03 Dec 2012

NEW YORK – A trio of medical doctors initiated a petition yesterday calling upon the Obama administration to investigate and help stop forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong believers in China. The petition is posted within the “We the People” section of the White House website, whose regulations state that the White House guarantees a response to any petition that secures 25,000 signatures within 30 days.

“We are very concerned about one of the most horrifying crimes against humanity of our time: Forced organ harvesting from living ‘prisoners’ in China. Killing for parts is a gross violation of medical ethics.” state Drs. Arhur Caplan, Alejandro Centurion and Jianchao Xu in an open letter they released upon initiating the petition. The petition is available at: http://wh.gov/5Jmn. A website with background information and the full text of the letter was created at www.organpetition.org. 

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D, is director of medical ethics with New York University's Langone Medical Center. Dr. Centurion is a practicing physician in California, while Dr. Jianchao Xu is a kidney specialist with Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Amidst efforts to end unethical medical practices around the world, all three doctors have been working over the past six years to investigate, expose, and put an end to organ transplant abuses in China. 

As the Falun Dafa Information Center has reported previously, since 2006, evidence has emerged of organ harvesting from illegally imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners (fact sheet). Unlike other countries, China has no large-scale voluntary organ donation system, so instead, military hospitals use prisoners. Experts now estimate that tens of thousands of jailed Falun Gong believers and other prisoners have been systematically examined, and then used as a living organ donor bank, killed on demand to fuel China's lucrative transplant industry.

The U.S. State Department’s 2011 Human Rights Report cited allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong believers and other prisoners of conscience. In October, 106 members of Congress wrote to Secretary Clinton requesting the release of information the State Department is believed to have about the gruesome practice. Two Congressional hearings have covered the topic, while leading transplantation doctors and medical organizations from around the world have condemned this crime against humanity.

New Tang Dynasty Television released a short documentary in November exposing forced organ harvesting crimes in China (view online).

The Falun Dafa Information Center is calling upon all Americans to sign this petition and provide President Obama with the support he needs to publicly condemn these crimes, and launch an in-depth investigation into who is responsible and how they can be stopped.

History has repeatedly taught us that remaining silent in the face of such horror is to be complicit. Let us take a stand.

Essential Background

In July of 1999, China's autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests, violence, and propaganda against Chinese citizens practicing Falun Gong (or "Falun Dafa") with the intent of "eradicating" the apolitical practice. Former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin launched the persecution fearing the practice's growing popularity among the Chinese people (70 to 100 million) was overshadowing his own legacy (article). Since then, the Falun Dafa Information Center, based in New York, has reported over 3,500 deaths from abuse and over 80,000 cases of torture. The United Nations, Amnesty International, Chinese human rights lawyers, and foreign media have also documented Falun Gong torture and deaths at the hands of Chinese officials (samples). Hundreds of thousands of Chinese who practice Falun Gong remain in captivity, rendering them the single largest group of prisoners of conscience in China (article). Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that is Buddhist in nature, but not part of the religion of Buddhism. It consists of slow-moving "qigong" exercises, meditation, and teachings for daily life centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance (about Falun Gong).