Over the past decade, reports have emerged that the Chinese government is killing prisoners of conscience to supply its vast, lucrative organ transplantation industry. Researchers have uncovered new evidence and figures mined from a variety of sources that reveal the true nature and scale of these abuses.

On June 22, 2016, three independent investigators—former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour, Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, and London-based investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann—published Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update,¹ a 680-page report illustrating a state-driven industry that transplants far more organs—by an order of magnitude—than can be accounted for by officially acknowledged organ sources, which China says are limited to executed death-row prisoners and voluntary donors.

The new report concludes:

• Based on government-imposed minimum capacity requirements, the 169 approved transplant hospitals could have conducted 60,000 to 100,000 transplants per year,² in contrast to its official claim of 10,000 per year.³ These hospitals had the capacity to perform more than one million transplants since 2000.⁴ More than 1,000 hospitals applied for permits in 2007 to continue performing transplants.⁵
• The main source of the massive volume of organs are primarily practitioners of Falun Gong, as well as Uyghurs, Tibetans, and House Christians.
• Organ pillaging in China is a crime directed by the Communist Party and carried out by the military, state institutions, hospitals, and transplant professionals.

Israel, Spain, Italy, and Taiwan have passed laws restricting their citizens from traveling to China to receive organ transplants from illicit sources.

The U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament have passed resolutions (H.Res.343⁶ and 2013/2981(RSP),⁷ respectively) condemning the practice. Hearings have been held by the U.S. Congress, the British Parliament, the European Parliament, and the Canadian Parliament.

The story of China’s killing for organs is beginning to gain traction across media outlets all over the world.

“The [Communist] regime’s ghoulish and inhumane practice of robbing individuals of their freedom, throwing them in labor camps or prisons, and then executing them and harvesting their organs for transplants is way beyond the pale of comprehension and must be opposed universally and ended unconditionally.”

—Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, U.S. Congresswoman (R-FL)