Falun Gong Practitioners Systematically Murdered for Their Organs: Refuting the Chinese Regime's "Death Row" Explanation, Chapter XIII

This article was first published in January 2010.

(Minghui.org) In 2006, The Epoch Times newspaper broke a stunning story about what is undoubtedly one of the most horrible atrocities to be committed by any government, not only in modern times, but in all of recorded history. As documented in the investigative report, "Bloody Harvest," by noted human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific region David Kilgour, there is overwhelming evidence of the Chinese Communist regime's chilling role in systematically murdering Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs while they are alive, and making huge profits from doing so. In response to the international outcry, the Chinese regime has attempted to explain away one of the main pieces of circumstantial evidence--the meteoric rise in the number of organ transplantations in recent years and the extremely short wait times in a culture notoriously averse to organ donation--by stating that it has harvested organs from executed criminals after their deaths. Faced with undeniable evidence, it has attempted to escape culpability for a monstrous atrocity by admitting to a lesser crime. In this report, we will show evidence that directly contradicts this claim and lends further credence to the serious charges leveled against the Chinese regime.

XIII. What you can do?

"My God! I can't believe this is true!" This might have been your reaction when you first heard about live organ harvesting.

You are not alone. Sixty years ago, Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, said something similar when he learned about the Nazi killing of Jews.

1. An excerpt from Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust

Today we all know the unquestionable veracity of the Holocaust, the systematic killing of Jews in concentration camps by the Nazis. We tend to assume that when it was happening, the existence of the Nazi death camps was a well-known fact. People may wonder: how come everyone knows about the Holocaust, while few people know the inside story of live organ harvesting in China? Some have used the different reactions of the outside world as a reason to refute the organ harvesting allegations.

As a matter of fact, when the Nazis were killing Jews, the outside world did not know about it at all, except for very few who were desperate to get the word out. Sometimes the descriptions were sketchy and conflicting. It was as hard then as it is today to get the facts out regarding the CCP's taking organs from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust gives a compelling story of extraordinary courage. Jan Karski, a Polish diplomatic courier, escaped a Soviet prison and endured Nazi torture. Karski snuck into the Warsaw ghetto and into a Nazi death camp so that he could witness the mass murder first hand. In 1942-43, Jan Karski reported on the extermination of Jews to British and American leaders. At the arrangement of Jan Ciechanowski, Polish Ambassador to the United States, Karski met Felix Frankfurter, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, at his first dinner upon arriving in Washington D.C. The following conversation took place after this dinner.

The Supreme Court justice sat opposite Karski, looking into his eyes.

"Mr. Karski," Frankfurter asked, "do you know that I am a Jew?"

Karski nodded.

"There are so many conflicting reports about what is happening to the Jews in your country," Frankfurter said. "Please tell me exactly what you have seen."

Jan spent half an hour patiently explaining how his missions to the Ghetto and the camp had come about and precisely, in gruesome detail, what he had witnessed. When Karski finished, he waited for the visitor to make the next move.

Frankfurter silently got up from his chair. For a few moments, he paced back and forth in front of Karski and the ambassador, who looked on in puzzlement. Then, just as quietly, he took his seat again.

"Mr. Karski," Frankfurter said after a further pause, "a man like me talking to a man like you must be totally frank. So I must say: I am unable to believe you."

Ciechanowski flew from his seat. "Felix, you don't mean it!" he cried. "How can you call him a liar to his face! The authority of my government is behind him. You know who he is!"

Frankfurter replied, in a soft voice filled with resignation, "Mr. Ambassador, I did not say this young man is lying. I said I am unable to believe him. There is a difference." [67]

Over 60 years later, this account is as pertinent as it was then. When you exclaim "My God! I can't believe this is true!" upon hearing accounts of live organ harvesting, you may make an additional comment, as Justice Frankfurter did, "I did not say [he] is lying. I said I am unable to believe him."

