By Wang Changmin/ Reporter of The Liberty Times, Taiwan
http://www.libertytimes.com.tw/2007/new/oct/30/today-life4-2.htm#
“What kind of country does Taiwan intend to build?” asked solemnly Legislator Tian Qiujin. She continued, “If we kept silent about the atrocity of killing or organ-harvesting that occured in our neighborhood today, we children might eventually take it for granted and follow suit.”
In July 2007, China’s Ministry of Health announced that Taiwanese will be regarded as Chinese citizens and, like people in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, Taiwanese are entitled to the priority of having organ transplants in China. The Ministry’s announcement also stated that, in principle, China would not accept organ transplants for foreigners except for emergency. Taiwanese are very likely to become the biggest group of buyers for “the supermarket of human organs in China”.
Tien stressed that although doctors have responsibility to rescue their patients, they ought to understand the serious human rights infringement, ethical considerations as well as the profit entanglement that may involve in having organ transplants in China. In response to Tien’s interrogation, Mr. Hsueh Juiyuan, director of Bureau of Medical Affairs, Department of Health, indicated that the Bureau would enhance the awareness of the seriousness of this matter among medical doctors.
Falun Gong Practitioners Are Suspected as the Organ Source in China
Theresa Chu, an international human rights attorney and Asia Director for American Human Right Association pointed out that according to investigations, many none death-row criminals in China were blood tested and given a number respectively right after being imprisoned, and the their tissue matching data were stored in an exclusive database. Once their tissue matched with that of domestic or foreign organ buyers, they would be executed after their identities were tampered with to harvest their internal organs for transplants.
What’s more horrendous is that according to a report of the investigation conducted by Canadian independent investigators, from 2000 to 2005, on average there were about 1,600 death row criminals being executed per year, but the number of organ transplants in that same period of time was as high as over 41,500. As the sources of these organs were unknown, it was very likely that these organs were forcibly harvested from Falun Gong practitioners.
Yesterday, Tien Chiu-chin showed a photo of a Falun Gong practitioner being executed by the Chinese Communist regime several years ago, which had dubious surgical scars over his chest as if he had been forcibly dissected to harvest his organs before he died. She added that after the organ-harvesting incident was exposed, the Chinese authorities did not allow Falun Gong practitioners’ family to claim their corpses, and the bodies were incinerated on the spot so as to eliminate evidence of the atrocities.
Tien Chiu-chin said that when the Nazi Germany’s holocaust was first exposed, few people believed it, which was similar to the current scenario that many people don’t believe that the Chinese regime would arbitrarily kill innocent people. Ms. Tien hoped that this horrendous tragedy would never happen again, and she urged Taiwanese people must not become apathetic toward this incident; otherwise, they would be tantamount to accomplices.