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Our May newsletter includes a report on the celebration of 13th May: World Falun Dafa Day and the impetus that will give to the struggle against the persecution.
There is also a message of goodwill from the Canadian Prime Minister and letter of support from a US Senator to all those involved in the battle against the evil Chinese regime.
We also report on the BBC's disclosure of British surgeons' accusations that China is selling the organs of Falun Gong practitioners and how a leading British physician has condemned the organ harvesting in China.
Another leading British medical expert expresses the opinion that the West must not sit back and accept China's organ harvesting.
Finally we show how China still has the audacity to deny that the organ harvesting has taken place.
At the end of the newsletter there is a letter of condemnation of the Chinese government's organ-harvesting policy - we would very much appreciate if you would agree to sign it and return it to the address provided.
Editor
Remember This Special Day - May 13 - World Falun Dafa Day
There are many memorable days in one's life, but some of them carry special, outstanding meaning. May 13 is that kind of a day to Falun Dafa practitioners around the globe.
On May 13, 1992, the founder of Falun Dafa, Mr. Li Hongzhi, first introduced Falun Gong to the public. He did so in north eastern China, in Changchun City, Jilin Province. During the following two years, Mr. Li Hongzhi held 61 classes all over China and endured numerous hardships. Students were widely benefited in both mind and body and they upgraded their virtue and moral character. Through word of mouth, in just seven years Falun Gong had spread to more than thirty countries, and by 1999, had attracted a hundred million cultivators in China alone. The first year after Falun Gong was persecuted, in 2000, Falun Dafa practitioners around the world decided to establish May 13 as "World Falun Dafa Day," in commemoration of the spread of Falun Dafa and to clarify the truth to more people, proclaiming that Falun Gong is freely practiced all over the world.
In the past fourteen years, Falun Gong has spread around the world. No matter how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defames Falun Gong, the fact that the practice has widely helped people improve their health and become better people is undeniable. According to a health survey conducted in Beijing in 1998, among 12,731 Falun Gong practitioners, 93.4% had sickness before cultivation, and 99.1 0reatly improved their health after cultivating. When the world's people are facing unbearable medical costs, and seeking alternative ways of maintaining health, the dramatic effect of Falun Gong's healing illness and keeping people fit seems to be telling the world of a good solution with great potential.
The short account above may help people understand Falun Gong and the meaningful value of its worldwide spread, and help them understand why Falun Dafa practitioners celebrate May 13, World Falun Dafa Day. We believe that after walking through this history of persecution, more and more people will find the true profound inner meaning of Falun Gong. On that day, people will say, "This is a memorable day for the whole world, let us remember it."
Falun Dafa Day in DC, USA |
Falun Dafa Day in Sweden |
Falun Dafa Day in the UK |
Falun Dafa Day in Ireland |
Falun Dafa Day in Germany |
Falun Dafa Day in France |
Falun Dafa Day in Turkey |
Falun Dafa Day in New Zealand |
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper Sends Best Wishes for World Falun Dafa Day
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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
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Greetings from the Prime Minister
On the occasion of World Falun Dafa Day, I am happy to extend my best wishes to the many Falun Gong practitioners who live and work in Canada and who contribute to our national diversity.
The tolerance which characterises our cultural traditions, coupled with the enduring commitment of our people, has resulted in a quality of life which is admired internationally for its richness and diversity. As Canadian citizens, we are grateful for Canada's shared values of openness and tolerance and the freedom of conscience and religion. All Canadians, including Falun Gong practitioners, should remember to never take these values or rights for granted.
On this day, I commend Canada's Falun Gong community for its commitment to our nation's shared values and I wish you a happy, safe and prosperous year.
Sincerely,
(Signature)
The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
U.S. Senator Mark Dayton Sends Congratulations on Falun Dafa Day
On May 13, 2006, US Senator Mark Dayton form Minnesota wrote in congratulation of Falun Dafa Day.
United States Senate
Washington, D.C.
Mark Dayton
Minnesota
May 13, 2006
Dear Members of Falun Dafa of Minnesota:
I wish you well, as you celebrate World Falun Dafa Day. I hope that your dedication to this day will be fulfilling to you.
Sincerely,
Mark Dayton
United States Senator
BBC News
China selling prisoners' organs
By Jill McGivering
Top British transplant surgeons have accused China of harvesting the organs of thousands of executed prisoners every year to sell for transplants.
