An Open Letter from World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) to World Health Assembly (WHA) and “Toward the Universal Coverage of Solid Organ Transplantation” Side Meeting Committee
Dear committee members and participants of the World Health Assembly’s “Toward the Universal Coverage of Solid Organ Transplantation” Side Meeting,
According to an article published on Xinhua Net, the official news agency of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), on the 71st World Health Assembly’s (WHA) side meeting titled “Toward the Universal Coverage of Solid Organ Transplantation” held on May 24, 2018 at the Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, the WHA recognized “China’s model” mentioned in a speech by Huang Jiefu, head of China’s National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee and chairman of China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation. In his speech, Huang also denied the “existence of ‘live organ harvesting’ in China”. The Xinhua Net article reported that Edward Kelley, Director for the WHO Patient Safety Programme, stated during an interview after the side meeting that China and the other countries, whose representatives attended the side meeting, had set global examples in the field of organ transplantation and that the WHO thanked China for its contribution to this field and for its support provided to the WHO. And after the side meeting, Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the WHO, said “I thank China” to Huang Jiefu in Chinese.
WOIPFG would like to remind the side meeting committee that, based on our continuous investigation of more than a decade, we have gathered sufficient evidence to prove that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners for organ transplantation on a large scale since 2000, instead of using the organs from executed prisoners or donated organs as the CCP claims.[1]
On the next day after the CCP’s crime of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners was exposed in the international community on March 9, 2006, WOIPFG launched a systematic investigation targeting mainland China, which has been ongoing over the past more than one decade. We have collected evidence from five standing committee members of the CCP Central Politburo, a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, a committee member of the Central Politburo, a defense minister, a former health minister of the General Logistics Department of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 891 hospitals and 9,519 doctors. At the same time, tens of thousands of media reports, more than 3,000 medical papers, cached hospital webpages and databases of these 891 hospitals have been combed through and analyzed. WOIPFG has obtained evidence from more than 2,000 telephone investigations, gathered over 10,000 items of data evidence, and published more than 70 investigation reports.
A large amount of convincing evidence points to the same conclusion:
In 1999, under the direction of former CCP Chairman Jiang Zemin, the CCP-controlled state apparatuses, including the Party, the government, the military, the armed police, the judicial system and health institutions launched a genocidal massacre of Falun Gong practitioners through live organ harvesting for transplant surgeries across China. This is a state crime initiated by Jiang Zemin and led by the Chinese Communist Party. This is genocide and a horrendous crime against humanity!
Based on the above-mentioned factors, WOIPFG would like to ask WHA and the side meeting organizing committee the following questions:
1. Is the news story published in the above-mentioned Xinhua Net article true?
2. Has WHA investigated and verified the contents of Huang Jiefu’s speech?
3. We would like to ask WHA to request an explanation from the CCP for the following abnormalities taking place in China’s organ transplantation industry after 1999.
I. Organ Transplant Tourism to China is still Ongoing
In 2017, a South Korean reporter went to China to conduct field investigations and gathered some evidence at the International Clinical Center of Tianjin First Central Hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, revealing that a large number of South Koreans and Middle Easterners were still traveling to this hospital for organ transplants every year. Their International Clinical Center has a dedicated transplant ward for foreign patients.
