“良心犯”子女将在美成立属于自己的公益组织
2015-04-30 






中国著名“良心犯”王炳章的女儿王天安、张前进的女儿张睿、刘贤斌的女儿张桥等，本周三（4月29日）在华盛顿宣布将成立属于他们自己的民间公益组织：“良心犯的孩子”。

由美国民间维权组织“公民力量”主办的第十届族群青年领袖研习营本周三进入第三天。中国“良心犯”的子女们在当天宣布，将成立属于自己的公益组织:“良心犯的孩子”，这一组织旨在调动中国国内、国际资源救援“良心犯”，记录“良心犯”及其家人的真实故事。美国哈德逊研究所“国际宗教自由”项目主任霍罗威茨（Michael Horowitz）主持了会议，中国著名“良心犯”王炳章的女儿王天安、张前进的女儿张睿、刘贤斌的女儿张桥等在会上作了发言。

王天安的父亲王炳章于2003年被中国当局判处无期徒刑，目前已在狱中度过12年。王天安在会上表示，她马上就要结婚，但父亲却无法来参加婚礼，令她非常遗憾。四川作家刘贤斌是“零八宪章”的首批签署人之一，几度入狱的刘贤斌于2011年3月再度被中国当局以「煽动颠覆国家政权罪」判处10年有期徒刑。张桥在会上谈到父亲刘贤斌时几度落泪，她说，在美国被视作英雄的父亲，在中国却被当作罪犯，这么多年来她只能通过书信来感受父爱。

张桥在接受自由亚洲电台记者采访时表示，很多和她经历类似的中国“良心犯”的孩子来到美国后，尽管得到了来自社会各界的帮助，但内心深处其实非常孤独。成立属于“良心犯”孩子自己的组织，可以让他们互相鼓励、互相扶持，一起诉说属于他们的故事。张桥说，

“最大的意义是把我们大家聚到一起，你不是一个孤独的个体，象一个家庭，我们可以互相帮助。还有我们可以不具有政治意义地讲述自己的故事，一个人讲的时候别人只会感动，如果大家一起讲，就会非常有力量。”

美国“对华援助协会”主席傅希秋牧师也积极支持成立这一组织。他在会上借著名维权律师高智晟的女儿格格的故事，讲述了中国“良心犯”的孩子们从小受到的磨难。傅希秋牧师向自由亚洲电台表示，中国除了有“富二代”、“官二代”，还有这些“狱二代”。他说，

“他们的思维已经不仅仅局限于我们希望父亲回家，希望亲人团聚。他们希望可以看到一个民主自由中国的出现，他们希望去做国际性的参与。他们在西方受了这样的教育，有这样宏大的视野、宽广的心，愿意去推动公民运动的观念。”
这次活动的主要发起人、“公民力量”创始人杨建利博士向本台表示，海外中国“良心犯”的孩子越来越多，这些孩子的成长经历也是中国人权史重要的一部分。

“这些孩子在美国、其他国家受到教育，他们慢慢也成长了，我一直在鼓励他们，能够把他们的故事写下来。我想如果让他们组织起来，形成一个互助的机构，他们之间自己可以互助，同时也可以研究营救良心犯的最好方式。”

杨建利说，成立“良心犯的孩子”公益组织并不是说这些孩子们要象他们的父母一样从事民运工作，但是，“良心犯”的孩子凝聚在一起，共同发声，却可以让海内外社会各界更加关注这些孩子的父母，进而关注中国日益恶化的人权状况。他说，

“比如让他们出现在营救良心犯的记者会，抗议活动，还有私下约见世界领袖、希望营救这些良心犯的时候，这些孩子出现效果是最好的，我们希望他们介入这样的工作。”

杨建利告诉本台，预计这一组织几个月后会在美国正式注册。这个组织是开放的，并且不局限于中国“良心犯”的子女。目前已有杨倩怡（杨海的女儿）、王芷怡（王东海的女儿）、丁吉华（丁家喜的女儿）、陈锦宇（陈启堂的儿子）、何佳（何德普的儿子）、丁梓俣（古川的儿子）、杨海涵（马永田的女儿）等15位良心犯的子女应邀参加。

（记者：唐琪薇 编辑：吴晶）

Wang Bingzhang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wang Bingzhang (Chinese: 王炳章; pinyin: Wáng Bǐngzhāng; born December 30, 1947) is a political activist and founder of two Chinese pro-democracy movements. He is considered a political prisoner of China.

Biography[edit]
Wang Bingzhang was born on December 30, 1947, in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China. He graduated from Beijing Medical University and served as a doctor for eight years. In 1979, he was sponsored by the Chinese government to study abroad in McGill University, Canada where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in pathology in 1982.[1]

In 1982, Wang established China Spring, the first pro-democracy Chinese magazine overseas. In the next year, he launched the "Union of Chinese Democracy Movement" publicly denouncing the one party rule in China. He later traveled back to China and co-founded two opposition parties, the Chinese Freedom Democracy Party and Chinese Democracy Justice Party in 1989 and 1998, respectively. The latter led to his arrest in China. He was expelled from the country, but was not sentenced.[1] In early 2002, Wang was in Thailand where Royal Thai Police investigated him at the bequest of the Communist Party of China. Finding no evidence against him and fearing for his safety, Dr. Wang was urged to leave the country. In June 2002, Wang went to Vietnam with Yue Wu and Zhang Qi where they were abducted by Chinese secret agents. In December 2002, the Chinese government announced his arrest after six months in secret custody.[2]

In February 2003, Wang was sentenced to life in prison, on charges of espionage and terrorism. His trial was closed to the public and lasted for one day. He is imprisoned in Shaoguan Prison in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, China.[2]

In March 2006, Wang was punished for misbehavior when he locked a guard in his cell with him. Communication with Wang, including visitation rights for family, was cut off, and family was informed that the punishment would last for 3 months. Shortly after, in April 2006, his father died, to which he responded with a hunger strike. This resulted prolonged punishment. Visitation rights were restored in November 2006. According to Dr. Bing Wu Wang, Wang's younger brother, his physical health deteriorated rapidly since the last visitation. This was due, according to Wang, to a new prison warden with lower food quality requirements, harsher physical abuse and intense political study sessions.[3]

Various international organizations, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Worldrights, etc., have voiced their opposition to Dr. Wang's imprisonment, saying China is arbitrarily detaining him.[4] The United States and Canadian legislatures have both passed legislative bills in support of Wang and in denunciation of the CPC's actions.[5][6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Bingzhang

again, where is swedish government

US Lawmakers Shown False ‘Peace And Calm’ in Lhasa During Visit to Tibet
2015-11-20 

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/pelosi-11202015170710.html

A visit to Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa by U.S. lawmakers last week was highly staged, with all signs of a typically heavy security presence removed from central areas in the city before the delegation’s arrival, according to a source inside Tibet.

U.S. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of six lawmakers to the normally tense and tightly controlled city—the scene of violent 2008 protests against Chinese rule—on Nov. 10 for a three-day visit, a local resident told RFA’s Tibetan Service this week.

“On the eve of the visit … Chinese officials in Lhasa ordered 10 members from each division of each township, and six members from each neighborhood, to participate in staged religious activities,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They were summoned from all sectors of the Lhasa city government jurisdiction and forced to circumambulate around the religious sites, while the monasteries in the city were directed to organize religious activities during the three days.”

According to the source, many of the people called to stage religious activities “were paid for their participation.”

“Therefore, it would have been very difficult for Nancy Pelosi and others to see the true status of religious freedom in Tibet,” he said.

The source said that all of the metal-detector gates used to scan people entering the Jokhang—Lhasa’s central cathedral—and the police tents regularly pitched in the central Bakhor district were removed from the area before Pelosi’s arrival.

“The U.S. delegation did not see even one of those restrictive gates, so the visitors might have got a false impression of peace and calm in the area,” he said.

“In reality, the situation is very different.”

The delegation was shown a Potemkin Lhasa where religious freedom and economic progress is enjoyed by all, the source said.

“They likely did not see any of the darker aspects of Tibetan life in Lhasa, and thus [didn’t understand the problems] in the wider Tibetan region,” he said.

“Whatever they saw was all staged and part of a deceptive plan to paint the wrong picture, so it is important for all to know the truth.”

Confidential letter

The Tibetan government-in-exile on Friday cited a “confidential letter” from a resident of Lhasa who said the city was under a severe lockdown in late October and early November, and described repressive measures taken by the Chinese government to silence Tibetans ahead of the delegation’s visit.

“Lhasa was placed under extreme repression and the people were being constantly indoctrinated in political thoughts, using both violent and softer approaches,” said the letter, according to the report by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India.