In a statement, the British Transplantation Society condemned the practice as unacceptable and a breach of human rights.
The move comes less than a week after Chinese officials publicly denied the practice took place.
In March, China said it would ban the sale of human organs from July.
'Selection'
The British Transplantation Society says an accumulating weight of evidence suggests the organs of thousands of executed prisoners in China are being removed for transplants without consent.
Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution .
Chinese officials deny the allegations.
Just last week a Chinese health official said publicly that organs from executed prisoners were sometimes used, but only with prior permission and in a very few cases.
But widespread allegations have persisted for several years - including from international human rights groups.
Transplant tourism
Professor Wigmore said: "The weight of evidence has accumulated to a point over the last few months where it's really incontrovertible in our opinion.
"We feel that it's the right time to take a stance against this practice."
The emergence of transplant tourism has made the sale of health organs even more lucrative.
Patients increasingly come from Western countries, including the UK, as well as Japan and South Korea.
Professor Wigmore described this as quite widespread and growing. He and his colleagues, he said, had all seen cases of British patients who had considered going to China for transplants. He really hoped, he added, that people would think very hard about whether they should.
Secrecy surrounding executions in China has always made it difficult to gather facts.
The Chinese authorities recently announced steps to tighten regulations. From July, selling organs will be illegal and all donors must give written permission.
But the practice is lucrative and critics say much will depend on how well those rules are Implemented.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4921116.stm
Published: 2006/04/19 00:03:46 GMT
© BBC MMVI
the weekly
Standard
Why Wang Wenyi Was Shouting
Is Beijing committing atrocities against the Falun Gong movement?
by Ethan Gutmann
05/08/2006, Volume 011, Issue 32
WANG WENYI, the woman whose shouts disrupted the welcoming ceremony for Chinese president Hu Jintao on the White House lawn on April 20, is a middle-aged pathologist and a follower of Falun Gong. That spiritual movement was outlawed in China in 1999, and since then Falun Gong has become a focal point for opposition to the Communist party. To that extent, Wang's outburst was understandable. Less obvious was the connection between her profession and the raw intensity of her denunciation of "killing" by Hu's China.
The reports also say that "a recent work by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, headquartered in Boston, has turned up some compelling corroboration. Here, then, is the narrative as it has emerged so far.
Back in 1988, a hospital was constructed on a 21,087-square meter plot (about five acres) a few miles outside of Shenyang, in a satellite city called Sujiatun. It's pronounced Soo-jah-tyun, and you might want get to know that name.
It happened that the hospital--now the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine--had a large basement and an inconspicuous back door. In 2001, some employees in the hospital's accounting and logistics department noticed that the hospital's requests for food, rubber gloves, toilet paper, and surgical equipment suddenly went way, way up. The food and surgical tools would disappear, the trash would get hauled away, yet it was unclear how they were being used. At one point in 2002, the accounting department estimated the logistical increase represented a whopping discrepancy of thousands of patients.
One accountant--called Annie in the Falun Gong literature on the scandal--was aware of the supply mystery, but what concerned her far more was the behaviour of her husband, a surgeon at Sujiatun. On the surface, the couple was doing fine. He was bringing home increasingly large amounts of cash, and his job appeared secure. The hospital had even issued him a dedicated cell-phone, which would ring at odd hours and send him back to Sujiatun. Yet when he came home to bed, he had violent nightmares and would wake bathed in sweat. During the day, he was constantly on edge, preoccupied, even fearful of his wife's touch.
It took a year, but eventually he confessed to her: The accounting staff was right. There were extra "patients" in the subterranean depths of the hospital, and some makeshift operating rooms down there, too. When his cell phone rang, it meant that a "patient" had been wheeled in and given a small dose of anaesthesia (the hospital had a limited supply). Then he and the other doctors--some hired from the outside, each with a specialty, all constantly on call--would come in and remove the patient's kidneys, skin tissue, corneas, and other organs, seemingly to order. The remains of the "patient" would then be carried down to the old boiler, which doubled as an incinerator."
"The "patients"--men and women, old and young--were all Falun Gong practitioners. It was so much easier that way--no arrest warrants, no need for paper work. If a diagnosis had to be stipulated for some reason, the entry read "mentally destroyed," and the cause of death "suicide." The doctors' silence was bought with generous financial rewards, the assurance that they were simply "cleansing" for the party, and the vague threat implicit in the observation that if you had already done some of these operations then what difference would a few more make? Buck up!
