

Originally posted by The Parallelogram

The prisoner is already dead.



Originally posted by The Parallelogram

A patient in dire need of an organ is not.



To deny a patient the right to live because you don't want to see a murderer (who, once again, is already dead) dissected is every bit as ethically dubious an action as taking the convict's organ in the first place... but only one of these two courses of action could potentially save a life.



It is my understanding that physicians are bound by oath to provide the best possible care to their patients; if I am incorrect in this presumption, then by all means please set the record straight.



Michael E. Parmly, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Hearing Before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, House International Relations

Washington, DC

June 27, 2001





Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear at this important hearing to address the issue of the sale of human organs in China. The removal of organs from executed prisoners without proper permission from family members along with the trafficking in these organs is a serious, deeply disturbing subject that raises a number of profoundly important human rights issues. The State Department welcomes the opportunity to update the committee on our assessment of the problem and what the Department is doing to encourage China to put an end to this abhorrent practice.



As you know, reports of Chinese authorities removing organs from executed prisoners in China, without the consent of the prisoners or their families, are not new. The Hong Kong and London press carried the numerous reports as early as the mid-1980s, when the introduction of the drug Cyclosoporine-A made transplants a newly viable option for patients.



Our concern about such practices is also not new. We repeatedly raised this issue with high-level Chinese officials throughout the 1990s, pressing for changes in Chinese policy and practice, and urging changes in China’s legal and medical systems to ensure the protection of individual rights and the guarantee of due process. We have also covered the issue of organ harvesting in our annual human rights report on China to put the spotlight of international attention on this issue. We consider organ harvesting from executed prisoners, without permission from family members, to be an egregious human rights abuse that violates not only international human rights law, but also international medical ethical standards.



Unfortunately, despite our efforts, as well as those of human rights activists like Harry Wu, human rights organizations, and concerned medical professionals, the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners continues in China. The lack of transparency in the Chinese criminal justice system, the secrecy that surrounds prison executions, and the removal of organs make actual documentation of the practice impossible. However, the anecdotal and circumstantial evidence regarding the practice of removing organs from executed prisoners for sale to foreigners and wealthy Chinese is substantial, credible, and growing. It cannot be ignored. Credible sources include public statements by patients who have had transplants in China, doctors who have provided post-transplant care to these patients in the United States and elsewhere, and testimony by Chinese doctors and former officials who claim to have witnessed or taken part in such practices or to have seen incriminating evidence.



In the past, according to available evidence, the majority of patients receiving transplants in China came from other parts of Asia, including Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. A leading kidney specialist in Malaysia has estimated that over 1000 Malaysians alone have had kidney transplants in China. More recently, deeply troubling reports of Americans receiving transplants in China have been made public. American doctors, including Dr. Thomas Diflo, who will be testifying in a later panel, have reported seeing transplant patients from China in need of follow-up care. These patients have stated that they were informed by hospital personnel in China that the organs that they received came from executed prisoners.



The Department of State is also aware of reports that it cannot independently confirm, of other, even more egregious practices, such as removing organs from still-living prisoners, and scheduling executions to accommodate the need for particular organs. In addition, there are compelling first-hand reports that doctors, in violation of medical ethics codes, have performed medical procedures to prepare condemned prisoners for execution and organ removal. As former Assistant Secretary John Shattuck testified before this committee in 1998, our concern about the abhorrent practice of removing organs from executed prisoners without consent is compounded by our concerns about the lack of due process. According to Amnesty International there were 1,263 confirmed executions in 1999; according to another report 800 prisoners were executed in May 2001 alone as the government conducted another "strike hard" campaign against crime. A high court nominally reviews all death sentences, but as our Country Report on Human Rights Practices points out, and as a recent New York Times article graphically described, the time between arrest and execution is often days or even hours. Some prisoners are taken directly from the courtroom to the execution grounds. Appeals of sentences consistently result in confirmation of sentence.



1984 Rule in China Concerning Organ Donation:

In 1984, China enforced the “Rules Concerning the Utilization of Corpses or Organs for the Corpses of Executed Prisoners.”2 The rule provided “that corpses or organs of executed prisoners could be harvested if no one claimed the body, if the executed prisoner volunteered to have his corpse so used, or if the family consented.”3 China has zero tolerance for crime. The death penalty is obviously legal in China, but what constitutes a crime punishable by death? Amnesty International researcher, Arlette Leduguie, claims that, “criminals are executed for minimal offenses.”4 “In the past years, individuals have been executed for demeanors that would barely justify a custodial sentence elsewhere, pig stealing, or theft, for instance.”5 Amnesty International asserts that the Chinese government is performing executions to expand the organ trade from executed prisoners. According to witnesses in China, criminals are regularly examined to select matches for waiting patients.6 “One prisoner, during his seven year jail term, told how he saw numerous prisoners being medically prepared for organ removal. On the night before the execution, the prison staff would take blood samples.”7



