---

China butchers prisoners for organs, tribunal finds

An independent tribunal has published its final judgement that China still kills Falun Gong practitioners for organ transplants. 

The China Tribunal, sitting in London and chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, this week delivered its final judgement which concludes that forced organ harvesting is now committed on a significant scale.

It states: “Falun Gong practitioners have been one and probably the main source of organ supply.

“The concerted persecution and medical testing of the Uyghurs is more recent and it may be that evidence of forced organ harvesting of this group may emerge in due course.

Dismantled

“The Tribunal has had no evidence that the significant infrastructure associated with China’s transplantation industry has been dismantled and absent a satisfactory explanation as to the source of readily available organs concludes that forced organ harvesting continues till today.”

The judgment was based on individual conclusions that the tribunal has drawn, which includes:

• extraordinarily short waiting times promised by China’s doctors and hospitals for organs to be available for transplants,
• torture of Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs,
• the large number of transplant operations performed,
• insufficient eligible donors under the current voluntary donor scheme,
• massive infrastructure development of facilities and medical personnel for organ transplant operations.

Sir Geoffrey Nice was involved in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

He initiated the prosecution of the former leader of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, for atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Prisoners of conscience

The China Tribunal is an independent people’s tribunal that was established to inquire into forced organ harvesting from, amongst others, prisoners of conscience in China.

The tribunal has investigated all the available evidence during the past 12 months. It questioned witnesses, experts, and investigators.

Prior to the final judgment being published, five days of public hearings were held in December 2018 and April 2019.

Not-for-profit

The China Tribunal was initiated by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC); an international not-for-profit organisation.

International human rights lawyer David Matas spoke at Griffith College in Dublin last night about the work of the tribunal.

In 2006, Mr Matas co-authored Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China alongside Hon. David Kilgour.

Both Mr Matas and Mr Kilgour were nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for this work.

David Matas is a co-author of the 2016 investigative report entitled An Update to Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter.

Deleted websites

The report examines the transplant programmes of hundreds of hospitals in China, drawing on media reports, official propaganda, medical journals, hospital websites and a vast number of deleted websites found in archives.

His other works include Why Did You Do That? The Autobiography of a Human Rights Advocate; Justice Delayed: Nazi War Criminals in Canada with Susan Charendoff; Closing the Doors: The Failure of Refugee Protection with Ilana Simon; No More: The Battle Against Human Rights Violations; Bloody Words: Hate and Free Speech; and Aftershock: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism.