Written evidence from the Falun Dafa Association UK (CHI0021)

Executive summary

Introduction

The Falun Dafa Association UK represents the people who practice Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) in the UK.

Falun Dafa is a very informal and personal practice which is open to anyone and appeals to people from all walks of life across the globe. Although there are a number of British practitioners, the majority of Falun Dafa practitioners in the UK are Chinese born and raised. Many are British citizens now and greatly appreciate this free society where we can all practice our faith without being persecuted. Many also lived through the Cultural Revolution and have experienced the severity of the Communist Party directly, so our experience gives us perhaps a more grass-roots perspective and insight into China.

Key points

  1. Falun Gong introduced to the public:  Falun Gong is an ancient Buddha-school practice. It teaches the principles of “truthfulness, compassion and tolerance” as the most fundamental qualities and takes them to be a guide for daily life and practice.  It also teaches slow-moving exercises and meditation which improve health. The practice was introduced to the public in China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi and it spread very rapidly by word of mouth.
  2. Investigation into Falun Gong: In May 1998 China’s National Sports Commission launched an investigation into Falun Gong, and commissioned medical professionals to conduct interviews of over 12,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Guangdong province. 97.9% of respondents said Falun Gong improved their health. The investigation concluded:  “We’re convinced the exercises and effects of Falun Gong are excellent. It has done an extraordinary amount to improve society’s stability and ethics. This should be duly affirmed.”[i]
  3. Falun Gong is widespread: In 1999, the State Sports Commission estimated that upwards of 70 million people in China were practising Falun Gong.[i] In April 1999, a  New York Times article also reported 70 million Falun Gong adherents and said of the group “even by Chinese Government estimates has more members than the Communist Party.”[ia]
  4. The directive to “eradicate” Falun Gong: During a July 1999 meeting of senior CCP cadres the CCP leader at that time, Jiang Zemin, announced his decision to eradicate Falun Gong.  He gave the directive to “Destroy their reputations, cut them off financially, and eradicate them physically.”[ii] 
  5. Jiang Zemin established a department called “The 6-10 Office” to carry out his directive, it was granted authority over all police, government and courts. The national campaign was launched on 20 July 1999, it includes inciting hatred, arbitrary detention, torture and killing, all of which continues today.[i]
  6. Understanding why the CCP persecutes Falun Gong: Falun Gong is a peaceful faith, rooted in traditional Chinese culture which emphasizes being in “harmony with heaven and earth”, valuing life and virtues.  It  takes truthfulness, compassion and tolerance as its core tenets. In contrast, the CCP destroyed traditional Chinese culture with the Cultural Revolution; it is not tolerant of faith but enforces atheism and requires the populace to believe there is no greater power than the CCP. It establishes control through violence, fear and deception and does not value life. Falun Gong represents the polar opposite of CCP ideology. Jiang Zemin declared that if the CCP could not defeat Falun Gong then the Party would become “a laughing stock.”[i]

 

  1. Largest group of prisoners of conscience: According to the January 2015 Freedom House Special Report: “The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] devoted considerable resources to suppressing Falun Gong and coercing adherents into renouncing their beliefs, typically through the use of violence. Hundreds of thousands of adherents were sentenced to labor camps and prison terms making them the largest contingent of prisoners of conscience in the country.

 

  1. “Many were detained and punished for simply possessing spiritual texts in the privacy of their own homes, or for taking actions like printing homemade leaflets to inform others about abuses against fellow believers.”[iii]

 

  1. It should be noted that despite the violence of the persecution, Falun Gong practitioners' response has always been non-violent.

 

  1. The severe persecution continues: Some of the reports of human rights abuses of Falun Gong practitioners are able to get past China's information blockade and reach the Minghui website, which is the central Falun Gong website. Minghui reported the following number of arrests in 2016:

 

  1. January-June: 4,892 arrested.[iv]

July: 883 arrested.[v]

August: 760 arrested.[vi]

September: 690 arrested.[vii]

October: 574 arrested.[viii]

November: 751 arrested.[ix]

 

  1. The Minghui report on the first half of 2016 listed abuses such as: harassment, dismissal from work or school, threats, forcing into hiding, extortion, seizure of personal valuables, denial of pension, arbitrary detention, forced labour, brainwashing, interrogation, torture, sleep deprivation, injection with unknown drugs,  death, and reports of the forcible drawing of  blood samples by police. [iv]

 

  1. What is the issue of organ harvesting in China: China has always used executed prisoners as the primary source for organs, by their own admission. But there is now considerable evidence that the main source of organs for the massive and profitable transplant industry is actually prisoners of conscience – primarily Falun Gong but also Tibetans, Uyghurs and Christians.[x]

 

  1. Why this is an issue of concern for the UK: We know that UK nationals go to China as “organ tourists” to have organ transplants. We don't know how many, due to hospital confidentiality and the absence of a requirement for patients to disclose organs obtained outside the UK.
  2. The Human Tissue Act 2004 regulates activities in the UK related to organ transplants and states that “Consent is the fundamental principle of the legislation and underpins the lawful removal, storage and use of body parts, organs and tissue.”[xi]

 

  1. Consent is legally required in the UK and is also “the ethical cornerstone” as defined by the World Health Organisation Guiding Principles of Transplantation, yet we allow UK nationals to go abroad and receive organs when there is evidence (see below) that donor consent is not given in the majority of transplants in China.

