(Minghui.org) A symposium on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners was held at the University of Auckland, New Zealand on December 1, 2022. Several experts spoke at the seminar and called for an end to the CCP’s atrocity of forced live organ harvesting.

The seminar was moderated by Dr. Treasa Dunworth, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Auckland. Renowned Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas, doctoral student Matthew P. Roberson of Australian National University and former New Zealand Wellington City Councilor Tony Brunt participated in the symposium. 

They exposed the CCP’s crimes of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners for profit, urged the New Zealand government to pass legislation to ban New Zealanders from going to China for organ transplants, and called for an end to the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Uighurs, and other religious believers.

Symposium at the University of Auckland, New Zealand on December 1, 2022 focused on the CCP’s state-sanctioned organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience. 

Human Rights Lawyer: Stopping the CCP's Crimes Is the World’s Top Priority

David Matas, a renowned Canadian human rights lawyer, said that in 2006, a Chinese woman with the pseudonym of Annie revealed that her ex-husband, a brain surgeon in a Shenyang hospital, spoke about how her husband participated in the crime of forcibly harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners who were imprisoned by the CCP for their belief. Mr. Matas was shocked by this revelation.

He added that for this reason, he and David Kilgour, former Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific) for Canada, started a decade-long investigation, researching and examining evidence. All the evidence confirmed that live organ harvesting was real and that the number of victims was huge. The number of Falun Gong practitioners detained exceeds one million. The CCP regime is the only government in the world that directly participates in and implements the crime of live organ harvesting from non-consenting donors, in this case, prisoners of conscience.

Matas pointed out that stopping such a huge human rights crime is the most urgent thing in the world today, and it is imperative to ban New Zealanders from traveling to China for organ transplants.

Former City Councilor: New Zealanders Must Not Be Accomplices to the CCP's Organ Harvesting

Tony Brunt, a former City Councilor for Wellington, New Zealand, addressed the symposium and said that when he finished reading the 680-page report by Matas and Kilgour, and independent investigative journalist Ethan Gutman, he was appalled. This report revealed that the CCP has harvested between 60,000 and 100,000 organs from living people every year.

On November 8, 2019, Brunt read the website of the Waitemata District Health Board in New Zealand and learned that the health board had just formally signed a medical cooperation agreement with the Health Commission of Shandong Province in China. He immediately sent a letter to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Health Board, citing the live harvesting investigation report, and listed Qilu Hospital, Qianfoshan Hospital, Weifang Renhe Hospital, and other hospitals under the Shandong Provincial Health Commission, which were suspected of carrying out a large number of organ transplants from unknown sources, most likely from incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners. The preliminary agreement signed between the Waitamata District Health Board and the Shandong Provincial Health Commission included cooperation between governments, hospitals, medical research institutes, and universities.

In his letter Brunt warned the Health Board that it should not put itself into this moral quagmire. He pointed out that the CCP’s organ harvesting involves multiple branches of the medical system.

A few months later, Brunt received a letter from the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Waitamata Regional Health Board, stating that the Board of Directors had decided to immediately terminate cooperation with the Shandong Provincial Health Commission after repeated discussion and considering the recommendation of its legal advisory body. 

Brunt choked up several times when he talked about the CCP’s organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

The former city councilor also sent letters to the New Zealand Southern Cross Insurance Company and the anatomy departments of several New Zealand universities, asking them to confirm that they did not pay for New Zealand patients to go to China for organ transplants and that no corpses whose organs were harvested were used for teaching in universities. He said, “I want to make sure that the hands of New Zealanders are not stained with blood.” 

Medical Doctors in China Have Become Executioners

Matthew P. Robertson is a Ph.D. student in the Australian National University’s School of Politics and International Relations and a China Program Fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington D.C.

In a paper published in November this year, Robertson explained that donors for organ transplants around the world are usually voluntary, and China is the only (known) country that uses state agencies to systematically harvest and sell prisoners’ organs, with tens of thousands of organ transplants performed every year. He also explained in his paper that relevant Chinese agencies have falsified data.

Robertson’s research results show that in China, doctors have become executioners. This not only violates the foundation of organ transplantation — that is, the dead donor principle that organ donors must be dead at the time of donation, he said that what is even more ominous is that China is using a highly sophisticated state machine to conduct illegal organ plundering and trafficking.

Humanitarian Worker: I Want to Wake People up Harder and Louder

Carlene Louise (right) and her friends attended the symposium. 

Carlene Louise, who works in a humanitarian organization, and her friends attended the symposium. She used social media to broadcast the entire symposium live on the Internet. She said, “The New Zealand government must raise people’s awareness and let people know what is happening in China, and must pass legislation to ban people from going to China for organ transplants, and to ban any legal or illegal organ trafficking. New Zealand needs to be the country that stops these things from happening.”

When she learned that many Falun Gong practitioners were victims of the organ harvesting, Louise said, “I have heard of Falun Gong. The principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that practitioners follow are values that should be loved by everyone in the world. We have attended several Falun Gong practitioners’ parades and signed their petitions to support them. I also try to awaken the conscience of the world in my own way.”

She added, “People need to know how heavy, dark, hateful, and evil (organ harvesting) is. This seminar gives me the courage to work harder and louder to wake people up, to really educate people. Starting with our own families and going to our communities, we encourage them to do the same.”

She concluded, “I am really grateful to Falun Gong practitioners. Keep fighting. There will be more of us who wake up and stand with you.” 

Legal Expert: Turning a Blind Eye Is Tantamount to Complicity

Isabella Smith, a native New Zealand Maori with a legal background, attended the symposium. She said, “Today’s symposium let me know how bad the human rights situation in China is. So many innocent people were killed. A symposium like this should be held in every district of Auckland, and everyone should participate. We in New Zealand know too little. Everyone should come to learn about these facts and learn more about the CCP’s crimes. If our government turns a blind eye to this, it is tantamount to collusion.

“I really didn’t know so many Chinese people were murdered,” Ms. Smith added. “I often saw Falun Gong protesting in front of the Chinese Consulate, and I would wave to them. But I really didn’t know so much before. I really want to tell them: keep trying, people need to know more about the truth; someday things will turn around, but never give up.”

The Whole World Should Support Falun Gong

Victor Edwards

Victor Edwards, who works in construction, said, “The symposium is very meaningful. I came here because I didn’t know much about these things happening in China. This symposium is very helpful. I understand everything now. What’s happened in China is terrible! It’s very scary! It shouldn’t have happened at all, but it happened. 

“As the professor just said, we should all do something, and international organizations should participate in the investigation to see what happened there. The whole world should support them (Falun Gong practitioners) to let more people know the truth.”

Background: What Is Falun Dafa and Why Is the CCP Persecuting It?

Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China, in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. Millions of people who have embraced the teachings, which are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and have learned the five exercises have experienced improved health and well-being.

Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology, and on July 20, 1999, he issued an order to eradicate the practice.

Under Jiang’s personal direction, the CCP established the 610 Office, an extralegal security organization with the power to override the police and judicial systems and whose sole function is to carry out the persecution of Falun Dafa.

Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 23 years, though due to the difficulty in getting information out of China, the actual number is believed to be much higher. Countless practitioners have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply China’s organ transplant industry.