According to incomplete statistics, between 2003 and 2005, more than 6,000 foreign patients went to China for organ transplantation surgeries. A news article published by Phoenix Weekly on March 23, 2006 titled “Investigation of Global Organ Transplantation – Investigation of Tens of Thousands Foreigners Visiting China for Organ Transplants, China Becoming the World’s Emerging Organ Transplant Center” read, “According to incomplete statistics, in the recent three years alone, more than 3,000 South Koreans came to China for organ transplants, whereas the number of patients from other countries and regions would also amount to more than 1,000 every year.”[2]
II. After 1999, China’s Organ Transplantation Industry Experienced an Explosive Growth
According to the CCP’s official reports:
1) During the period of over two decades prior to year 1999, only 135 liver transplant cases were performed in mainland China, with an average of 5 to 6 cases per year. During the 8-year period from 1991 to 1998, Chinese hospitals performed a total of 78 liver transplant surgeries, averaging 9.7 cases per year. By contrast, during the 8 years from 1999 to 2006, 14,085 liver transplant surgeries were carried out in mainland China, with an average of 1,760 cases per year. This was a 180-fold increase in liver transplant surgeries.[3]
2) People would have never imagined that even after the crime of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners was exposed in 2006, at a time when the CCP was under close scrutiny from the international community, China still conducted at least 4,231 liver transplant operations between June 24, 2006, and June 24, 2007. This was approximately 436 times of the average annual number of liver surgeries in the 8-year period between 1991 and 1998.[4]
3) In September 2013, Zhu Jiye, head of Peking University Organ Transplantation Research Institute and the director of the Hepatobiliary Surgery Department at Peking University People’s Hospital, said in an interview with China Economic Weekly, “Prior to launching the pilot project in 2010, organs from executed prisoners accounted for almost all donor organ sources in China. Our hospital used to perform 4,000 liver and kidney transplants in one year, and the sources of these organs were all death-row prisoners.”[5]
III. Organs are So Abundant that they are Given Out for Free as a Sales Promotion
1) The Hunan People’s Hospital advertised 20 cases of free liver transplantation, as a means of sales promotion! On April 28, 2006, Hunan People’s Hospital advertised that it offered 20 free liver and kidney transplant operations, including 10 liver transplants and 10 kidney transplants,[6] suggesting a large number of organs were in an urgent need to get rid of.
2) From June 1 to June 30, 2017, Jilin Provincial Travel Radio and the Hepatic Transplantation Center of the First Hospital of Jilin University jointly launched a program of free liver transplantation for 10 children.[7]
IV. The average wait time for an organ is 2 to 4 weeks, even 1 to 2 weeks[8]
Even in the United States, with its advanced medical technologies and a complete organ donation system, the average wait time for a liver or kidney transplant is 2 to 3 years. However, after 1999, in China, the average wait time for a liver or kidney transplant is 2 to 4 weeks, sometimes even 1 to 2 weeks.
The phenomenon of organ donors waiting for recipients also started taking place after 1999. For instance, Yunnan Hospital of Nephropathy has claimed on its website that “it is guaranteed to find healthy kidneys in the shortest time possible” and “to provide donor organs with the shortest cold/warm ischemia time”; “(we have) organ transplant operations every week”; “(we are) the only transplant hospital in the country that matches donors to recipients”; “as long as the surgeons agree to perform a renal transplant, (we could) assure you a successful transplant”; “if not successful, we will repeat the transplant operation until it becomes successful…” Such guarantees are only possible when there is a large living human organ bank available on demand.[9]
V. The Percentage of Emergency Liver Transplants is as high as 26.6 Percent of All Liver Transplants
According to data from The 2006 Annual Report on China Liver Transplant Registration,[10] 8,486 cases of liver transplantation were performed in 29 organ transplant centers between April 6, 2005 and December 31, 2006. Among them, 4,331 cases had specified whether or not they were emergency transplants, indicating a total of 1,150 emergency liver transplants performed, or 26.6% of the total number of identified cases.
VI. Huang Jiefu Demonstrated a Liver Transplant Surgery, by Using Three Living Persons as Backup Liver Donors
According to the CCP’s state-run media outlet www.xinhuanet.com reprinting from www.wlmqwb.com[11] (“Urumqi News Online”), Today’s Nurse[12] and Phoenix Weekly, in the afternoon of September 28, 2016, the then-Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu demonstrated an autologous liver transplantation surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University. He used three backup liver donors for this surgery, and according to analysis, these donors are suspected to be living persons.
VII. What’s More Inconceivable is that Liver Donors can be Selected at Random. “We have plenty of donors. We can still select young and good ones.”