“Free speech was also severely curtailed. So much so that people felt it difficult to even move their bodies.”

The letter echoed the account of RFA’s source, saying the gates to Barkhor, which were constantly guarded by security personnel, “were all of a sudden removed and replaced with new doors and lesser security.”

“We were confused at first for the cause of these replacements. However, we realized their intent after learning about the U.S. delegation’s visit,” the letter said.

The letter welcomed the fact-finding visit to Lhasa and expressed the Tibetan people’s desire to meet with the delegation, but acknowledged that it would be hard for Pelosi and the other lawmakers to learn the aspirations of Tibetans because their visit was being guided by Chinese authorities.

‘We saw what they wanted’

On Tuesday, Pelosi and the other members of the delegation—Democratic Representatives Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, Betty McCollum and Tim Walz of Minnesota, Joyce Beatty of Ohio and Alan Lowenthal and Ted Lieu of California—thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for inviting them on the state visit, which also included stops in the capital Beijing and Hong Kong.

McGovern, the co-chair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, said it was clear that the Chinese government “has invested a great deal in Tibet,” but warned that the investment “should not come at the price of an entire culture.”

“You cannot confine a people’s culture and heritage—their very sense of identity—to a museum or a market of handicrafts,” he said.

Pelosi, who has been highly critical of the situation in Tibet, agreed that China’s government was not doing enough to preserve the traditions of the Tibetan people.

“It’s beautiful if the Chinese government spends a lot of money to gild the temple roof … but we’re interested in what’s happening in the minds of the children, and the education and the perpetuation of the culture there,” she said, adding that a large scale resettlement of majority Han Chinese to the region is “diluting that culture.”

The lawmakers were also quick to acknowledge that their delegation had been guided by handlers and encountered difficulty meeting with Tibetan residents of the city.

“I think it’s fair to say that … the Chinese government wanted to control as much of our visit as they could. And we saw what they wanted us to see,” McGovern said.

Pelosi said that 30 Chinese officers guiding their delegation “is probably a conservative estimate because there were people who—shall we say—had walkie talkies that may not have been identified as security” joining the entourage through Lhasa, making sure the lawmakers stuck to a prescribed route.

“Well, what they wanted us to see was housing. And we did,” she said.

“Did we see families? I’m not sure.”

Ambassador visit

In June 2013, sources in Tibet told RFA that a visit to the region by then-U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke was met with a similarly staged welcome, including police officers dressed as Tibetans from remote rural and nomadic communities, carrying prayer wheels and rosaries in their hands.

During his trip, Locke emphasized the importance of preserving the Tibetan people’s cultural heritage, including its unique linguistic, religious, and cultural traditions, the U.S. State Department said at the time.

A riot in Lhasa in March 2008 followed the suppression by Chinese police of four days of peaceful protests by Tibetans, and led to the destruction of Han Chinese shops in the city and deadly attacks on Han Chinese residents.
More than a dozen civilians were killed in the clashes, according to various reports.

The riot sparked a wave of mostly peaceful protests against Chinese rule that spread across Tibet and into Tibetan-populated regions of western Chinese provinces.

Hundreds of Tibetans were detained, beaten, or shot as Chinese security forces quelled the protests.

Meanwhile, a total of 143 Tibetans to date have self-immolated to challenge Beijing’s rule in Tibetan-populated areas and to call for the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Reported by Sonam Wangdu for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

'The People They Killed Were Citizens'

2015-10-23


http://www.rfa.org/english/women/gaoyu-10232015142053.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Veteran journalist Gao Yu is currently serving a seven-year jail term handed down by the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court in April for "leaking state secrets overseas,” although she has repeatedly denied breaking Chinese law and continues to appeal. During a trip to the United States in 2006, Gao spoke to RFA's Mandarin Service about her life story spanning the history of modern China, including the June 4, 1989 military crackdown on the student-led democracy movement on Tiananmen Square:

On Aug. 28, 1990, they had kept me locked up for 13 or 14 months by then, the police took me back home in their car at about 8.00 p.m. I had already been detained for so long that I demanded an explanation. "You need to tell me what this was about," I told them. "No, we don't," they said.

They hadn't told my family when they detained me, not until they'd held me for three-and-a-half months. Then they issued a notice of "residential surveillance" which was in effect until my release.

I still remember what it was like to come home that day, the neighbors were all there to welcome me. As soon as I got back, the next-door neighbor, who worked as a lecturer at the science and technology university, told the police off, saying "I had a heart attack because you took Gao away, and I had to stay in hospital for two months."

Another old department chief from the culture ministry told me I was a hero. I was only locked up for a year and a half, and I was a hero.

They disappeared me suddenly in 1989, and my husband thought I'd probably been beaten to death. He started looking for me in the morgues of major hospitals, when they had laid out the bodies and started taking photos of them. He would go to the hospitals and look through the photos. If he found one that looked like me, he would have the body wheeled out.

Husband's diabetes, mother's death

Then he started asking at all of the detention centers in Beijing to see if I was there, but I wasn't. He had a pretty hard time of it, by all accounts, and wound up with diabetes. He was 54 in 1989, five years older than me, and he got diabetes as a result of all the stress and grief.

Somebody who lived upstairs from me also disappeared very suddenly. During the June 4 crackdown they were firing at our apartment building and [my husband] told the kids to get under the bed because they were firing on the upper floors of the building, on the fourth floor, the highest floor in our building. He was afraid the kids would be hit; he was so scared.

As soon as I got home [from detention], my mother, who had been through a lot of [political] campaigns since 1949, including the Cultural Revolution, when our house was searched and there were a lot of problems because my father was a high-ranking official. But this was to be the last political campaign that my mother experienced.

About 20 days after I got back, in September, she just collapsed to the floor, and we tried to set her upright. We didn't know what to do, so we called an ambulance. They told us it was a heart attack, and took her to the Anzhen hospital.

There wasn't as much equipment in the hospitals back in those days. When we got there, my mother ... needed a CT scan, and those were only available in the Sino-Japanese Hospital next door. We didn't find out that it was a stroke until we got there. When she woke up, she couldn't speak, because the stroke had impaired her language function.

A year and two months later, my mother was in a coma ... she was thin, just skin and bones, and then she died. I don't think she would have died so soon if it hadn't been for June 4.

Now, so many years later, I think that the [democracy] movement would have been the best way of achieving harmony between the people and the government. We hear so much about a harmonious society today. But what if you're not harmonious?

Maybe they don't want to reappraise the movement for now, but they could at least go after those who were responsible; that would be enough. They should admit that the people they killed were ordinary citizens, and not violent rebels.

[Late ousted premier] Zhao Ziyang was very clear about that. He wouldn't go against his conscience, even if it meant going to hell. He didn't want to give the order to the troops to fire. If he had agreed to do that, he'd still be the general secretary today.

He had always wanted to solve China's problems on the basis of democracy and the rule of law. If the Chinese Communist Party had been able to accept his views, if the gerontocracy hadn't been carrying on its machinations behind the scenes ... he would have got enough support within the central committee and the standing committee; after
all, he was the general secretary. If he had succeeded, I really think that China would be in a great place right now.

Reported by Zhang Min for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

高瑜案：将于11月24曰上午九点在北京市高级人民法院，二审不公开开庭审理。

A Summary of International Action Against Organ Harvesting

Posted on: August 24, 2015

http://fofg.org/latest-reports/summary-of-international-action-against-organ-harvesting/

For over a decade, hospitals in China have worked with the prison and court systems to systematically kill tens-of-thousands of prisoners of conscience for their organs. The vast majority of these individuals are believed to be practitioners of Falun Gong. Faced with this state-sponsored murder and organ-harvesting apparatus, many of the world’s media remain silent and people are in disbelief that such a thing could happen. But the fact that it is happening can no longer be credibly disputed.

In-depth research by Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas and former parliamentarian David Kilgour, American journalist Ethan Gutmann, and others have collected undeniable evidence that this has taken place.

Many governments are paralyzed from taking action, possibly in fear of disrupting their complex relationships with China. For activists seeking to bring an end to this disaster these problems can seem daunting. However, some individual countries have taken action to prevent their own citizens from participating in this crime. Insurance companies can also refuse to assist people who travel to China for organ transplants. Among the countries that have already taken such steps are Spain, Israel, Taiwan, Italy, and some states in Australia.

In an excerpt from an article originally published in the Epoch Times, David Kilgour summarizes the International Initiatives & Legislations designed to take action to reduce the number of Falun Gong practitioners being murdered to fuel China’s organ transplant industry.