2. Even a single case of live organ harvesting amounts to a monumental crime

The CCP has consistently stonewalled outside investigations. It has guarded information related to death row inmates as state secrets. Efforts to analyze organ sources from death row inmates and living Falun Gong practitioners face a tremendous challenge. However, based on some public data and observations, the limitation of organs from death row inmates and the features of China's organ market, especially with witness accounts from those with inside information, extensive telephone investigation, and testimony by organ mediation agents have all led us to believe that the drastic growth of China's organ market from 2003 to 2006 has everything to do with organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

Zhang Zhixin, a courageous young woman, was killed during the Cultural Revolution for questioning the CCP policy and its ultimate leader Mao Zedong. What shocked the entire nation was that before her execution, CCP officials cut Zhang's throat to prevent her from shouting out anything inconvenient to the regime. Later on, many thought that the Cultural Revolution was a thing of the past. However, in 1999, the overwhelming slander and persecution against Falun Gong revived what was going on during the Cultural Revolution. Zhang's reputation was restored, but the mechanism that killed her has not been dismantled in China. If the organ harvesting allegations are true, it represents, to quote Kilgour and Matas, "a disgusting form of evil which, despite all the depravities humanity has seen, are new to this planet."

A single occurrence of such an atrocity, not to mention its appearance on such a systematic scale, amounts to a monumental crime. These are the most blatant reflections on the authoritarian regime's utter disregard for life.

3. So-called "economic miracles" are no excuse for persecution

When discussing the CCP's human rights abuses, some people have cited China's economic growth as an excuse. Economic development cannot serve as an excuse or cover-up of the CCP's suppression of the Chinese people. It took Adolf Hitler less than three years to accomplish Germany's so-called "economic miracle". Hitler successfully reduced the unemployment rate to nearly zero from over 30%, which raised Germany's international status and made it a European power again in short order. However, the killing of Jews in concentration camps has defined Hitler's era. No one ever praises Hitler for economic growth during his rule.

China's growth in these years is much more fragile than that of Germany in the 1930's. It has been achieved at the cost of environmental devastation, resource depletion, and moral collapse, a price that will be paid for generations to come. What it all boils down to is a society's morality. If we do not raise our voices to stop such atrocities of live organ harvesting, China will have no future as a state or as a nation.

Many have been driven by economic interests and turned a blind eye to the CCP's brutal suppression of its citizens. However, more and more people are speaking out against such crimes. In his April 2006 letter to President George W. Bush, Dana Rohrabacher, ranking member of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote, "The kind of moral complicity required for the non-consensual removal and sale of human organs is certainly unique. We as legislators, as statesmen and Americans, must not also become complicit in these crimes by keeping silent. History cares not whether we inked another trade deal or helped sell another Boeing 747, but history will judge us if we choose to look the other way when faced with truly indescribable human suffering on this scale."

4. What can you do?

We have seen that the CCP has responded to organ harvesting charges by regulating China's organ market to fool the outside world, while strictly preventing independent outside investigations from being conducted in China. This blatant rejection of outside investigations is an indication that the CCP is involved in a cover-up. The CCP is also hoping that others will forget the drastic growth of China's organ market from 2003 to 2006 against the backdrop of the all-out campaign to suppress Falun Gong.

Czech writer Milan Kundera once described the struggle against Communism as "the struggle of memory against forgetting." What the CCP wants is for people to "forget." What the people of China are struggling for is to "remember."

The CCP of the past cut Zhang Zhixin's throat with impunity, just as the CCP of today can harvest organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. As long as the CCP, which is the source of decades of China's misery, continues to exist, tomorrow's victim could be anyone.

Everyone can do his or her part, in gathering evidence, demanding that the CCP allow independent, outside investigations to be conducted, exposing the truth about this episode in history, and putting an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, the persecution of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance.

If you are a doctor who has participated in harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, we hope you will not be blinded by immediate interests. Your involvement in live organ harvesting was brought about by the CCP. Without the overwhelming slanderous campaign and the policy of "beating [Falun Gong practitioners] to death will be counted as suicide," the environment for live organ harvesting would not have existed. What has happened has happened. Keeping your lips sealed and guarding the CCP's secrets cannot alleviate the gravity of these crimes or your remorse. By bringing out the truth, you can live up to your conscience, and reduce or even offset the crimes that were committed knowingly or unwittingly. It is the only way out.

References

[67] E. Thomas Wood and Stanislaw M. Jankowski, Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust, Wiley and Sons, 1996