RUTHFULLY YOURS

In June of this year, an independent tribunal based in London came to a chilling conclusion: detainees in China are being killed, their organs are being harvested and some victims find themselves falsely accused of committing crimes that never occurred.

The China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, determined that:

forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale, [and] 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.

Before coming to their damning conclusion, the tribunal members spoke with medical experts and human rights investigators. According to the committee, thousands of people “have died indescribably hideous deaths for no reason.” The committee members warn “that more may suffer in similar ways and that all of us live on a planet where extreme wickedness may be found in the power of those, for the time being, running a country with one of the oldest civilizations known to modern man.”

China, it seems, is a place where “extreme wickedness” reigns supreme. After all, it is not uncommon for individuals who speak out against the government to disappear. However, the scope of the “disappeared” has expanded since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. Over the past six years, from prominent celebrities to brave journalists, hundreds of people in China have seemingly vanished into thin air — and yet the international community has remained largely silent. Almost immediately after election, Chinese President Xi introduced new laws that essentially made arbitrary and secret detentions legal under Chinese law. Many of those arrested were never seen again. Were their organs harvested? Sadly, it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

After all, in the words of the aforementioned Geoffrey Nice, “There is no evidence of the practice having been stopped and the tribunal is satisfied that it is continuing.”

Among those killed, according to the committee, are members of religious minorities such as Falun Gong, a religious and spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises. Members are encouraged to adopt a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. In China, a country known for silencing “unorthodox” views, truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance are at a premium.

Of course, China’s organ bazaar has been in operation for years. Recently, however, knowledge of the gruesome practice has led to the retraction of fifteen science papers discussing organ transplantation. The retractors fear that the organs were inhumanely and unethically obtained. As the New Scientist’s Clare Wilson writes:

Fifteen studies about transplanted organs by researchers in China have been retracted this month due to concerns the work may have used organs from executed prisoners. Three other papers have been the subject of expressions of concern for the same reason, according to the website Retraction Watch which monitors questions raised over published research.

China’s government said in 2015 that the nation had stopped using organs from executed prisoners, which is illegal according to international conventions. But it is suspected that the practice continues in the country, particularly involving prisoners of conscience.

The retraction of papers is at least a step in the right direction, but obviously more action is needed.

As Wesley J. Smith writes,

Retracting papers should just be the beginning. Chinese organ-transplant doctors should be barred from international symposia and such events in China should be boycotted, as well as refusing or retracting other honors until the country proves that it no longer countenances kill-and-harvest, whether for sale, research, or otherwise

Investigations have found that British women regularly (and unknowingly) apply the collagen of executed prisoners to their faces . Worryingly, according to Ethan Gutmann, a longtime China analyst and author of the deeply disturbing book, The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to its Dissident Problem, the realities of the practice are “far more awful” than one can ever imagine. As Gutmann, a human rights activist, affirms, authorities sometimes take the organs from prisoners while they are still alive. Yes, alive.

Though the Chinese government has recently made it illegal to provide transplant organs from executed prisoners to foreign, transplant tourists, there is little reason to believe that this law is in full effect. Moreover, the extreme shortage of transplant organs in the U.S. continues to make organ transplantation in China an appealing option for some patients with life threatening diseases, so desperate Americans still travel to China for surgery.

Although China has emerged as a genuine global power, with a rising and increasingly sophisticated middle class, its wicked practices must be addressed. Haile Selassie, the famous Ethiopian emperor, once said, “it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

The international community must respond. Because, as the situation stands now, the world’s silence is deafening.