A frenzy of organ transplants is underway in Chinese hospitals as they rush to cash in and cover up evidence following the recent exposure of large-scale live organ harvesting in a network of concentration camps. According to hospital staff and overseas investigators, the organs come from Falun Gong practitioners held in labor camps who are killed only after their kidneys, cornea, skin, livers, and hearts are removed from their live bodies.
"Falun Gong practitioners are being carved up and killed to provide a supply of lucrative organs," said Falun Gong spokesperson Mr. Erping Zhang. "The international community must act, and it must act now."
A journalist and two medical professionals first exposed the large-scale practice of removing organs from Falun Gong practitioners last month. The Sujiatun hospital and concentration camp that they revealed has since been cleaned up by the Chinese authorities, sources say. Investigators who go to Sujiatun will find nothing unusual because of the cover-up.
"What we're seeing in China is a systematic cover-up, one in which Falun Gong practitioners—tens of thousands it appears—are either being killed at an accelerated rate for their organs or shipped to other camps and facilities to eliminate evidence," the Falun Gong spokesperson said.
Undercover investigators telephoned hospitals pretending to be shopping for organ transplants. They discovered that transplant centers in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, Hunan, Yunnan, Anhui, Shan'xi, and Xinjiang were operating overtime. Hospital staff told the undercover investigators that patients must come in quickly for transplants before "this batch of organs is used up."
"We should have a lot of organs before the end of April," a doctor at Shanghai's Changzheng Hospital told Sound of Hope radio reporter Ms. Tang Mei. "We are getting a larger and larger supply of organs, but you have to grasp the opportunity. Do you know what I mean? After this period of time, the supply will become very slim."
Some fear that the rush to transplant as many organs as possible during April represents an attempt to kill the remaining Falun Gong practitioners, held in as many as 36 secret Chinese labor camps, in order to eliminate any witnesses.
Investigators from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) have found that organs from the bodies of Falun Gong practitioners are being used for transplants in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and other Chinese cities.
Exposure, Denial and Cover-Up
The large-scale practice of harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners was first exposed on March 9, when a Chinese journalist contacted The Epoch Times . Choosing to remain anonymous, "Mr. R" described himself as a long-time reporter who had worked for a Japanese television agency specializing in news on China.
He claimed that multiple sources had told him that in the Sujiatun district of Shenyang City, in northeastern China, a secret concentration camp held 6,000 adherents of the spiritual practice Falun Gong. He said that their organs were being removed at the adjacent hospital and sold for profit.
On March 17, a second witness stepped forward. The woman said she had worked at the Sujiatun hospital and that her ex-husband had been a brain surgeon who removed corneas from still-living Falun Gong practitioners there.
"During the two years of working at Sujiatun, he did several cornea removal operations per day," she said. In 2003, she started noticing that he often became absent-minded and had nightmares. Eventually he told her that he performed operations on living Falun Gong practitioners.
"You don't understand my suffering," she recalled him telling her. "Those Falun Gong practitioners were alive. It might be easier for me if they were dead, but they were alive."
In the face of the mounting evidence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remained silent for nearly three weeks.
On March 28, however, CCP spokesperson Qin Gang officially denied the allegations about Sujiatun, saying the witnesses' reports were lies "not worth refuting," according to The Associated Press. The spokesperson invited journalists to visit the hospital themselves.
But Zhang, the Falun Gong spokesperson, said that the CCP has made sure that investigators who turn up at Sujiatun will not be able to find anything. He said the regime began destroying evidence at Sujiatun weeks ago, and that the delayed denial came only after the camp had been completely cleaned up
Investigators have reported that plain-clothed police agents are guarding the Sujiatun hospital, pretending to be taxi drivers or local residents and misinforming visiting journalists.
"The real question is what is happening elsewhere now that Sujiatun has been sanitized?" said Zhang. "This issue is not about one camp. What is the fate of the Falun Gong [practitioners] shipped off to dozens of other, similar camps throughout China?"
"It is the responsibility of the international community to investigate," he said. "Was it so long ago that this regime hid SARS from the world with similar statements of denial, falsified reports, and outright lying?"
'Raw Materials'
On March 31, a third witness stepped forward, identifying himself as a military doctor from Shenyang City, near Sujiatun.
He confirmed the allegations regarding Sujiatun, but also said that it was but one of 36 secret camps throughout China in which organs are being harvested on a large scale. The largest camp, located in Jilin Province, is code named 672-S and can hold 120,000 prisoners.