1. United Nations
Since 2006, several U.N. Special Rapporteurs have asked the Chinese government for an explanation of the serious allegation of organ pillaging from live Falun Gong practitioners. They pointed out to the government that a full explanation would disprove the allegations, but the Party-state has provided no meaningful answer, simply denying the charges.
The experts then asked for the source of organs for China’s organ transplant operations. The first allegation was sent on Aug. 11, 2006, jointly by Special Rapporteur on Torture Prof. Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion Ms. Asma Jahangir, and Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons Ms. Sigma Huda:

It is reported that employees of several transplant centres have indicated that they have used organs from live Falun Gong practitioners for transplants. After the organs were removed, the bodies were cremated, and no corpse is left to examine for identification as the source of an organ transplant. Once the organs were removed they were shipped to transplant centres to be used for transplants for both domestic and foreign patients. Officials from several detention facilities have indicated that courts have been involved in the administering the use of organs from Falun Gong detainees.

The Chinese authorities replied to the Special Rapporteurs’ allegation with a categorical denial. To that, Jahagir and Nowak followed up with a second joint letter on Jan. 25, 2007. In a later report submitted to the Human Rights Council, Tenth session, Nowak stressed that “New reports were received about harvesting of organs from death row prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners.”
Independent experts of the United Nations Committee against Torture also addressed the issue of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in Nov. 2008, referring to “information received that Falun Gong practitioners have been extensively subjected to torture and ill-treatment in prisons and that some of them have been used for organ transplants.”
The committee then recommended that the Chinese authorities investigate and punish those responsible for forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong: “The State party should immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims that some Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to torture and used for organ transplants and take measures, as appropriate, to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.”


2. European Parliament
In September 2006, the European Parliament conducted a hearing (David Matas and I testified) and adopted a resolution condemning the detention and torture of Falun Gong practitioners, and expressing concern over reports of organ harvesting. The issue was also raised by direction of the EU troika leadership through the Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja meeting bilaterally with China’s Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing at the EU-China summit in Helsinki.

On Dec. 1, 2009, the European Parliament Human Rights Subcommittee held hearings on organ transplant abuse in China. The European Parliament resolution of May 19, 2010 “Action plan on organ donation and transplantation (2009/2015)” states:
Notes the report of David Matas and David Kilgour about the killing of members of Falun Gong for their organs, and asks the Commission to present a report on these allegations, along with other such cases, to the European Parliament and to the Council.
Organ pillaging in China was among the main topics in a hearing at the European Parliament on Human Rights in China on Dec. 6, 2012. David Matas testified.


3. Spain
The new Criminal Code passed in November 2009 includes the illegal trafficking of human organs as a felony. The new Criminal Code establishes penalties of up to twelve years in prison for people who encourage, promote, facilitate or advertise the procurement of illegal human organs trafficking.

The Spanish version (PDF) is available on the official web site of Spanish National Transplant Organization, an institution belonging to the Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumption. See English version.


4. Taiwan
In August 2007, Hou Sheng-mao, the Director of Taiwan’s Department of Health, reported requesting Taiwanese doctors to not recommend to their patients to travel to mainland China for transplants.
In February 2013, Taipei Bar Association issused a statement to condemns organ harvesting in China.
On November 22, 2012, the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan Voted for Budget Resolution Concerning Medical Organ Transplantation, which is legally binding for the Department of Health. Chinese original text is here (PDF), on page 715 of the budget resolution document (Page-715 PDF), English translation.


5. Australia
In late 2006, the Australian Health Ministry announced the abolition of training programs for Chinese doctors in organ transplant techniques at the Prince Charles and the Princess Alexandra Hospitals, as well as banning joint research programs with China on organ transplantation. New South Wales is also considering legislation against organ trafficking.  See the Queensland government document.
On March 21, 2013, Australian Senate unanimously passes motion on organ harvesting. The motion can be found here (PDF).


6. Belgium and Canada
Two Belgian senators, Patrik Vankrunkelsven and Jeannine Leduc, introduced into the Belgian Parliament on Nov. 30, 2006 a law, which addresses organ transplant tourism. Former Canadian MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj introduced into our House of Commons extraterritorial legislation banning “transplant tourism” in 2008. Both would penalize any transplant patient who receives an organ without consent of the donor where the patient knew or ought to have known of the absence of consent.


7. France
French Parliamentarian Valérie Boyer on Oct. 19, 2010, along with several other members of the National Assembly, proposed a law which sets out certificate and reporting requirements similar to Canada’s proposed law. The proposed law requires every French citizen and habitual resident who undergoes an organ transplant abroad to acquire at the latest 30 days after the transplant a certificate stating that organ was donated without payment. The organ recipient must provide the certificate to the French Biomedical Agency before returning to France.
The proposed legislation requires every doctor to report to the Biomedical Agency the identity of every person the doctor examined who underwent a transplant. The proposed law in turn requires the Biomedical Agency to report to the Public Department any person who there are reasonable grounds to believe was involved in a financial transaction to obtain an organ.


8. Israel
Israel passed a law banning the sale and brokerage of organs. The law also ended funding, through the health insurance system, of transplants in China for Israeli nationals. Jay Lavee, in his contribution to the book “State Organs,” explains this law as a reaction to transplant abuse in China.

The original texts of Israel Transplant Law – ORGAN TRANSPLANT ACT, 2008 (PDF)
Saving Lives Locally, by Dr. Jacob Lavee



9. United States
In September 2006, the U.S. Congress held a hearing on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Four witnesses testified at the hearing, including Matas and myself.

On Oct. 3, 2012, 106 Members of the U.S. Congress urged the U.S. State Department to release information on organ pillaging in China from Falun Gong practitioners and other religious and political prisoners, and requested the State Department to release any information it might have, including details that former Chongqing deputy mayor Wang Lijun is believed to have transmitted during his brief sanctuary in the U.S. Consulate in February 2012.

Wang Lijun was directly involved in organ harvesting practices. In his capacity as police chief, he founded a research centre on organ transplantation in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province. The centre conducted several thousand organ transplant operations, with unexplained organ sources.

The State Department acknowledged in its 2011 Human Rights Report, released in May 2012, that “Overseas and domestic media and advocacy groups continued to report instances of organ harvesting, particularly from Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs.”
Since June 2011, the online U.S. non-immigrant visa application, Form DS-160, requires the following information from applicants from every country: “Have you ever been directly involved in the coercive transplantation of human organs or bodily tissue?”



10. NGOs and Medical Organizations
Various NGOs and medical organizations have issued statements urging the investigation and measures to stop the forced organ pillaging from prisoners of conscience, particularly Falun Gong. Some examples:
In August 2006, the New York-based National Kidney Foundation issued a statement expressing deep concerns over allegations that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners were being executed for the purposes of organ donation, as well as opposition to such a scheme and to organ transplant tourism generally.

In 2007, the Transplantation Society introduced new policy on interactions with China, against using the organs from prisoners.
The policy of the World Medical Association includes now a paragraph that organ donation from prisoners is not acceptable in countries where the death penalty is practiced. This is a newly adopted policy.

WMA Statement on Organ and Tissue Donation, adopted by the 63rd WMA General Assembly, Bangkok, Thailand, October 2012.
In jurisdictions where the death penalty is practised, executed prisoners must not be considered as organ and/or tissue donors. While there may be individual cases where prisoners are acting voluntarily and free from pressure, it is impossible to put in place adequate safeguards to protect against coercion in all cases.

UN NGO International Education Development made a statement on Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners at the United Nations during its September session 2012.

Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) is a non-government organization founded by medical doctors who were alerted by the coerced organ harvesting from prisoners and prisoners of conscience in China. DAFOH seeks to promote ethical standards in medicine and to end the forced organ harvesting (FOH) practices in China. DAFOH informs medical communities as well as publics about these practices by articles and essays in medical and non-medical journals, presentations at fora and media interviews.

In 2012, DAFOH provided speakers for both U.S. Congressional hearings on the FOH topic (Sept. 12 and Dec. 18). In 2012, DAFOH initiated several petitions in Europe, Australia and U.S. (including the so-called White-House-Petition) calling for an end of the FOH in China and further investigation through the UNHRC. Within 3 months, the petitions garnered 250,000+ signatures. At a follow up visit, the UNHRC recognized the number of signatures as “impressive.”


11. Individual Initiatives
Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament and rapporteur for the EU’s Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, traveled to China in May 2006 on a fact finding mission to investigate organ harvesting and has since repeatedly condemned the organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.

In 2007, Dr. Tom Treasure, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, “The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the holocaust, and ourselves,” found the allegations credible, particularly in the context of the role doctors played in the Holocaust.

In 2007, a petition signed by 140 Canadian physicians was presented to the House of Commons urging the government to issue travel advisories warning people that organ transplants in China include the use of organs harvested from non-consenting donors such as Falun Gong practitioners.

