Falun Gong

China’s medical field began to conduct human organ transplantation in the 1960s. Our hospital survey found that there was tremendous development in China’s human organ transplant industry after 1999. Within just a few years, China was performing more transplants than any other country in the world.¹

Since 2000, the development of organ transplantation technology has been continuously incorporated into the National Five-Year Plans for multiple industries,^{2 3 4 5 6} the National Key Basic Research and Development Program (973 Program),⁷ and the National High Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program).⁸ Most of the 169 approved transplant centers have received funding from national, military, and civilian research and development funds.

The exponential rise of human organ transplant surgery in China coincided with the start of the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to wipe out Falun Gong.⁹

Falun Gong is a meditation practice that revolves around ancient Chinese traditions of health and self-improvement based upon the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

By the end of the 1990s, the Chinese government estimated that over 70 million people were practicing Falun Gong.¹⁰ On July 20, 1999, the former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin saw the group’s popularity and revival of traditional values as a threat to his rule and launched a violent campaign to “bankrupt them financially, ruin their reputations, and destroy them physically.”¹¹

Disappearances

Since the very beginning of the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners have appealed to government departments in their respective provinces and in Beijing, only to be arrested en masse and tortured.

The Public Security Bureau in Beijing determined that, as of April 2001, a total of 830,000 Falun Gong practitioners had been registered or arrested, not including those who refused to give their names to police to avoid implicating their families or people in their workplaces and neighborhoods.¹² The unidentified practitioners were not sent back to their hometowns.¹³ More practitioners were rounded up all across China.

According to a report by China’s justice department, China had 670 operating prisons in 2004, holding a total of more than 1.5 million inmates.^{14 15} There were also 300 forced labor camps in operation before the laojiao system of RTL (Re-education Through Labor) camps was abolished at the end of 2013.¹⁶ The Laogai Research Foundation stated in 2010 that as many as 3 to 5 million people were imprisoned in laogai camps.¹⁷

The US Congressional Executive Committee on China’s annual report for 2008¹⁸ noted that international observers believed that half of those incarcerated in China’s forced labor camps were Falun Gong practitioners. Ethan Gutmann estimates that Falun Gong constituted about half of the laogai system in 2001 and then leveled off to 15 to 20% over the long term, translating to about 500,000 to 1,000,000 Falun Gong practitioners being detained in the laogai system at any given time.¹⁹

Many detention centers were built or expanded all over China to contain the large number of Falun Gong practitioners who were arrested and detained. The Chinese Communist Party also made use of military and underground civil defense facilities to establish holding units for Falun Gong practitioners.^{20 21} These practitioners have disappeared, both legally and practically.

Policy of Destruction

On August 21, 2000, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security held a nationwide telephone conference to relay new orders that the practice of Falun Gong was to be eradicated in three months.²² Du Daobin of Hubei Province reported in May 2003 that the local 610 Office, the Communist Party office charged with the repression of Falun Gong, had received instructions that stated, “no law regulates the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners,” and “deaths of Falun Gong practitioners from beating are nothing and shall be counted as suicide; the bodies shall be directly cremated without investigating the person’s identification.”²³

On October 9, 1984, the Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Civil Affairs jointly promulgated the “Provisional Regulations on the Use of Corpses or the Organs of Executed Prisoners.”²⁴ It allowed the bodies and organs of prisoners to be used under certain conditions.

During the persecution of Falun Gong, perpetrators used the “Provisional Regulations” to justify that the families of practitioners killed could not claim the bodies of their loved ones. The Regulations contains a loophole that allows for the sourcing of organs from Falun Gong practitioners without either their consent or the consent of their family members, whether or not they have been sentenced to death.

This regulation paved the way for forced organ harvesting and the unlawful sale of bodies. The China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center (CITNAC) said on its website,

“Being able to complete such a number of organ transplant operations is inseparable from the government’s support. The Chinese government’s Supreme People’s Court, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Public Security system, judicial system, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Civil Affairs jointly promulgated laws on October 9, 1984 and established that organ procurement would be an activity supported by the government. This is a one of a kind in the world.”²⁵

Cases of practitioners’ bodies being cremated without the consent of their families continue to be reported on Minghui.org.

Blood Tests

In detention centers, Falun Gong practitioners are frequently given blood tests and medical examinations, while other prisoners (with the exception of Uyghurs, Tibetans and certain House Christian groups who were also targeted) receive no such examinations. Such examinations are a prerequisite for determining an individual’s suitability for organ sourcing.

During the investigation, Ethan Gutmann interviewed over 50 Falun Gong practitioners who had been detained in labor camps and prisons in China, most of whom were forcibly given blood tests and unusual examinations. Many similar cases were recorded in Matas and Kilgour’s book, Bloody Harvest. The website Minghui.org publishes firsthand accounts of Falun Gong practitioners all over China who have been subjected to such examinations.

In April 2014, in Guizhou, Liaoning, Hunan, Hubei, Beijing and other locations, police entered practitioners’ homes and forcibly took blood samples and cheek swabs. The policemen claimed to be following orders from above.²⁶ In one month, sixteen practitioners in the Dandong area of Liaoning Province had blood samples forcibly collected by police.²⁷

References