He also said that because of the speed with which people could be transferred, he believed destroying evidence was extremely easy for the CCP. "It is useless to enter Sujiatun trying to investigate the concentration camp," he said.
He said he had witnessed a special freight train transfer over 7,000 people from Tianjin to Jilin. The train ran at night and was guarded by soldiers. Those on the train were handcuffed to special handrails "like rotisserie chickens," he said.
"The Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee agreed to treat Falun Gong practitioners as 'class enemies' and to handle them in any economically beneficial manner," he said. "Falun Gong practitioners…are no longer regarded as human beings, but as raw materials for commercial products."
Booming Industry
According to the official web page of the China International Organ Transplant (CITNAC), at Hui-Gong Street, Shenyang City, at least 5,000 kidney transplants are conducted in China every year, attracting overseas customers.
A kidney transplant costs US$62,000, according to the site, while a heart can cost up to US$170,000 and a cornea as little as US$30,000.
Not surprisingly, China's transplant hospitals attract not only rich Chinese officials, but also overseas Chinese and other foreigners who can afford to buy a quick organ in China rather than wait for a donor overseas.
"It may take only one week to find out the suitable donor," CITNAC's website states, "the maximum time being one month because the kidney transplant needs to find a HLA tissue match."
Since the survival time for a kidney for transplantation is only about 24 to 48 hours, medical professionals believe that the existence of a huge, readily accessible organ bank is the only explanation for the promise of such a short waiting time for a kidney transplant.
Dr. Wenyi Wang, who completed two years of pathology residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center, is startled by such figures. She says that, in recent years, organ transplants in China have become incredibly popular. That the supply is able to meet the demand "implies that organs may come from different sources." "These different sources include what we were familiar with in the past, which is extracting organs from executed criminals," she said. "Most Western countries do not use this method, but in China this method is widely used." "Another source revealed recently is from Falun Gong practitioners," she said. "This additional source could explain why, in recent years, there have been such a high number of organ transplants in China."
The same conclusion was reached by WOIPFG. Posing as prospective organ buyers, WOIPFG investigators called hospitals in Shenyang City and were shocked at how soon they were told they could get organs.
The median wait time for a matched kidney in the United States is a full two years, though many have to wait seven years or longer. In China, "the answer is probably about two days," says WOIPFG researcher Kevin Yang. "That's impossible if they don't have anyone there to kill."
While Supplies Last
In Shandong Province, a doctor received a phone call from an undercover WOIPFG investigator. "I want a kidney from those who practice Falun Gong, one that's totally healthy," the investigator said.
"We will definitely have a lot of suppliers like that in April," the doctor replied. Asked why, he said: "I can't tell you that because it involves... Anyway, there is no need to go into that. I cannot go into that with you."
Sound of Hope Radio reporter Ms. Mei Tang also made a series of phone calls to hospitals across China by a pretending to be a potential patient. She says that a surge in transplant operations is taking place in China during April. "We have several organ transplant teams here working around the clock," said one doctor at Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai. He refused to disclose the origins of the organ supply. The Changzheng doctor and two others with whom Tang spoke indicated that the large number of organs for transplant will be available for a limited time. As such, doctors are urging their patients to "come in quickly" for operations. Some are even calling their patients at home, urging them to get transplants while supplies last. "You will have to get it done by May 1," said the director of the Second Hospital, affiliated to the Dalian Medical University, in Liaoning Province. "After May 1, we will have very few organs."
It is not clear what they expect will happen on May 1, but there have been recent statements from Chinese officials about the need to eliminate Falun Gong.
When former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin first banned the spiritual practice in 1999, he announced: "No means are too extreme to eliminate Falun Gong." Last June, according to the Paris-based Intelligence Online, Deputy Minister of Public Security Liu Jing was given the task of "stamping out" Falun Gong "before the Olympic Games in 2008."
The recent revelations of organ harvesting lead some to understand these statements as indicating genocide.
On April 5, a newly formed committee, subsequently named the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), issued an urgent announcement. The committee fears there are plans in place to quickly kill the prisoners in the secret concentration camps: "A slaughter to destroy witnesses and victims of the concentration camps is happening, and we urgently call upon the international community to initiate rescue programs to stop this new genocide."
Additional reporting by Sarah Cook