In 2008, a special rabbinical council in Israel ruled that the Beijing regime has been responsible for the killing of Falun Gong practitioners, perhaps because of material benefits derived from organ harvesting.

In 2008, The Weekly Standard featured a cover story on organ harvesting, authored by Ethan Gutmann, adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The article described systematic medical testing of Falun Gong practitioners.

In July 2012, Dr. Torsten Trey and David Matas published a volume on organ transplant abuse in China, including the killing of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. The book, “State Organs,” is a collection of essays by leading medical professionals and other commentators from four continents who have researched organ harvesting in China. It consolidates evidence of these abuses, discusses their ethical implications, and provides insight on how to combat these violations. The Ebook is available from amazon:
On Dec. 2, 2012, three medical doctors, Arthur Caplan, Alejandro Centurion, and Jianchao Xu, initiated a petition calling upon the Obama administration to investigate and help stop forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong in China. The petition is posted within the “We the People” section of the White House website.
Unfortunately, these and other developments have not yet ended the trafficking in organs from involuntary “donors” across China.

12. China
The government of China now accepts that sourcing of organs from prisoners is improper. Deputy Health Minister Huang Jeifu in 2009 stated that executed prisoners “are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants.” In 2005, Huang admitted that over 95 percent of the organs transplanted in China came from executed prisoners. China had been denying using prisoners’ organs prior to this admission.
In 2006 a World Medical Association resolution demanded that China stop using prisoners as organ donors, and in 2007 the Chinese Medical Association agreed to do so.

In 2010 at a transplant conference in Madrid, Minister Huang stated that between 1997 and 2008 China had performed more than 100,000 transplantations, with over 90 percent of the organs being from executed prisoners. In no other country on earth are there more executions than in China.

“The actual number of executions is a closely guarded state secret,” says John Kamm, the head of the U.S.-based nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation. “However, in recent years to some extent the curtain has been raised somewhat by officials or scholars who have access to the real numbers and earlier this year we did get some indication as to the number of people executed in 2011–approximately 4,000, more than all other countries in the world combined.”

Human rights organizations fear the number could be even higher. Roseanne Rise, from Amnesty International says, “We’re concerned that prisoners aren’t really independent enough to give meaningful consent.” She adds, “When they’re under the control of the state and dependent on it for all of their daily needs it’s difficult to assess whether they’re really giving voluntary consent.”
In February 2012, Huang again stated that the practice of organ harvesting from prisoners continues in China today, but that the government wants to phase it out by 2015 and build up a national donation scheme. This will be very difficult to do because many Chinese are unwilling to donate their organs.

“It’s … a cultural taboo,” explains Kamm. “The Chinese traditionally believe that when they leave this world and enter the next they have to be in possession of all their organs. So the number of people who have been willing to donate organs is very small.” The state will have to inform citizens and convince them to donate their organs instead as part of a nationwide scheme. There is some hope that the younger generation will be less intent on keeping all their organs before entering the next world.

In 2009, 10 provinces introduced an organ donation program. In 2010, in order to meet the increasing demand for donor organs, China launched a trial program allowing people to voluntarily donate their organs after they die. In February 2011, it was reported that, in total, 37 people had donated 97 organs through the trial program. By March 2012, the pilot programs had persuaded just 207 people to donate their organs after death, according to the Red Cross Society of China, which operates the transplant system. The donors were mainly from the rural poor, and 90 percent of them or their families asked for financial aid in return for their organs.

Despite public pressure to donate, hundreds of organ donor coordinators employed by the new system are having little success. In Shandong Province, none of the coordinators managed a successful case in 18 months. The city of Tianjin had only a total of 19 donations since 2010. No organ donor materials were on display at the large Tianjin No. 2 Hospital.

Before the government abolishes the practice of organ harvesting from executed prisoners, tens of thousands more will be killed for their organs in the meantime. Since Matas and I began our voluntary work, the number of convicted persons sentenced to death and then executed has decreased overall quite dramatically, but the number of transplants, after a slight decline, rose to earlier levels. Since the only other substantial source of organs for transplants in China, apart from Falun Gong, is prisoners sentenced to death, a decrease of sourcing from that population means an increase in sourcing from Falun Gong.

In the past, the death penalty was administered by gunshot. Today, lethal injection is the most common practice. The latter is beneficial for such purposes as retrieving organs, as they remain intact. Most executions in China take place in mobile buses. These “execution buses” are often parked right next to hospitals.

13. Corporate Social Responsibility
Some pharmaceutical companies, such as Novartis and Pfizer, have voluntarily pulled away from pharmaceutical trials of anti-rejection drugs in China because of ethical concerns. There is, however, still need for binding national regulation in this area. Arne Schwarz in “State Organs” and David Matas in a speech in Philadelphia detailed a wide range of pharmaceutical trials of anti-rejection drugs done in China. Some were conducted in hospitals from which our telephone investigators obtained admissions that they were selling organs of Falun Gong.

Sydney's Falun Gong Devotees Marched Against Forced Organ Harvesting of Their Members in China
May 15, 2015

http://www.vice.com/read/sydneys-falun-gong-practitioners-rallied-against-forced-organ-harvesting-of-their-members-in-china



Members of Falun Gong march through Chinatown in Sydney. All photos by the author


At midday last Saturday in Sydney's Hyde Park, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners were preparing for the World Falun Gong Day march: a celebration of the Taoist-Buddhist spiritual movement which is outlawed in China. But the march was also a protest against the state-sanctioned practice of harvesting human organs. Falun Gong claims that organ transplant operations are being carried out on living people, with the organs being made available to wealthy local and foreign patients.

In 1984, the removal of organs from executed prisoners was made legal in China, with consent from the condemned prisoner or their family. Knowledge of this practice increased outside of China, when in 2001 Dr Wang Guoqi testified before a US government committee that he'd been involved in these operations. In 2005, China's then vice health minister, Dr Huang Jiefu, acknowledged that the organs of executed prisoners were being supplied to foreigners.

But by 2006 reports that prisoners of conscience were being killed for their organs began emerging. Canadian MP David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas carried out an investigation. Their research included interviews with the ex-wife of a surgeon, who said her husband had removed around 2,000 corneas from living prisoners, and phoning Chinese hospitals to inquire into transplant operations. Hospital staff asserted that the organs of Falun Gong practitioners were available and that these were considered a healthy source due to their exercise regime.

Chinese officials put out a statement explaining China followed World Health Organisation principles and had a regulated system of human organ transplants. They claimed the report was a smear campaign and hoped people would recognise Falun Gong as an "evil cult".

China carries out 10,000 organ transplant operations annually. Dui Hua, a San Francisco-based prisoner's rights organisation estimated in 2013 2,400 executions took place, while Amnesty International said they had evidence that put the 2006 figure at up to 8,000. A voluntary donor system was recently set up in the country in 2010, but this only accounts for 3,824 donors over the last five years. According to Falun Gong practitioners these figures don't add up.

The Kilgour-Matas report found that between 2000 and 2005 the source of organs for 41,500 transplant operations couldn't be accounted for. And outlined that a large increase in operations began directly after July 1999, which was when the Chinese government started detaining thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in labour camps.

Jintao Liu was in the second row of the World Falun Gong Day march as it made its way down George Street towards Chinatown. Now a permanent resident of Australia, Jintao hails from Yinshui Town in Shandong Province, China. The 34-year-old chemical engineer began practicing Falun Gong in 1997, whilst still in high school. In November 2006, he was sent to a government-sponsored "brainwashing class" for a month.

"Because I didn't give up my beliefs, I was sent to Beijing Changping Detention Centre. They can put you in places like that with no legal procedures," Jintao told VICE through a translator. "After two months, there was no sign I would give up my beliefs, so I was sentenced to two years in a labour re-education camp."

Falun Gong was first taught publicly in China in 1992 by its founder Li Hongzhi. Based on Buddhist and Taoist principles, the practice combines qigong and meditation exercises. John Deller, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, said that the practice was initially supported by the Chinese government. Li was sent to cities around the country to teach Falun Gong and many Chinese Communist Party members began practicing it.

"It's only after they started to notice the numbers of people practicing that the leader Jiang Zemin, started to become suspicious," Deller said. "In 96, they started banning the book Zhuan Falun, the main teachings, which was well before the official persecution of Falun Gong began in July 99."

In the labour camp Jintao says he was isolated from other Falun Gong practitioners and kept amongst the regular prison population. He also claims he was subjected to a range of torture, including electric shocks, sleep-deprivation and being forced-fed through tubes in his nose.