On June 26, 2015, Dr. Chen Yongfeng from the Organ Transplant Department at Zhengzhou People’s Hospital told a WOIPFG investigator that they had a lot of donors. He said, “If you need a transplant and you give us enough time, we can select a good and relatively young liver. We have plenty of donors. We can still select young and good ones. It is hard to say if that will be the case down the road.” (Phone number: 8613623711903)
(Recording: MP3, Transcription: Appendix 1)
VIII. Bai Shuzhong, Former Minister of Health for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) General Logistics Department, Testified that Jiang Zemin Issued the Order of Harvesting Organs from Living Falun Gong Practitioners
Investigation Date: September 30, 2014
(Recording: MP3; Transcription: Appendix 2 http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/node/44818)
IX. Testimony from an Eyewitness to a Live Organ Harvesting Operation[13]
(Recording: MP3; Transcription: Appendix 4 http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/node/65238)
Some parts of the testimony from an armed police guard from Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province have been published by WOIPFG. On April 9, 2002, in an operating room on the 15th floor of the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region, this witness, who was serving as an armed guard, saw a female Falun Gong practitioner in her 30s, who had wounds and scars covering her entire body, as the result of one month of torture, rape and forced feeding. She was a teacher at a high school. The Public Security Bureau of Liaoning Province sent two military surgeons, and one of them had a military officer identification number of 0106069. They did not administer any anesthesia to the victim and extracted her heart, kidneys and other organs, while she remained fully conscious.
X. Chen Qiang, a kidney broker at the organ transplant department of the People’s Liberation Army No. 307 Hospital in Fengtai District, Beijing, admitted that government officials, the police and prisons were operating like an assembly line in trading organs harvested from Falun Gong practitioners. He said that they could even provide documents to attest to the donors’ identities as Falun Gong practitioners.
(Recording: MP3, Transcription: Appendix 5 http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/node/46728#_Toc366574827)
XI. 20 Hospitals across China have Directly Admitted that the Organs They Use in Their Transplants are from Falun Gong Practitioners
Top surgeons from all over the country—from organ transplant centers in Beijing and Tianjin to those in Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangdong, and Guangxi— have clearly admitted that Falun Gong practitioners have been being used as organ donors, and they have guaranteed that, in most cases, they can arrange an organ transplant surgery within one or two weeks.[14]
After 2006, in the face of the international community’s questioning of the aforementioned strange phenomena in China’s organ transplant industry, the CCP government evaded the questions at first, then categorically denied the allegations of live organ harvesting, and then they used the extracted organs from executed prisoners to cover up the truth of the organ transplants. Under the circumstances of being questioned about the source of the “executed prisoners’ organs” by the international community, the CCP authorities started a pilot project of voluntary organ donations by Chinese citizens in 10 Chinese cities in 2010. They soon announced the abolishment of the practice of using executed prisoners’ organs on January 1, 2015. Afterwards, the CCP claimed that all of the organs were from voluntary donations. Furthermore, in October 2015, Huang Jiefu claimed that in terms of organ donations, they had achieved a massive success, and the volume of organ transplants “reached a record high”. This time, at the 71st World Health Assembly’s side meeting, Huang claimed that all the organ transplants in China were performed with donated organs, and the organ transplant volume had significant increased.
For more information, please refer to WOIPFG’s report titled “WOIPFG Presents Evidence to Refute Huang Jiefu’s Lies at WHA Meeting”.
Link: http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/396
The WHA and its executives have always enjoyed a high reputation in the international medical community and the organ transplantation circles. We don’t believe that you would like to publicly endorse Huang Jiefu and the CCP’s organ transplant system, or to provide a platform for them, as both are mired with serious suspicions in terms of medical ethics and legal issues. And you probably don’t want to have experiences cooperating with him, after the shady inside stories of the Communist regime’s organ transplant industry becomes fully exposed in the future, even if you were unaware of the truth.
We kindly request the WHA and the side meeting committee members to conduct an independent and verifiable investigation into Huang Jiefu’s speech and China’s organ transplant sector, as well as to publish the investigation results.