 

  1. What is some of the evidence of organ harvesting: In 2006, the first independent report was written by David Kilgour (former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific) and David Matas (international human rights lawyer). This report, “Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China”, presents the first major body of evidence that state-sanctioned organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners was happening. This evidence includes witness statements, investigative phone calls to Chinese hospitals, reports of the blood-testing of detained Falun Gong practitioners where other detainees were not being blood-tested, the impossibly short waiting times for organ transplant recipients, and statements from family members who saw the body of a deceased Falun Gong practitioner with missing parts. There were 18 significant pieces of evidence. A revised report in 2007 presented 33 pieces of evidence.[x]

 

  1. Ethan Gutmann (an award-winning research journalist) produced his own research and published it in his 2014 book “The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem.”[xii]

 

  1. In 2016, Kilgour, Matas and Gutmann worked together to meticulously examine the transplant hospitals in China and produced a 680-page report titled “Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update.” [xiii]

 

  1. These three reports are the foundation of the investigative research on this subject, though more has been done. We hope that the Foreign Affairs Committee will read these fundamental reports carefully.

 

  1. What has been China's response to these reports on organ harvesting: In a hearing before the U.S. Congress David Matas noted in his testimony that the response from China only reinforces his belief that the Communist regime is guilty. He said “Despite all their resources and inside knowledge, they have not provided any information to counter the report. Instead they have attacked us personally, and, more worrisome, attacked the Falun Gong with the very sort of verbal abuse which we have identified as one of the reasons we believe these atrocities are occurring.”[xiv]

 

  1. The 2016 “An Update” report states, “Ultimately it does not fall to us to explain where China gets its organs for transplants. The duty to explain the sourcing of organs for transplantation falls on China. The United Nations rapporteurs on torture and religious intolerance asked in the years 2007 and 2008 for the Government of China to account for the large discrepancy between the volumes of transplants they claimed to have made and the volume of sources they were prepared to acknowledge. The Government of China answered these queries in 2007 with silence, in 2008 with propaganda, and in 2015 with fiction.”[xiii]

 

  1. To date, China has still not provided any information that would put to rest these allegations.

 

  1. China's organ sourcing:  In China people do not want to donate their organs due to a cultural belief that the body should remain intact. The Beijing Red Cross stated in 2011 that over the past 20 years only 37 people nationwide had registered to become an organ donor.[xv]

 

  1. China has a vast prison system and in 1984 enacted regulations that allow organs to be extracted from prisoners.[xvi] It should be noted that this regulation is still in effect.

 

  1. Although China strenuously denied harvesting organs from executed prisoners for decades, in 2005 they admitted that more than 90% of organs come from executed prisoners.[xvii]

 

  1. Using prisoner organs, however, is a violation of international ethical standards since prisoners are deprived of their freedom, are not free from coercion and therefore are unable to give the free, voluntary consent which is fundamental in organ transplantation ethics. The World Medical Association policy on organ and tissue donation clearly states: “In Jurisdictions where the death penalty is practised, executed prisoners must not be considered as organ and/or tissue donors.”[xviii]

 

  1. Due to international pressure China started a public donor system in 2013. Also due to international pressure, China announced that from January 2015 they would stop using organs from executed prisoners and use only organs from deceased citizens.[xix]

 

  1. Soon after making the statement they would stop using executed prisoners' organs, they said they would reclassify executed prisoners as ordinary citizens in order to include them in the public donor system. Dr. Otmar Kloiber, the World Medical Association secretary general said “The practice there is unethical and should be changed to an ethical practice,” he said of China, “Administrative tricks don't make it ethical.”[xx]
  2. As part of China's reforms of organ donation and transplantation they recently created COTRS (China Organ Transplant Response System), a computerised organ allocation system that supposedly promotes transparency. However there is no transparency about the source of organs and COTRS has merely become a more efficient method for allocating organs.[xix]

 

  1. The World health Organization Guiding Principles on Transplantation, No. 10 and No. 11, demand traceability and transparency.[xxi] China has not complied with these guidelines even with the recent implementation of the COTRS system since traceability and transparency are absent.