The hospital is still operating, but the Falun Gong "patients" are apparently gone. The Chinese Communist party denies, of course, that they ever were there. More interesting, a recent U.S. consular visit found no cause for concern.
The first account of the horrors at Sujiatun was provided by a Chinese reporter now in hiding in the United States, with whom I spoke briefly. He claims to have many sources, some of whom he paid, as is common in China.
As for Annie, I interviewed her for ten minutes on April 20, after her first, rather chaotic, public appearance. She spoke at a rally at McPherson Square, a few blocks from the White House, to protest human rights abuses in China. Although our interview was hardly the six-hour session that I wanted, we were alone, apart from an interpreter, and could look each other in the eye. My strong impression was not of a Falun Gong devotee put up to a stunt, but of a classic accidental witness: pale, open-eyed, conscientious, and somewhat bewildered by Washington--a beautiful doctor's wife sitting in the back of a van, telling the most explosive story in recent Chinese history.
It must be noted that there are discrepancies between the Chinese reporter's account and Annie's. For example, he called Sujiatun a concentration camp at one point and spoke darkly of barbed wire and massive underground civil defence tunnels allegedly connected to the hospital. Annie portrayed Sujiatun as a regular hospital with a basement large enough to hold thousands of Falun Gong prisoners.
The U.S. State Department states that its "officers were allowed to tour the entire facility and grounds and found no evidence that the site is being used for any function other than as a normal public hospital." And for those who point out that you couldn't clean up Auschwitz in three weeks--the time that elapsed between the publication of the story and the consular visit--the matter ends there.
But, given the political sensitivities involved, particularly during a summit, I still have questions. Anyone who has lived in China knows that three weeks is a long time by Chinese construction standards. Is the State Department certain its officers toured an unaltered facility? Did they take an architect with them? Collect forensic samples? Sift through ashes? Interview any hospital personnel privately, off-site? And on their tour, did they reject the company of the inevitable CCP handler or hospital operative? If the answer to these questions is no, then the Americans' findings are interesting but hardly conclusive. The visitors could easily have missed a walled-off underground facility.
Experts have also pointed out that the Sujiatun hospital is prohibited by its legal classification from performing organ transplants in the first place. Yet Annie spoke of organ harvesting, not transplants. In any case, in the new entrepreneurial China, organ transplants at hospitals of a similar classification have been reported on Chinese state-controlled television, apparently without repercussions.
These are all legitimate areas for inquiry--which is difficult in surveillance-rich China. Certainly, investigating Sujiatun would place any Beijing-based media bureau on a collision course with the CCP. No wonder Sujiatun has so far been covered in depth only by the Epoch Times, the same paper that acquired a press pass for Wang Wenyi. It has numerous Falun Gong practitioners on its staff and has become a magnet for Chinese dissidents of many stripes. Like the Jewish papers that published the first accounts of the Holocaust, the Epoch Times and the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong have made this story their own."
EPOCH TIMES
Respected Surgeon Urges Others to Speak Out Against
Forced Organ Donation in China
By Martin Croucher, Epoch Times London Staff May 17, 2006
Surgeons in the Western world should publicly oppose the forced organ harvesting of prisoners in China, a respected transplantation physician said in a recent interview.
Professor Jan Lerut, former president of the European Society for Organ Transplantation, said that the practice of killing people for their body parts was "awful" and "should not exist".
"I think that what we should do on a personal and national level is to object as much as possible and to make people aware that this is not the way to go," he told NTDTV reporters, referring to the unethical practice.
"If the people become aware then the politicians become aware then you go higher up to the United Nations and other organisations defending human rights."
Dr. Lerut said that the practice of forced organ removal was a violation of the principles of free volition and non-obligation that made donation an act of charity and "social togetherness". Moreover he stated that most surgeons in Europe object not always on an international level but always on a personal or institutional level": "For instance in my hospital if someone wants to come from China to learn about transplantation he must declare that he is not involved in the practices that are going on in China in relation to forced organ donation as it is done today."
"I think that everyone should object in his own way, and if everyone objects then it will have a result."
Dr. Lerut, who has worked as a transplantation surgeon for 25 years, argued that not only does China's forced harvesting represent a dereliction of ethics; it is also damaging what is essentially an innocuous practice in the West:
"Every negative statement about organ donation wherever in the world undermines all the efforts that people do to promote organ donation and organ transplantation in countries where these things are regulated."