According to David E. Jefferies in his article titled, "The body as a commodity: The use of markets to cure the organ deficit," a Chinese government document explains the procedures used in the extraction of executed prisoners organs generates between 2,000 and 3,000 human organs sold per year out of an estimated 4,500 executed prisoners.8 Amnesty International reports that, “China put more than 1,200 individuals to death in 1999.” 9 These figures translate into an average of over forty people per week.10 The explanation for the elevated number of executed prisoners is directly related to the current Chinese Communist Party leaders' decisions to eliminate crime in China. A South China Morning Post article claims that "The executions come after leading law enforcer Luo Gan urged police to strike hard to smash blackness and wipe out evil."11 The rising criminal activity in China is from higher unemployment rates and inflation due to economic development and reform. The Chinese government wants to extinguish crime before it becomes endemic.



Guangzhou Hospitals Transplanting Organs From Executed Prisoners



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By Fang Yuan

Radio Free Asia



Apr 06, 2005





Where are the greatest number of successful kidney and liver transplants performed in China? The first and third hospitals affiliated with Guangzhou Zhongshan University, respectively. The first hospital affiliated with the university is one of the largest hospitals in Mainland China.

As the hospitals’ success rates for transplant operations has continually increased, so has the business of providing organs for transplantation, according to the China Information Center in the U.S. This has led to the recent construction of a liver treatment center. However, this success is tainted by an alarming reality – the hospitals have been transplanting organs from recently executed prisoners.

.................

The China Information Center in the U.S. quoted some hospital personnel who disclosed that taking kidneys and livers from executed prisoners for use in transplantation has always been an “open secret” within the hospital. If the hospitals depended solely on voluntary organ donations and did not obtain organs from prisoners, the number of organs available for transplant would fall far short of the demand. Although Chinese law prohibits transplanting organs from condemned prisoners, the report says that the hospitals work in tandem with the local judicial departments.



In recent years, relatives of some executed prisoners have been suing the hospitals for illegal use of their relative’s organs. In June 2001, Wang Guoqi, a doctor at the Burn Unit of the Tianjin Paramilitary Police General Brigade Hospital before moving to the U.S., testified before Congress that he had removed corneas and skin from recently executed prisoners on at least 100 occasions. He said that he had also witnessed other doctors from the hospital selecting organs from prisoner’s bodies and later selling them for profit. Afterwards, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Dr. Wang’s testimony slandered China. Nevertheless, a series of facts has proven that some of the organs transplanted in China were indeed taken from recently executed prisoners.



Zeng Xianzi, a wealthy Hong Kong merchant and member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, received a kidney transplant six years ago at the Guangzhou Zhongshan University’s first hospital. The kidney that he received was taken from the body of an executed prisoner — but for “sensitive political reasons,” nobody dared to make the public aware of this incident.



Prisoner Organs

The Harvesting of Kidneys and Other Organs From Executed Prisoners in China Receives a Senate Airing

by CD&N Editors

Winter, 2001

For nearly 20 years, since the advent of the immunosuppressant agent cyclosporine A, there have been reports of an international network for the buying and selling of human organs, but no one has been sure as to how prevalent the practice has been. China has been the country most mentioned in this regard.



“A Bullet to the Back of the Head”



According to a news release from the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on International Relations, as many as 90% of the transplants performed in China utilize organs harvested from prisoners executed by a bullet to the back of the head. Amnesty International reports that some of these prisoners are executed for crimes no more serious than pro-democracy activism or tax evasion.



09.02.2005 - Amnesty International (AI): Significant rise in executions in the past few months, reported; there are concerns that a number of those executed may have been innocent



“Amnesty International has monitored a significant rise in executions as China celebrates the lunar new year. According to incomplete statistics, there were 200 executions reported in the two weeks leading up to the start of the lunar new year, 9 February.

There were at least 650 executions reported in local media in the months of December and January alone. Both months are considered to be ‘normal’, without the peaks seen around certain public holidays, although the true figure is certainly much higher, as China refuses to publish full details of all the people it executes.

You can read from the statements by the former Chinese military doctor that he witnessed at least one prisoner who was alive and the procedure was done to him when he was still alive....There have been testimonies and there is also the reports from Amnesty International which state that several people are executed for lesser crimes. The reasons for execution include being pro-democratic, being a member from certain religious groups and even people who are taken off the streets, accused of crimes and executed because their blood type is the same as a rich patient that is willing to pay anything for an organ transplant.Let's see some evidence of this practice.Excerpted from.Let's see some more information on this issue.Excerpted from.Now let' see a more recent article about this issue which is still ocurring in China.Excerpted from.Excerpted from.A report i gave not too long ago stated that even people are being tortured and executed for being from certain religious groups.Even a figure I gave in that report, saying that 600 people are executed a year in China, is way off mark according to Amnesty International.Excerpted from. news.amnesty.org... $FILE/newsrelease.pdf[edit on 15-9-2005 by Muaddib]