We call for immediate actions by the governments of all countries, as well as all organizations and righteous people around the world to fully understand communism’s ultimate goal and thoroughly investigate the CCP’s crimes against humanity and bring it to justice! There is no time to waste! This is not only about severely punishing the perpetrators for their crimes, but more importantly, it’s also about restoring the human race’s last moral conscience! This is a battle between good and evil, as well as a comprehensive moral test for every individual, every organization, and every country’s government. At this junction of history, we hope that people will choose conscience and justice and come together to jointly eliminate the evil.
WOIPFG will continue to investigate, as always, the criminal conduct of all institutions, organizations, and individuals involved in the persecution of Falun Gong; to bring such investigations, no matter how long it takes, no matter how far and deep we have to search, to full closure; to exercise the fundamental principles of humanity; and to restore and uphold justice in society. This is our promise to humanity, and we will never give up.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Zhiyuan Wang, M.D.
President, World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG)
....................................................................
P.O. Box 84, New York, NY 10116, U.S.A.
Tel: +1-518-869-2352; Fax: +1-347-402-1444
wang.zhiyuan@uphold-justice.org
Reference
------------------------
[1] WOIPFG. August 9, 2016. “Summary Report on the Crime of Live Organ Harvesting in China by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong”. http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/370
[2] Chen Yanhui (reporter). March 23, 2006. “Investigation of Global Organ Transplantation – Investigation of Tens of Thousands Foreigners Visiting China for Organ Transplants, China Becoming the World’s Emerging Organ Transplant Center.” Phoenix Weekly.
Retrieved from: https://web.archive.org/web/20100611090330/http://news.ifeng.com/phoenixtv/83932384042418176/20060222/751049.shtml
WOIPFG’s archived link: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/cn/images/nationalcriminalreports/199.png
[3] China Liver Transplant Registry Network Statistics.
WOIPFG archived link: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/sites/default/files/report/2015/59389_12.png
[4] The number of liver transplantation registration. Chinese Liver Transplantation Registration Website.
WOIPFG archived link: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/sites/default/files/report/2015/59389_12.png
[5] September 3, 2013. “Expert: decrease in organ supply means more patients waiting to be treated.” China Economic Weekly.
Retrieved from: http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2013-09/03/c_125305093.htm
WOIPFG archived link: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/cn/images/nationalcriminalreports/301.png
[6] “April 28, 2006. “20 Kidney Transplant Operations Free of Charge.” Sina News Center.
Retrieved from: http://news.sina.com.cn/w/2006-04-28/08008809252s.shtml
WOIPFG archived link：
http://www.upholdjustice.org/upload/images/nationalcriminalreports/277.png
[7] Jilin Travel Radio Broadcast
http://www.sohu.com/a/145446454_223169
[8] WOIPFG. August 3, 2016. “WOIPFG’s Report on the Crime of Live Organ Harvesting in China - Chapters 3, 4, 5.” http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/361
[9] Minghui, www.minghui.org. “Investigation into Organ Harvesting: Kidney Transplant Hospitals Actively Recruiting Customers in Southeast Asia, and Other Leads”. http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2008/9/21/100822.html
[10] China Liver Transplant Registry. Report on Liver Transplantation in 2006.
WOIPFG archived link: http://www.upholdjustice.org/upload/images/nationalcriminalreports/192.pdf
[11] Urumqi News Online. http://www.xj.xinhuanet.com/bt/2005-10/03/content_5275137.htm
[12] Xue, Lian. “Vice Minister of Health as Chief Surgeon, China’s First Autologous Liver Transplantation Operation was Performed Successfully in Xinjiang”. Today’s Nurse.
WOIPFG’s Archived Webpage:
http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/sites/default/files/report/2016/64700_0301.pdf
[13] WOIPFG. March 14, 2016. “WOIPFG: Additional Testimony Provided by Eyewitness of Organ Harvesting from Living Victim(s)”. http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/node/65238
[14] WOIPFG. April 22, 2016. “THE FINAL HARVEST - Chapter 2: A State Crime”. http://www.upholdjustice.org/node/340