Dr. Lerut's comments come soon after the chair of the ethics committee of the British Transplantation Society, Professor Stephen Wigmore, called for a "full, frank" international enquiry into China's organ harvesting and urged for a consensus statement from transplantation societies condemning the practice.
During an international organ transplantation conference in London on the 11th and 12th of May, 47 professionals signed a petition initiated by pressure group 'Friends of Falun Gong', condemning forced organ donation in China and calling for an "urgent open and independent investigation into all prisons, detention centres, labour camps and related hospitals by the United Nations, World Health Organisation, and other relevant international organisations without the Chinese government's sanctions on information."
Among the signatories were the Chief of the transplantation centre in Czech University Hospital, President of the Belgium Transplantation Coordinators, and the Chairman of Urology Department in Fujita Health University, Japan.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/tools/printer.asp?id=41670
SKY NEWS
China Denies Organs Claim
Updated: 17:32, Wednesday April 19, 2006
Organs are sold for transplant It is claimed organs are taken from executed prisoners China has been accused of harvesting the organs of executed prisoners without consent.
British experts say organs are being taken from thousands of people every year and sold for transplants.
The British Transplantation Society has condemned the practice - which Chinese officials deny - as a breach of human rights. Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, said the speed of matching donors and patients implied prisoners were being selected before execution.
He said: "The weight of evidence has accumulated to a point over the last few months where it's really incontrovertible in our opinion.
"We condemn unreservedly any activity that transgresses an individual's human rights or involves the coercion of an individual to become an organ donor. "The alleged sale of organs derived from executed prisoners for financial gain is a lamentable practice. "Aware also of the burden of human suffering that flows from the worldwide shortages of ethically-acceptable organs, any act that risks calling the practice of transplantation into disrepute is to be regretted."
A Sky News undercover report shows at least one Chinese medic admitting the practice.
"Our hospital can provide organs the fastest because we have the best connections," one nurse said, alluding to links to military police.
Prof Wigmore said he and his colleagues all knew of patients who had researched the possibility of going to China for transplants.
Last week, a Chinese health official said organs from executed prisoners were used, but only with prior permission and in very few cases. Authorities have announced steps to tighten regulations surrounding transplants. From July, selling organs will be illegal and all donors must give written permission. The Chinese embassy in London denied the claims to Sky News.
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13519519,00.html
18th May 2006
DEATH PENALTY:
British Surgeons, Rights Groups Warn Chinese to Halt Organ Harvesting
Stefania Bianchi
LONDON, May 11 (IPS) - Top British transplant surgeons and human rights campaigners said new measures to curb the harvesting of organs of executed prisoners to sell for transplants in China may do little to halt the practice.
The Chinese government will introduce new regulations from July 1 banning the sale of human organs and requiring written permission from transplant donors. It announced the measures in March following numerous reports by human rights groups that prisoners' organs were being removed without their consent or that of their families.
However, groups that include the London-based Amnesty International and British Transplantation Society (BTS) fear that little will change under the new measures. As long as the death penalty remains in the country, the practice of organ harvesting may also continue, they charged.
"We cautiously welcome this move, but our position on the use of organs from executed prisoners remains the same. Given the coercive nature of the death penalty there will be few, if any, circumstances under which a prisoner facing imminent execution will be able voluntarily to give free and informed consent to having their organs extracted," Saria Rees-Roberts, spokesperson for Amnesty International, told IPS.
Britain's leading transplantation society added its voice to the growing concern over the practice of organ harvesting in April when it claimed in a statement on its website that an "accumulating body of evidence" convinced them that organs of executed prisoners were being removed for transplantation without consent.
"The British Transplantation Society condemns unreservedly any activity that transgresses an individual's human rights or involves the coercion of an individual to become an organ donor. A reported close relationship between transplant units and the authorities regulating executions and the availability of organs is unethical," Professor Stephen Wigmore, chairman of the BTS ethics committee, told IPS.
Such evidence includes information from the Beijing-based Bek-Transplant.com website which openly admits under its "Frequently Asked Questions" section that the organs they use come from "people that are executed in China."
More than 3,000 executions were documented in China last year by Amnesty International, although the true figure is known to be much higher. In March 2004, a senior member of the National People's Congress announced that China executes around 10,000 people per year.
The Bek.Transplant website openly advertises for business from foreigners. The cost of a kidney transplant for non-Chinese nationals is put at 70,000 dollars, and a liver transplant at 120,000 dollars for both the organ and the operation. Payments are made to the medical centres.
