report says China is harvesting vital organs from devotees of the outlawed Falun Gong movement.
Hearts, kidneys, livers and corneas are removed from executed practitioners of the meditative regimen and sold for transplantation at hefty prices, sometimes to foreigners, concludes the report.
Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas and former Liberal cabinet minister David Kilgour, who undertook a two-month investigation, acknowledged Thursday 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 in an interview. "You don't want to believe it."
The pair conducted the probe as unpaid volunteers at the request of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, a Washington-based organization with a branch in Ottawa.
In a statement, the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa dismissed the report as a "groundless and biased" Falun Gong smear effort based on "rumours and false allegations."
Kilgour and Matas insist their research was conducted independently of the coalition and any other organization or government.
They were unsuccessful in obtaining visas to visit China to investigate.
Instead, they gathered testimony from witnesses in Canada, the United States, France and Australia, consulted the websites of Chinese transplantation centres, and studied transcripts of Mandarin conversations with doctors and other officials at hospitals and detention centres in China.
"We believe that there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners," the report says.
It calls on the United Nations to determine whether China is in violation of the UN protocol to prevent trafficking in persons, which bans organ removal.
Beth Berton-Hunter of Amnesty International Canada said the organization had asked the UN special rapporteur on torture to be admitted to China to investigate.
"Then we'd have a bit more of a broader point of view," she said.
"We're very concerned about the allegations, but we haven't been able to verify them yet."
In July 1999, China's Communist government outlawed Falun Gong, a practice of meditation and exercises with roots in traditional culture that had attracted millions.
Supporters say Beijing, seeing Falun Gong as a threat, has ordered thousands of followers detained and hundreds killed. China denies harming practitioners.
In March, China enacted legislation that took effect July 1 to ban human organ sales and require that donors give written permission for transplantation.
In its statement, the embassy said China has consistently abided by relevant World Health Organization principles prohibiting sale of human organs.
"It is very clear that Falun Gong's rumour has ulterior political motives," the embassy said.
"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."
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, the report adds, leaving 41,500 unexplained transplants.
It cites the testimony from the former wife of a surgeon who said he confessed to her that he removed the corneas from the eyes of approximately 2,000 Falun Gong prisoners in 2002 and 2003.
The report also notes a number of family members of Falun Gong practitioners who died in detention reported seeing the corpses of their loved ones with surgical incisions and body parts missing. "The authorities gave no coherent explanation for these mutilated corpses."
The authors say as recently as April, the website of the China International Transplantation Network Assistance Centre listed the following organ prices in U.S. dollars: cornea $30,000, kidney $62,000, liver $98,000 to $130,000, heart $130,000 to $160,000.
The report admits some questions remain unanswered: for instance, who profits from organ sales?
"We do not know who gets the money the hospitals receive. Are doctors and nurses engaged in criminal organ harvesting paid exorbitant sums for their crimes?"
The report recommends countries require doctors to inform their respective authorities of any evidence a patient has received an organ from a trafficked person abroad.
In addition, it urges governments to revoke the passports of citizens
travelling to China for organ transplants.