According to Jintao, other prison inmates were directed to beat him and he noticed when they did so, they were careful not to damage his kidney area. He heard rumours from long-term inmates, about detainees who'd been transferred elsewhere and never came back.

"And I was blood tested many times. Usually you'd be sent to a medical centre, but sometimes it was just for blood tests," Jintao said, explaining that looking back now, he believes his compatibility was being tested for transplant operations.

Jintao asserts that after he was tortured with needles beneath his fingernails, he could no longer take it and wrote out a statement renouncing Falun Gong. But he stresses he never really gave up.

In 2013, he came to Australia as part of a tour group and once here, applied for a humanitarian visa.

Dr Sophia Bryskine, spokesperson for Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), said transplant tourism is a billion dollar industry. In China it only takes a few weeks to get an organ match, which is made possible by the large living organ bank of prisoners of conscience. In contrast it can take up to three years to find an organ match in Australia.

"They're injected with partial anaesthetic, so they're not completely deceased when their organs are taken out," Bryskine explained. "The organs freshness has a much higher guarantee that it's going to match."

In December last year, Australian-trained doctor, Huang Jiefu, now head of China's Organ Donation Committee, announced that the nation would stop harvesting executed prisoners' organs on January 1. Bryskine said DAFOH remain sceptical the reforms will bring any relief to the transplant crisis, as China has still not acknowledged its use of prisoners of conscience. "There has been no indication that the use of prisoners of conscience as organ sources has ended or will end any time," she said.

According to NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, there are dozens of Australians who travel overseas for organ transplants annually. He's been involved in drafting the NSWHuman Tissue Amendment (Trafficking in Human Organs) Bill, which is going to be presented before parliament in June. The legislation would make it a crime for a NSW resident to engage in unethical organ trading anywhere in the world.

Shoebridge added that he's spoken to a number Falun Gong practitioners, who whilst in Chinese prisons, "found themselves being subjected to repeated medical examinations, unrelated to their health but seemingly designed to work out their compatibility for the provision of their organs."

Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulrgregoire

International Efforts to Stop Forced Organ Harvesting From Falun Gong in China

http://www.stoporganharvesting.org/news/latest-news/80-international-efforts-to-stop-forced-organ-harvesting-from-falun-gong-in-china

Hon. David Kilgour, J.D. February 9, 2013


China’s 5,000-year-old civilization has given much to the world and is deserving of much respect. In this submission, however, the focus is on Party-state practices imported from European Marxism-Leninism from 1949 until today. The systematic abuse of targeted individuals and groups deemed “enemies” of the Party has, inter alia, resulted in widespread pillaging of vital organs from Falun Gong practitioners for commercial transplantation purposes.

 

Since the 1950s, not a decade has gone by without Party-state-led violence directed at segments of the population, who were labeled “counterrevolutionaries.” This includes Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward,” which resulted in the death by starvation of 25-40 million Chinese from 1959 to 1961, the Cultural Revolution, the 1989 crackdown on the democracy movement, and the persecution of Falun Gong since mid-1999.

From Encouragement to Persecution

When Falun Gong exercises and principles were initially introduced to the Chinese public in 1992, the Party-state not only acquiesced in its expansion, but assisted, inviting its founder to teach in government facilities and praising Falun Gong for the benefits it introduced to public health and ethics generally.

The more the movement grew, the more resistance it encountered—no doubt because some party leaders feared any large, independent group. When a Falun Gong book became a bestseller in 1996, it was banned. When a government survey estimated that more than 70 million nationals were practitioners in the mid-’90′s, more than the Party’s own membership, Party-state media began attacking the movement, and security agents harassed practitioners.

The Feb. 14, 1999 issue of U.S. News & World Report cited an official in the sports ministry saying that each Falun Gong practitioner was saving the state 1,000 yuan in health spending yearly. Party leader Jiang Zemin, however, made an overnight decision to eradicate it, even though many members of the Politburo were familiar with the practice and many Party members were doing the exercises. On July 20, 1999, the Communist party leadership launched a protracted and violent campaign whose stated purpose was to “eradicate” Falun Gong.

610 Office

The 610 Office, specifically created to persecute Falun Gong adherents, was given unrestricted power over each level of the Party-state administration, including all political and judicial offices, media, army, and police. Security personnel began to arrest and detain practitioners across the country.

Beatings, detention in forced labour camps, brainwashing and torture became the daily lot of many Falun Gong practitioners. The methods included shocking with high-voltage electric batons, sleep deprivation, starvation, sexual assault, forced abortions, drug injections, and forced-feeding.

Most of the abuse took place in secret behind closed doors, in detention centres, labour camps, and mountainside torture chambers. The party went to great lengths to hide what it was doing from journalists, scholars, human rights organizations, and other independent researchers.

Chinese nationals who attempted to investigate the abuses risked losing their careers, freedom, and lives. Foreign journalists could lose their work permits. Falun Gong who acted as informants to foreign media were imprisoned, tortured or worse. In October 1999, party leaders labeled the practice “an evil cult” to justify its ban retroactively and undermine sympathy in the West.

Then Party leader and president Jiang Zemin strongly appears to have been “jealous” of Falun Gong and “obsessed” with eradicating it. By creating a national campaign, he sought to consolidate political power in himself and to eliminate a movement he perceived as a threat to his power.

From the start, Falun Gong practitioners had no desire to become involved in politics and never intended to challenge the Party. Even after nearly 14 years of persecution, their only political objective is to seek peacefully to end the persecution across China.

Falun Gong

Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) is a spiritual discipline that seeks to improve body and ethics. It contains features of traditional systems, like Buddhism and Daoism (Taoism), combined with a set of gentle exercises. Its core principles are “truthfulness, compassion and forbearance,” which echo those of many faiths.

In China, where it first became public in 1992, Falun Gong grew within seven years to 70-100 million practitioners by the government’s own estimate. It had a belief system behind it entirely different from Marxism-Leninism. The exercises, moreover, could be done anywhere at any time, singly or in groups, indoors or outdoors. This made it impossible for the Party to control.

Forced Labour Camps

After 1980, the Party-state had begun withdrawing funds from the health system across China, obliging it to make up the difference through service charges to mostly uninsured patients. Selling the organs of executed convicts became a major source of funds because of world demand. Falun Gong later became the major additional source of organs. Organ prices were posted on Chinese websites.

In doing our final report on organ pillaging, David Matas and I visited about a dozen countries to interview Falun Gong practitioners sent to China’s forced labour camps, who managed later to leave the camps and the country itself. Most were sent to camps after mid-1999 without any form of a hearing on only a police signature.

Practitioners told us of working in appalling conditions for up to sixteen hours daily with no pay and little food, crowded sleeping conditions and torture. They made export products, ranging from garments to Christmas decorations as subcontractors to multinational companies. This, of course, constitutes gross corporate irresponsibility and violations of WTO rules and calls for an effective response by all governments who trade with China.

The labour camps, outside the legal system, allow the Party to send anyone to them for up to three years with neither hearing nor appeal. One estimate of the number of the camps across China as of 2005 was 340, having a capacity of about 350,000 inmates.

In 2007, a U.S. government report estimated that at least half of the inmates in the camps were Falun Gong. Other detainees from labour camps interviewed by Human Rights Watch and Chinese Human Rights Defenders consistently observed that Falun Gong were the largest group in the labour camps and were singled out for torture and abuse.

There is a clear link between the labour done since 1999 by Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners in the camps and the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs in Canada and elsewhere. Canada and other countries should ban forced labour exports by legislation, which puts an onus on importers to prove their goods are not made in effect by slaves. 41,500 Transplants

According to research David Matas and I have done, set out in our book “Bloody Harvest,” practitioners have been killed in the thousands since 2001 so that their organs could be trafficked to Chinese and foreign patients. For the period 2000-2005 alone, Matas and I concluded that for 41,500 transplants done, the only plausible explanation for sourcing was Falun Gong.

The main conclusion of our book is that there “continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners (…) Their vital organs, including kidneys, livers, corneas and hearts, were seized involuntarily for sale at high prices, sometimes to foreigners, who normally face long waits for voluntary donations of such organs in their home countries.” Our revised report is accessible in 18 languages from www.david-kilgour.com

The experience of Falun Gong practitioner Chen Ying, who was later awarded refugee status by the government of France, is fairly typical: “Because I would not renounce my Falun Gong convictions, between February 2000 and November 2001, I was imprisoned three times without any judicial process… Each time, I was mistreated and tortured by the police… At the end of September 2000, as I would not tell them my name, I was called out by the police and taken to a hospital for a complete medical examination: cardiac, blood, eyes, etc. I had to carry chains on my legs and I was attached to a window frame. The police injected me with unknown substances. After the injections, my heart beat abnormally quickly. Each one gave me the impression that my heart was going to explode…”

International Initiatives

1. United Nations

Since 2006, several U.N. Special Rapporteurs have asked the Chinese government for an explanation of the serious allegation of organ pillaging from live Falun Gong practitioners. They pointed out to the government that a full explanation would disprove the allegations, but the Party-state has provided no meaningful answer, simply denying the charges.