Although the exact number of organs taken from prisoners is unknown, the organisation reckoned the figure could be in the thousands. The organs are being sold both to Chinese residents and foreign nationals, the BTS official said.
"We know that Japanese and Koreans are the main users but individuals from USA, Britain, Israel and Arab countries are all reported to have been to China for transplants," said Wigmore.
Many of the patients who travel to China for an organ often are desperate, Wigmore said, adding, however that purchasing an unethically-obtained organ could backfire. "Any act that risks calling the practice of transplantation into disrepute is to be regretted," Wigmore said.
The society membership decided to speak out on the practice to lower demand, he added.
"We hope that by raising awareness of the practices in China we will discourage people from going there for transplants thus reducing the demand for organs and also the financial incentive to do this activity," said Wigmore. "We hope that other medical societies and governments will support the position that we have taken and apply their own pressures to China to make it stop doing this."
The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group has been documenting the practice. The group reported on its website that many of its practitioners are being killed for their organs in the Sujiatun Concentration Camp. The cut-open bodies are then cremated, the group charged.
"It is known that human organs from the Sujiatun Concentration Camp are sold to various hospitals. Those hospitals purchase human organs for resale on the international market. In the past, many Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death, and some of their organs have been harvested," the group wrote in a statement on its website.
The group, which practices the ancient art for mind and body, highlighted a number of examples of people who it claims have been subject to the practice. One of these is the case of Ms. Yang Ruiyu from Fuzhou City in the Fujian Province of China.
"On the morning of July 19, 2001, at around 10 am, Ms. Yang was taken away from her work. Ms. Yang was tortured to death on July 22. Her body was sent under police escort all the way to a crematorium. Yang Ruiyu's husband and daughter were not allowed to approach the body. It was said that there was a hole in Ms. Yang's side as large as a fist," the group wrote.
Since making its appeal to halt organ harvesting last month, Wigmore said limited progress has been made, but insisted the practice is far from over.
"One website originating in China representing transplants in Chinese hospitals being sold overseas has been closed down. Another which does the same but is based in Japan stopped working for a few days then came back online," said Wigmore.
The BTS hoped that the political pressure it has applied on the Chinese government will ensure that the regulations they are planning from July will be effective, and said the group will continue to monitor reports from China on the issue.
Amnesty International said secrecy remains a problem within China. The Chinese government does not allow Amnesty access to conduct research within the country, for example. Still, it is not immune to international criticism and pressure, the London-based rights group said.
"The fact that the authorities legislated against the sale of organs shows that they are aware that the practice goes on and that it is damaging to their credibility. This is a key way to push for change," said Rees-Roberts.
The group doubted, however, that there will be few instances where a voluntary consent to organ extraction could be given. "Given the cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty, Amnesty International considers that there will be few, if any, circumstances under which a prisoner facing imminent execution will be able to 'voluntarily' give 'free and informed consent' to having their organs extracted," she added.
The group has long called on China to ban such practices, first reporting the practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners in 1993. The death penalty remains applicable to around 68 crimes in China. They include non-violent offences, such as committing tax fraud, embezzling state property and accepting a bribe. (FIN/2006)
PETITION
Unethical Human Organ Harvesting Practices in China
I (we), the undersigned, hereby condemn as unethical any activity that transgresses an individual's human rights in relation to being an organ donor in China. Such human rights abuses include the alleged use of organs from executed prisoners without consent.
I (we) also have concerns about:
- the reported easily obtainable organs in China and speedy cross matching which implies pre-selection of prisoners for organ harvesting.
- recent allegations of systematic organ harvesting from some live Falun Gong practitioners in labour camps and detention centres in China.
I (we) condemn any such unethical practices unreservedly.
I (we) call for urgent, open and independent investigation into all prisons, detention centres, labour camps and related hospitals by the United Nations, World Health Organisation and other relevant international organisations without the Chinese government's sanctions on information.
Sign:
Date:
Name:
City and Country:
Organisation:
Position in Organisation:
All signed statements will be compiled and sent to the United Nation, World Health
Organisation and relevant international organisations.
Please send the signed statement to:
Mr John Dee
European Friends of Falun Gong,
33 Exeter Road, Rayners Lane, Harrow
Middlesex HA2 9PW, UK
Tel: +44(0) 208 422 7789 | E-mail:
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| Website: www.fofg-europe.net
To join "The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG)", please contact
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