 

  1. One other note of concern is that prisoners of conscience may be classified in China as executed prisoners since in China, 'executed prisoner' means a person killed by the state whilst in detention, irrespective of his/her criminal status.[xxii]

 

  1. China's expanding transplantation industry: Shortly after the launch of the national policy to eradicate Falun Gong, China's transplantation industry boomed. They developed national financial plans, projects and programmes related to organ transplantation and defined it as one of China's emerging industries, displaying confidence and building hundreds of transplant centres despite not having a donor programme at the time.[xiii]

 

  1. Amnesty International and Duihua Foundation both monitor China's number of executed prisoners. Although they used different methodologies, both organisations confirm the same trend that the number of executed prisoners does not increase during this period of significant growth in Chinese organ transplants.[xiii]

 

  1. The number of transplants performed in China is conservatively estimated between 60,000-100,000 per year. The Amnesty International count of executed prisoners remained consistently less than 2,000 per year before 2009; after 2009 they stopped reporting and claimed the number to be “in the thousands.” There is a huge discrepancy between the number of transplants performed and the number of executed prisoners.[xiii]

 

  1. The latest evidence of organ harvesting from a prisoner of conscience: Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported in December 2016 that authorities in China removed the organs of a Christian prisoner of conscience against the family's wishes.[xxiii]

 

  1. International response: The following are just a few of the responses to the evidence of forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience in China.

 

  1. U.S. Congress: On 13 June 2016, House Resolution 343 was passed unanimously. It condemns the practice of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in China; calls on the immediate end of the practice of organ harvesting from all prisoners of conscience;  and demands an immediate end to the 17-year persecution of the Falun Gong with the immediate release of all Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience.[xxiv]

 

  1. European Parliament: On 27 July 2016, written declaration 0048/2016 titled “Stopping organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China” was adopted. It states “There have been persistent credible reports on systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, primarily from practitioners of Falun Gong peaceful meditation and exercises but also from Uighurs, Tibetans and Christians.”[xxv]

 

  1. Italian Senate: On 4 March 2015, the Italian Senate unanimously passed a bill that punishes any person who illegally sells organs from living people with severe sanctions and stiff prison terms. Where do China’s transplant organs come from? “The answer is dramatic,” said Senator Maurizio Romani, author of the bill. In China, the safety of prisoners of conscience is now critical. “Especially practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong are killed for their organs. I use the term cannibalism for this matter,” said Romani. “We in Italy can’t stop these violations,” the Senator said, “But, we have the duty to make every effort in order not to be accomplices to this.”[xxvi]

 

  1. Taiwan: On 12 June 2015, the Taiwanese congress passed new amendments to the established Human Organ Transplantation Act making a broad Organ Trafficking Law which supports transparency of foreign organ transplantations and ensures the safety of transplant recipients. It had a focus on China since up to 97% of Taiwanese people seeking transplantations abroad travel to China for transplantations. Some of the amended provisions were:

* A 1-5 year criminal sentence imposed on any broker, organ trader and or individual involved in organ tourism, within Taiwan or outside of Taiwan, with extra-territorial jurisdiction.

* If an organ transplant is done abroad, patients are  required to file a report with the Taiwan hospital where they receive after-care disclosing the country, hospital and the organ transplanted. The hospital will be fined for failing to secure this information.[xxvii]

 

  1. Israel: In 2008, Israel passed a law banning the sale and brokerage of organs. The law also ended funding, through the health insurance system, of transplants in China for Israeli nationals. Dr Jay Lavee, initiator of this law, explains this law as a reaction to transplant abuse in China.[xxviii]

Recommendations

The Falun Dafa Association UK makes the following recommendations to Her Majesty’s Government:

  1. Speak publicly against China's unacceptable persecution of prisoners of conscience and demand that they be freed.

 

  1. Ratify the Council of Europe's Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs

 

  1. Inform UK nationals through travel advisories and the NHS that organ transplants in China are sourced almost entirely from executed prisoners and non-consenting prisoners of conscience, which violates international ethical standards.

 

  1. Enact legislation banning transplant tourism which penalizes any transplant patient who receives an organ without consent of the donor, where the patient knew or ought to have known of the absence of consent.