The experts then asked for the source of organs for China’s organ transplant operations. The first allegation was sent on Aug. 11, 2006, jointly by Special Rapporteur on Torture Prof. Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion Ms. Asma Jahangir, and Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons Ms. Sigma Huda:

“It is reported that employees of several transplant centres have indicated that they have used organs from live Falun Gong practitioners for transplants. After the organs were removed, the bodies were cremated, and no corpse is left to examine for identification as the source of an organ transplant. Once the organs were removed they were shipped to transplant centres to be used for transplants for both domestic and foreign patients. Officials from several detention facilities have indicated that courts have been involved in the administering the use of organs from Falun Gong detainees.”

The Chinese authorities replied to the Special Rapporteurs’ allegation with a categorical denial. To that, Jahagir and Nowak followed up with a second joint letter on Jan. 25, 2007. In a later report submitted to the Human Rights Council, Tenth session, Nowak stressed that “New reports were received about harvesting of organs from death row prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners.”

Independent experts of the United Nations Committee against Torture also addressed the issue of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in Nov. 2008, referring to “information received that Falun Gong practitioners have been extensively subjected to torture and ill-treatment in prisons and that some of them have been used for organ transplants.”

The committee then recommended that the Chinese authorities investigate and punish those responsible for forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong: “The State party should immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims that some Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to torture and used for organ transplants and take measures, as appropriate, to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.”

2. European Parliament

In September 2006, the European Parliament conducted a hearing (David Matas and I testified) and adopted a resolution condemning the detention and torture of Falun Gong practitioners, and expressing concern over reports of organ harvesting. The issue was also raised by direction of the EU troika leadership through the Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja meeting bilaterally with China’s Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing at the EU-China summit in Helsinki.

On Dec. 1, 2009, the European Parliament Human Rights Subcommittee held hearings on organ transplant abuse in China. The European Parliament resolution of May 19, 2010 “Action plan on organ donation and transplantation (2009/2015)” states:

“Notes the report of David Matas and David Kilgour about the killing of members of Falun Gong for their organs, and asks the Commission to present a report on these allegations, along with other such cases, to the European Parliament and to the Council.”

Organ pillaging in China was among the main topics in a hearing at the European Parliament on Human Rights in China on Dec. 6, 2012. David Matas testified.

3. Taiwan

In August 2007, Hou Sheng-mao, the Director of Taiwan’s Department of Health, reported requesting Taiwanese doctors to not recommend to their patients to travel to mainland China for transplants.

4. Australia

In late 2006, the Australian Health Ministry announced the abolition of training programs for Chinese doctors in organ transplant techniques at the Prince Charles and the Princess Alexandra Hospitals, as well as banning joint research programs with China on organ transplantation. New South Wales is also considering legislation against organ trafficking.

5. Belgium and Canada

Two Belgian senators, Patrik Vankrunkelsven and Jeannine Leduc, introduced into the Belgian Parliament on Nov. 30, 2006 a law, which addresses organ transplant tourism. Former Canadian MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj introduced into our House of Commons extraterritorial legislation banning “transplant tourism” in 2008. Both would penalize any transplant patient who receives an organ without consent of the donor where the patient knew or ought to have known of the absence of consent.

6. France

French Parliamentarian Valérie Boyer on Oct. 19, 2010, along with several other members of the National Assembly, proposed a law which sets out certificate and reporting requirements similar to Canada’s proposed law. The proposed law requires every French citizen and habitual resident who undergoes an organ transplant abroad to acquire at the latest 30 days after the transplant a certificate stating that organ was donated without payment. The organ recipient must provide the certificate to the French Biomedical Agency before returning to France.

The proposed legislation requires every doctor to report to the Biomedical Agency the identity of every person the doctor examined who underwent a transplant. The proposed law in turn requires the Biomedical Agency to report to the Public Department any person who there are reasonable grounds to believe was involved in a financial transaction to obtain an organ.

7. Israel

Israel passed a law banning the sale and brokerage of organs. The law also ended funding, through the health insurance system, of transplants in China for Israeli nationals. Jay Lavee, in his contribution to the book “State Organs,” explains this law as a reaction to transplant abuse in China.

8. United States

In September 2006, the U.S. Congress held a hearing on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Four witnesses testified at the hearing, including Matas and myself.

On Oct. 3, 2012, 106 Members of the U.S. Congress urged the U.S. State Department to release information on organ pillaging in China from Falun Gong practitioners and other religious and political prisoners, and requested the State Department to release any information it might have, including details that former Chongqing deputy mayor Wang Lijun is believed to have transmitted during his brief sanctuary in the U.S. Consulate in February 2012.

Wang Lijun was directly involved in organ harvesting practices. In his capacity as police chief, he founded a research centre on organ transplantation in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province. The centre conducted several thousand organ transplant operations, with unexplained organ sources.

The State Department acknowledged in its 2011 Human Rights Report, released in May 2012, that “Overseas and domestic media and advocacy groups continued to report instances of organ harvesting, particularly from Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs.”

Since June 2011, the online U.S. non-immigrant visa application, Form DS-160, requires the following information from applicants from every country: “Have you ever been directly involved in the coercive transplantation of human organs or bodily tissue?”

9. NGOs and Medical Organizations

Various NGOs and medical organizations have issued statements urging the investigation and measures to stop the forced organ pillaging from prisoners of conscience, particularly Falun Gong. Some examples:

In August 2006, the New York-based National Kidney Foundation issued a statement expressing deep concerns over allegations that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners were being executed for the purposes of organ donation, as well as opposition to such a scheme and to organ transplant tourism generally.

In 2007, the Transplantation Society introduced new policy on interactions with China, against using the organs from prisoners.

The policy of the World Medical Association includes now a paragraph that organ donation from prisoners is not acceptable in countries where the death penalty is practiced. This is a newly adopted policy.

UN NGO International Education Development made a statement on Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners at the United Nations during its September session 2012.

Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) is a non-government organization founded by medical doctors who were alerted by the coerced organ harvesting from prisoners and prisoners of conscience in China. DAFOH seeks to promote ethical standards in medicine and to end the forced organ harvesting (FOH) practices in China. DAFOH informs medical communities as well as publics about these practices by articles and essays in medical and non-medical journals, presentations at fora and media interviews.

In 2012, DAFOH provided speakers for both U.S. Congressional hearings on the FOH topic (Sept. 12 and Dec. 18). In 2012, DAFOH initiated several petitions in Europe, Australia and U.S. (including the so-called White-House-Petition) calling for an end of the FOH in China and further investigation through the UNHRC. Within 3 months, the petitions garnered 250,000+ signatures. At a follow up visit, the UNHRC recognized the number of signatures as “impressive.”

10. Individual Initiatives

Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament and rapporteur for the EU’s Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, traveled to China in May 2006 on a fact finding mission to investigate organ harvesting and has since repeatedly condemned the organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China.

In 2007, Dr. Tom Treasure, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, “The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the holocaust, and ourselves,” found the allegations credible, particularly in the context of the role doctors played in the Holocaust.

In 2007, a petition signed by 140 Canadian physicians was presented to the House of Commons urging the government to issue travel advisories warning people that organ transplants in China include the use of organs harvested from non-consenting donors such as Falun Gong practitioners.

In 2008, a special rabbinical council in Israel ruled that the Beijing regime has been responsible for the killing of Falun Gong practitioners, perhaps because of material benefits derived from organ harvesting.

In 2008, The Weekly Standard featured a cover story on organ harvesting, authored by Ethan Gutmann, adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The article described systematic medical testing of Falun Gong practitioners.

In July 2012, Dr. Torsten Trey and David Matas published a volume on organ transplant abuse in China, including the killing of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. The book, “State Organs,” is a collection of essays by leading medical professionals and other commentators from four continents who have researched organ harvesting in China. It consolidates evidence of these abuses, discusses their ethical implications, and provides insight on how to combat these violations. The Ebook is available from amazon:

On Dec. 2, 2012, three medical doctors, Arthur Caplan, Alejandro Centurion, and Jianchao Xu, initiated a petition calling upon the Obama administration to investigate and help stop forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong in China. The petition is posted within the “We the People” section of the White House website.

Unfortunately, these and other developments have not yet ended the trafficking in organs from involuntary “donors” across China.

