(Minghui.org) CNN and the Globe and Mail, Canada's influential national newspaper, covered news of organ harvesting atrocities in China. The reports were triggered by a news conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on June 22. 

David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, human rights lawyer David Matas, and Ethan Gutmann, an award-winning China analyst and investigative journalist, announced the conclusion that their years of research indicate: the number of organ transplants performed in China – and the number of non-consenting “donors” – are much higher than previously estimated.

CNN Report: China still harvesting organs from prisoners on a massive scale

Cable News Network (CNN) published a lengthy report on June 23 about the massive organ harvesting in China.

The story noted, “A new report claims that China is still engaged in the widespread and systematic harvesting of organs from prisoners, and says that people whose views conflict with the ruling Chinese Communist Party are being murdered for their organs.

“The report – by former Canadian lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas, and journalist Ethan Gutmann – collates publicly reported figures from hospitals across China to show what they claim is a massive discrepancy between official figures for the number of transplants carried out throughout the country.

“They blame the Chinese government, the Communist Party, the health system, doctors and hospitals for being complicit.

“'The (Communist Party) says the total number of legal transplants is about 10,000 per year. But we can easily surpass the official Chinese figure just by looking at the two or three biggest hospitals,' Matas said in a statement.

“The report estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year in Chinese hospitals.”

“According to the report, that gap is made up of executed prisoners, many of them prisoners of conscience locked up for their religious or political beliefs. China does not report its total number of executions, which it regards as a secret.”

The CNN report further started,

“According to the report, thousands of people are being executed in China in secret and their organs harvested for use in transplant operations.

“So who is being killed? The authors say mainly imprisoned religious and ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, underground Christians, and practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.

“While much of China's organ transplant system is kept secret, official figures show that 2,766 volunteers donated organs in 2015, with 7,785 large organs acquired. Official figures put the number of transplant operations at around 10,000 a year, which the report disputes.

“The authors point to publicly available statements and records released by hospitals across China claiming they carried out thousands of transplant annually, and interviews with and official biographies of individual doctors who claim to have carried out thousands of transplant operations during their careers.

“'Simply by adding up a handful of the hospitals that have been profiled in this (report), it's easy to come up with higher annual transplant volume figures than 10,000,' the authors write.

“According to official statistics, there are more than 100 hospitals in China approved to carry out organ transplant operations. But the report states the authors have "verified and confirmed 712 hospitals which carry out liver and kidney transplants," and claims the number of actual transplants could be hundreds of thousands larger than China reports.

“'Ghoulish and inhumane practice'

“The apparent gap in official transplant figures, the report claims, is filled by prisoners of conscience.

“According to Amnesty International, 'tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily detained' since the government launched a crackdown on the practice in 1999.”...

“'The government considers Falun Gong a threat to its power, and has detained, imprisoned and tortured its followers,' says Maya Wang, China researcher for Human Rights Watch.

“The report says detained Falun Gong practitioners were forced to have blood tests and medical exams. Those test results were placed in a database of living organ sources so quick organ matches could be made, the authors claim.

“This massive supply of organs served to benefit hospitals and doctors, making for an ever growing industry.

“The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from the report's authors on Thursday.

“'China has been perpetuating perhaps some of the most gruesome and egregious human rights violations against the Falun Gong and other prisoners of conscience, yet has hardly faced any criticism, let alone sanctions, for these abuses,' said Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, former chair of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a statement released online.

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

Globe and Mail: Report alleges China killing thousands to harvest organs

Globe and Mail, a widely read and influential Canadian newspaper, published a similar report on June 22.

“Chinese hospitals are conducting far more organ-transplant operations than the country has officially acknowledged, according to a lengthy new report that raises troubling questions about the source of human body parts used to heal China’s elite and the foreigners who pay high prices to receive new kidneys and livers.

“Although much of China’s transplant industry is shrouded in secrecy, officials have said 146 approved hospitals transplanted 7,785 organs last year.

“But a team of researchers, including two prominent Canadian human-rights activists, has sifted through a huge number of hospital records, accounts from doctors, press clippings and public statements to tabulate numbers of Chinese transplant-centre beds and doctors – and from that has calculated how many transplants take place.

“By their count, Chinese surgeons are transplanting between 60,000 and 100,000 organs a year, a number they say far surpasses the volume of kidneys, livers and hearts available from voluntary donors.

“One hospital alone, the Oriental Organ Transplant Centre at the Tianjin First Centre Hospital, is probably doing more than 6,000 transplants a year, they estimate.

“Authors David Matas, David Kilgour and Ethan Gutmann have over the past decade published evidence that China is using Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans and Christians as a pool for human-tissue extraction.

“Their new report is a joint 798-page document that is being released as a U.S. congressional committee convenes a hearing on Thursday on organ harvesting.”

An Industrial-Scale Crime against Humanity

“'What we’re trying to do is get the government, the party state in Beijing, to stop killing their own people for their organs,' David Kilgour, a human-rights activist and former Canadian MP, said. “An industrial-scale crime against humanity is going on in China.”...

“The gamut of body parts on offer in China is breathtaking: livers, kidneys, hearts, spleens, hands, breasts, arms, hearts, corneas, intestines, pancreases, thyroids, stem cells, hair and bone marrow.”...

“'China is not the only country with organ-transplant abuse. There’s a huge demand for organs, and huge money to be made,' Mr. Matas, a Winnipeg refugee and human-rights lawyer, said. 'What’s different about China is it’s institutionalized, it’s state-run, it’s party-directed. It’s not a few criminals in back alleys trying to make a fast buck.'”...

“Falun Gong practitioners who have escaped China have also recounted frequent medical examinations that led to no treatment. They believe that they were being profiled for organ-donation compatibility.

“Xu Menglan, a refugee who arrived in the United States late last year, said her blood was tested an 'uncountable' number of times during several stays in Chinese detention.

“In 2002, a senior Beijing police officer directly threatened to 'take your organs' if she refused to recant Falun Gong, she said in an interview. The following year, the director of a labour re-education camp in Harbin, in northern China, also told her: 'If you keep this up, I will take your organs.'

“In prison, she said, people simply vanished. 'Based on my observations and my analysis, they were all killed for their organs. Some are still missing after so many years,' she said.”