January 2017

Footnotes

 

[i] “Run up to the persecution: Timeline,” Falun Dafa Information Center - http://en.faluninfo.eu/background/pers_timeline

 

[ia] “Noteriety Now for Movement's Leader,” by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 27 April 1999 - http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/27/world/notoriety-now-for-movement-s-leader.html

[ii] “Anything for Power: The Real Story of China's Jiang Zemin – Chapter 16,” by The Epoch Times, 26 September 2016 - http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1026925-anything-for-power-the-real-story-of-chinas-jiang-zemin-chapter-16/full/

[iii] “The Politburo's Predicament: Confronting the Limitations of Chinese Communist Party Repression,” Feedom House, January 2015 - https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/12222014_FH_ChinaReport2014_FINAL.pdf

[iv] “Minghui Report: Overview of Persecution of Falun Gong in First Half of 2016 (Part 1 of 2),” Minghiu.org, 30 August 2016 - http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/8/30/158471.html

 

[v] “Minghui Report: 1,054 Cases of Falun Gong Practitioners Targeted for Their Faith Newly Reported in July 2016,” Minghiu.org, 29 August 2016 - http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/8/29/158464.html

 

[vi] “Minghui Report: 950 Cases of Falun Gong Practitioners Being Persecuted for Their Faith Newly Reported in August 2016,” Minghui.org, 1 October 2016  - http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/10/1/159369.html

 

[vii] “Minghui Report: 839 New Cases of Falun Gong Practitioners Targeted for Their Faith Reported in September 2016,” Minghui.org, 27 October 2016 - http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/10/27/159701.html

 

[viii] “Minghui Report: 574 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested for Their Faith in October 2016,” Minghui.org, 24 November 2016 - http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/11/24/160066.html

 

[ix] “Minghui Report: 751 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested for Their Faith in November 2016,” Minghui.org, 24 December 2016 - http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/12/24/160448.html

 

[x] “Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China,” by David Matas and David Kilgour, 31 January 2007 - http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131-eng.pdf

 

[xi] Human Tissue Act 2004, Human Tissue Authority - https://www.hta.gov.uk/policies/human-tissue-act-2004

 

[xii] The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem, by Ethan Gutman, Random House International, 12 September 2014.

 

[xiii] Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update, by David Kilgour, David Matas, Ethan Gutmann, 22 June 2016 - http://endorganpillaging.org/an-update/

 

[xiv] “Congress Holds First Hearing on Organ Harvestin," by Gary Feuerburg, The Epoch Times, 2 October 2006 - http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1416880-congress-holds-first-hearing-on-organ-harvesting/

 

[xv] Dr. Damon Noto, U.S. House Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 12 September 2012 - https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg75859/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg75859.pdf

 

[xvi] “China: Organ Procurement and Judicial Execution in China,” Human Rights Watch, Vol. 6, No. 9, August 1994 - https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/china1/china_948.htm

 

[xvii] “Report: China still harvesting organs from prisoners at a massive scale,” by James Griffiths, CNN, 25 June 2016 - http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/

 

[xviii] “WMA Statement on Organ and Tissue Donation,” World Medical Association, October 2012 - http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/o3/

 

[xix] “Transplant Medicine in China: Need for Transparency and International Scrutiny Remains,” 12 July 2016 – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajt.14014/epdf

 

[xx] “China Bends Vow on Using Prisoners' Organs for Transplants,” by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, 16 November 2015 - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/asia/china-bends-vow-using-prisoners-organs-for-transplants.html?_r=0

 

[xxi] “Who Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation,” World Health Organization - http://www.who.int/transplantation/Guiding_PrinciplesTransplantation_WHA63.22en.pdf?ua=1

 

[xxii] “Smoke and Mirrors: unanswered questions and misleading statements obscure the truth about organ sources in China,” by Rogers, Trey, Singh, Bridgett, Bramstedt, Lavee, Journal of Medical Ethics, 4 May 2016 - http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2016/05/04/medethics-2016-103533.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=ZxEB0QIPU6j7BJA

 

[xxiii] “Organs Removed from Prisoner of Consience,” Christian Solidarity Worldwide, 13 December 2016 - http://www.csw.org.uk/2016/12/13/news/3384/article.htm

 

[xxiv] H.Res.343 - 114th Congress (2015-2016) - https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-resolution/343/

 

[xxv] Written Declaration 0048/2016, European Parliament, 12 September 26 -  http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=PV&reference=20160912&secondRef=ANN-02&language=EN

 

[xxvi] “Italian Senate Passes Bill to Confront Organ Harvesting in March 2015,” DAFOH, http://www.dafoh.org/italian-senate-passes-bill-to-confront-organ-harvesting-in-march-2015/

 

[xxvii] “Taiwan legislation sets a new standard in the combat against rogue organ harvesting practices,” DAFOH, http://www.dafoh.org/taiwan-legislation-sets-a-new-standard-in-the-combat-against-rogue-organ-harvesting-practices/

 

[xxviii] Lavee J. The impact of the use of organs from executed prisoners in China on the new Organ Transplantation Law in Israel. In: Matas D, Trey T, eds. State organs: Transplant abuse in China. Woodstock, ON, Canada: Seraphim Editions, 2012, pp.108-113.