11. China

The government of China now accepts that sourcing of organs from prisoners is improper. Deputy Health Minister Huang Jeifu in 2009 stated that executed prisoners “are definitely not a proper source for organ transplants.” In 2005, Huang admitted that over 95 percent of the organs transplanted in China came from executed prisoners. China had been denying using prisoners’ organs prior to this admission.

In 2006 a World Medical Association resolution demanded that China stop using prisoners as organ donors, and in 2007 the Chinese Medical Association agreed to do so.

In 2010 at a transplant conference in Madrid, Minister Huang stated that between 1997 and 2008 China had performed more than 100,000 transplantations, with over 90 percent of the organs being from executed prisoners. In no other country on earth are there more executions than in China.

“The actual number of executions is a closely guarded state secret,” says John Kamm, the head of the U.S.-based nonprofit Dui Hua Foundation. “However, in recent years to some extent the curtain has been raised somewhat by officials or scholars who have access to the real numbers and earlier this year we did get some indication as to the number of people executed in 2011--approximately 4,000, more than all other countries in the world combined.”

Human rights organizations fear the number could be even higher. Roseanne Rise, from Amnesty International says, “We’re concerned that prisoners aren’t really independent enough to give meaningful consent.” She adds, “When they’re under the control of the state and dependent on it for all of their daily needs it’s difficult to assess whether they’re really giving voluntary consent.”

In February 2012, Huang again stated that the practice of organ harvesting from prisoners continues in China today, but that the government wants to phase it out by 2015 and build up a national donation scheme. This will be very difficult to do because many Chinese are unwilling to donate their organs.

“It’s … a cultural taboo,” explains Kamm. “The Chinese traditionally believe that when they leave this world and enter the next they have to be in possession of all their organs. So the number of people who have been willing to donate organs is very small.” The state will have to inform citizens and convince them to donate their organs instead as part of a nationwide scheme. There is some hope that the younger generation will be less intent on keeping all their organs before entering the next world.

In 2009, 10 provinces introduced an organ donation program. In 2010, in order to meet the increasing demand for donor organs, China launched a trial program allowing people to voluntarily donate their organs after they die. In February 2011, it was reported that, in total, 37 people had donated 97 organs through the trial program. By March 2012, the pilot programs had persuaded just 207 people to donate their organs after death, according to the Red Cross Society of China, which operates the transplant system. The donors were mainly from the rural poor, and 90 percent of them or their families asked for financial aid in return for their organs.

Despite public pressure to donate, hundreds of organ donor coordinators employed by the new system are having little success. In Shandong Province, none of the coordinators managed a successful case in 18 months. The city of Tianjin had only a total of 19 donations since 2010. No organ donor materials were on display at the large Tianjin No. 2 Hospital.

Before the government abolishes the practice of organ harvesting from executed prisoners, tens of thousands more will be killed for their organs in the meantime. Since Matas and I began our voluntary work, the number of convicted persons sentenced to death and then executed has decreased overall quite dramatically, but the number of transplants, after a slight decline, rose to earlier levels. Since the only other substantial source of organs for transplants in China, apart from Falun Gong, is prisoners sentenced to death, a decrease of sourcing from that population means an increase in sourcing from Falun Gong.

In the past, the death penalty was administered by gunshot. Today, lethal injection is the most common practice. The latter is beneficial for such purposes as retrieving organs, as they remain intact. Most executions in China take place in mobile buses. These “execution buses” are often parked right next to hospitals.

12. Corporate Social Responsibility

Some pharmaceutical companies, such as Novartis and Pfizer, have voluntarily pulled away from pharmaceutical trials of anti-rejection drugs in China because of ethical concerns. There is, however, still need for binding national regulation in this area. Arne Schwarz in “State Organs” and David Matas in a speech in Philadelphia detailed a wide range of pharmaceutical trials of anti-rejection drugs done in China. Some were conducted in hospitals from which our telephone investigators obtained admissions that they were selling organs of Falun Gong.

Recommendations

For organs trafficked in China, Matas and I would encourage Canadian MPs and senators and legislators in all parliaments to consider our recommendations, including, urging the Party-state in China to:

- cease the repression of Falun Gong;
- cease organ-pillaging from all prisoners;
- remove its military from the organ transplant business;
- establish and regulate a legitimate organ donor system;
- open all detention centres, including forced labour camps, for international investigation; and
- free Gao Zhisheng and many other prisoners of conscience.

Implement the following measures until organ pillaging from prisoners ceases:
- medical professionals in Japan and every country which respects human dignity should actively discourage their patients from going to China for transplant surgery;
- no government should issue visas to Chinese MDs for training in organ transplantation;
- MDs from outside China should not travel there to give training in transplant surgery;
- contributions submitted to medical journals about experience with transplants in China should be rejected; and
- pharmaceutical companies everywhere should be barred by their national governments from exporting to China any drugs used solely in transplant surgery.

Conclusion

Canada’s House and Senate should also enact measures to combat international organ transplant abuses: extraterritorial legislation, mandatory reporting of transplant tourism, health insurance systems not paying for transplant abroad, barring entry of those involved in trafficking organs.

Many of us in and beyond China might now have greater impact on the future of this grave matter, not only because it is necessary for tens of millions of Chinese Falun Gong practitioners and their families, who have been torn apart across China, but also because it is good for China and the international community as a whole. We all want a China that enjoys the rule of law, dignity for all, and democratic governance.

The above is an adaptation of a note presented on Feb. 5, 2013 to the Parliament of Canada, House of Commons Sub-Committee on International Human Rights, Ottawa.

David Kilgour was a Member of the Canadian Parliament from 1979 to 2006, and also served as Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) during 2002 and 2003. David Kilgour was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. For further information, go to www.david-kilgour.com

Source:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/international-efforts-to-stop-forced-organ-harvesting-from-falun-gong-in-china-346056-all.html

China: Local residents petition for Falun Gong releases

14 November 2011, 00:00 UTC

The Chinese authorities must immediately release two Falun Gong practitioners jailed for their beliefs in Hebei province, Amnesty International said today, as petitions by local residents calling for an end to their imprisonment reportedly reached almost 3,000 signatures.Zhou Xiangyang, 38, was released in 2009 after serving six years of a nine year prison sentence. He was detained again in March this year and is currently being held in Gangbei Prison in the northern city of Tianjin where he has reportedly been repeatedly tortured. After his wife issued an open letter detailing the couple’s hardships, she was detained on 29 October."In a gesture that’s rarely seen in China, thousands of ordinary people have dared to publicly show their support for individuals unfairly imprisoned and tortured in detention. This shows that the Chinese public is aware of and condemns persecution of people for their spiritual beliefs. It’s high time that the Chinese authorities heed this call and end their brutal suppression of the Falun Gong group," said Catherine Baber, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Asia."Zhou Xiangyang and his wife Li Shanshan must be released immediately. Given the pattern of retribution that is almost always seen against people who show any kind support for Falun Gong practitioners, we are urging the authorities not to target people who have peacefully petitioned for the release of Zhou Xiangyang," she added.The Chinese authorities have refused to inform Li Shanshan’s family or lawyer of her whereabouts. However, the Tangshan City Public Security Bureau told Li Shanshan’s mother and lawyer on 9 November that she had been sentenced to two years re-education through labour, and had been sent away. She was last seen on 4 November by her family at the Tangshan Legal Education Center, a type of detention center set up especially to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs,.Zhou Xiangyang has been on a hunger strike since his detention in March. His family were repeatedly interrogated and intimidated by local police over the petition earlier this month. Gangbei Prison is notorious for its ill-treatment of Falun Gong practitioners. In July this year, one practitioner, Li Xiwang, is reported to have died in the prison after being subjected to torture.Falun Gong is a spiritual movement which gained large numbers of supporters in China during the 1990s. After it staged a peaceful gathering in Tiananmen Square in July 1999, the government outlawed  the group as a "threat to social and political stability" .Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily detained as part of a campaign of intimidation and persection targeting the group. Practitioners have been held in psychiatric hospitals, re-education through Labour (RTL) facilities - a form of administrative detention imposed without charge, trial or judicial review - or sentenced to long prison terms.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2011/11/china-thousands-publicly-support-falun-gong-releases/

this not help solve problem at all

陈忠和: 中国维稳国际化是典型国际恐怖主义
2015-11-20

http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/gr-11202015112109.html

瑞典籍香港出版人桂民海在泰国失踪已经一个月，陈忠和先生认为，这是国内维稳国际化，国家恐怖主义肆无忌惮地走向国际的开始，国际社会必须高度重视中国政府的这个动向。

十月十七号，瑞典籍香港出版人，多种中国大陆政治禁书的作者桂民海先生在泰国失踪。失踪在半个月后开始引起媒体和国际社会的关注。据记者了解，现在瑞典政 府、警察机构已经开始介入这件事情的调查。与此同时，流亡荷兰的中国民主党海外委员会执行主席陈忠和先生也代表该组织，就桂民海事件向欧盟以及各国政府、 人权团体发出强烈呼吁。他认为，这个超越国界和国籍的针对异议人士个人的恐怖行动，已经成为一种新形势下的危害国际社会秩序的恐怖行为。欧洲社会必须及早关注这个动向。

为此，记者采访了陈忠和先生。关于桂民海事件，他首先对记者说，“桂民海先生事件之所以能够发生的原因是，中共政府在国际社会打交道采取了用经济交换人权，因此很多民主社会对于中国人权状况的监督和批评过于软弱，所以共产党的胆子就越来越大。他们现在不但是在国内疯狂地迫害人权以及人权律师等 等，而且现在他们已经把他们恐怖的黑手伸向海外。这种肆无忌惮的行为主要还是由于国际社会绥靖的结果。如果国际社会对于中国的人权状况严格地监视和批评的 话，也不会发展到今天这种地步。”

关于桂民海被失踪事件，陈忠和先生特别强调说，“中共在海外肆无忌惮地迫害人权，抓捕人权人士他们也是想证明，他们有力量在海外维稳。海外的民运人士也不能够乱说乱动，超越了他们的底线的话，他们也会想办法，而且有能力把你抓回去。”

陈忠和先生说，这种在泰国发生的国内维稳国际化可以说也是一种国际恐怖主义。对此他说，“共产党的国家恐怖主义伸向国际社会和伊斯兰国在巴黎进行的恐怖袭击实际上性质是一样的，我们都应该严正地进行谴责。”

为此陈忠和先生最后呼吁说，“我希望我们所有的媒体，所有的民运朋友都要向国际社会呼吁和揭露中共这种把恐怖的魔掌伸向海外这种现象，以及中国在海外收买媒体。广播电台等行为。大家都要行动起来，阻止中共这种恐怖主义向海外扩散。”

 

（RFA特约记者：天溢 / 编辑：寇天力）



香港出版人兼书店老板桂民海（Public Domain）

photo resource : Pelosi office

http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shaoshuminzu/dz-11182015104059.html

this did not made sense, from macro-economic theory, you should compare the price of Hamburger in McDonald, both in germany and russia.
 the normal monthly salary divided by the cost of 1 Hamburger of McDonald, then you can see who can buy more Hamburgers to eat, russian or german.

高度评价纪念胡耀邦 习近平有何政治算盘？(图)

http://news.6park.com/newspark/index.php?app=news&act=view&nid=132228

新闻来源: 美国之音 于 2015-11-20 12:06:18 大字阅读 敬请注意:新闻取自各大新闻媒体,观点内容不代表本网立场!

　



11月20号是中共前总书记胡耀邦诞辰100周年。中共在人民大会堂举办大型纪念活动，七个政治局常委全数出席，习近平更发表长达三十分钟的讲话。胡耀邦当年因“反对资产阶级自由化不力”的罪名而黯然下台，而他1989年的去世更被认为是六四天安门运动的导火线。习近平高调纪念胡耀邦这个中共一直回避的敏感人物，是出于什么样的政治考虑？胡耀邦当年提倡的解放思想，启蒙民众等理念，与当今习近平的治国方式有何距离？

　　参加讨论的四位嘉宾是：中共党史学者、《晚年周恩来》一书的作者高文谦； 中国民间学人王康；美国之音记者，社会学家龚小夏； 普林斯顿社会学博士，转型问题学者程晓农。

　　高文谦表示，拿死人做文章，是中共的政治传统。这次高调纪念胡耀邦也是一样。胡耀邦的开明、清廉和铁面反腐，已成为中共装点门面的道具。这次纪念胡是一石两鸟——既拿死人压活人，也是用死人给活人化妆：一方面，习近平反腐、深化改革，遭到党内权势集团的强力阻挠，根本推不动，想借纪念胡造势，排除阻力；另一方面，习上台后向左转，开倒车，形象大损，想借胡的清名，为自己包装，搞政治平衡，改善形象。

　　高文谦说，重新评价胡耀邦，不在于规格，习近平是否出席，也不在于给他戴什么高帽子，而是要给他摘帽子，还他一个公道。胡是背着“反自由化不力”的罪名抑郁而死的。胡的遗照满面愁容，是杜修贤在他发病前两天拍的，杜让他笑一笑，胡回答：“我怎么笑得出来？”可以说是抱恨而终，这是胡生前不能释怀的一块心病。胡德平说，胡的遗愿是希望“中央对他的问题，能够有一个结论”。如果习近平真心纪念胡，就应该改变这个结论，否则就是忽悠，胡耀邦地下有知，也不会舒眉开颜。

　　高文谦认为，习近平上台两年，在人们心目中的形象与胡耀邦截然不同。习学毛邓，已经颇有些“神似”，而对胡，可以说连“形似”都谈不上，完全是两条道上的车，形成鲜明的对比：胡为人开明，发动思想解放运动，突破两个凡是，带动全民思想启蒙；习思想守旧，上台后向左转，封杀言路，全面开倒车。胡平反冤假错案，给右派摘帽；习抓捕律师，制造新的冤案。胡为人宽厚，连政敌都承认他“不搞阴谋”；而习貌似仁厚，实则心机很深，善于韬晦之术，不像胡那样坦诚，可亲可敬。

　　王康认为，胡耀邦是社会主义国家追求真理、以人民为重的共产党领袖。其良知纯度和人道主义，是他主持平反冤狱、解放思想两大德业的基础，是他为中共专制制度难容的根本原因，是其猝死引发中国乃至世界最大规模民主运动的道德旗帜，也是中共1949年后最大正面精神遗产。胡耀邦 100周年诞辰，是检验习近平和中共当局的又一道尺度。胡耀邦之死及六四镇压，成为中国改革的墓志铭和权贵肆虐、全面腐败的序幕。如果以此为契机，昭雪六四，中国将摆脱26年政治严寒，走向民主宪政；反之，把胡耀邦作为强化红色帝国的教化工具，中国将不可避免地发生难以遏止的祸乱。在民主宪政尚未建立之前，中国人寄希望于政治人物，是时代的无奈，但如果一味罔顾人民的意愿，历史就会以更广泛的危机和反抗予以回应──这就是胡耀邦生死以之的启示。

　　程晓农认为，官方今天纪念胡耀邦，一方面是希望从耀邦的政绩和声望中挖掘一些所谓的“正资产”，来弥补统治集团摇摇欲坠的声誉；另一方面也想利用民众对耀邦的怀念和尊重，增加一点社会大众对当局的向心力。胡耀邦是中共领导人当中少有的理想主义者，因此表现出单纯、坦诚、率真、不玩权谋、亲近民众等人品特点。在充满了权谋和帮伙关系的中共高层，耀邦历经风险，从1983年到1987年短短4年间，他6次遭到党内高层的打压，耀邦有一句反映自己性格的话， “宁可得罪个别人，不能得罪十亿人”；而每次习仲勋都顶住邓小平等老人的压力，站出来支持耀邦，但耀邦最后终于被整垮。耀邦的孙女最近写文章纪念她爷爷时提到两句话，“他在邪恶面前选择了正义，在逆流面前选择了良知”。这两句话充分体现了胡耀邦这样的理想主义者领导人的政治选择，那就是，面对党内的邪恶和逆流，宁可选择正义和良知。中共历届领导人当中，只有胡耀邦和赵紫阳这样做过。

　　龚小夏认为，习近平的反腐得罪了不少红二代，而胡耀邦之子胡德平在干部子弟中有相当影响，这可能是习近平高度评价胡耀邦的考虑之一，即整合党内外对他的支持。胡耀邦当年的思想解放，其实并不是出于对于西方制度和普世价值有多大的了解，而是出于良知和常识感。他当年曾说，要学习西方，要用刀叉，不用筷子，要穿西装打领带。这可以看出他对于西方的理解是非常皮毛的。但他出于良知，知道要用符合常识的做法来治理中国。相比之下，今天的习近平又用毛那套违反常识的方式来统治中国，这是习和胡的不同之处。胡耀邦当年在党内的评价是“不成熟”，有点被看不起，其实反过来说他就是一个性情中人，他的率真使他在中共讲究心计的政治文化中无法生存下去。

610 office member, go hell !!!!!!!!!!!

太好了
刀出鞘
弹上膛
等你来


别你妈逼玩暗语了，傻逼五毛！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！