Organ harvesting in China
15 Aug 2006 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiSomeone you love is dying from liver failure. Would you condone the actions of a doctor who offers to take an organ, without consent from a political prisoner whose only crime was their ideology?
About a month ago, a former Canadian Secretary of State and a human rights lawyer jointedly published the results of their preliminary investigations into the allegations against China of harvesting organs from political prisoners.
This report almost coincided with the annual Australian-Chinese human rights dialogue - which probably not many people know exists, even though it has just marched away from the anniversary of its first decade.
At the press conference following the dialogue, only 3 media groups seemed vaguely interested in questioning the organ harvesting claims. In fact, not many media outlets reported it. Sydney Morning Herald had about 2 articles on it, and ABC radio interviewed an Australian doctor, who agreed "that organ harvesting has always been known to happen in medical circles".
The report itself admits in the introduction that no concrete evidence has been gathered that can solidly prove either side of the allegations or denials. The second hand evidence it has gathered - through interviews, primarily with secondary witnesses, either by association to perpetrators or victims, or independent journalists who obtained offers of organ donation from hospitals - appeared sufficiently alarming for this report to be published.
To remove this discussion from the actualities and messiness of the entire organ harvesting business itself and the silent consent that seems to occur in some medical circles, let's look at the circumstances surrounding this case.
- The number of organ donations available for transplant increased enormously from early 2000 compared to pre-1999 rates. The Falun Gong persecution began in late 1999. It is well-known outside China that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in their appeal process and their locations since have not been disclosed by the police. This is not to say, of course, that Falun Gong practitioners are the only victims, as political prisoners comprise anyone from qigong practitioners to devout Christians who refuse to recognise the Communist-run church to democratic activists.
- The immediate and sustained response from China is to deny these allegations. The allegations first came out in MARCH 2006. The Chinese government, apart from denying everything, promised to implement a law in JULY 2006 banning organ transplants. This is a sickening farce. If it's serious about banning organ transplants, the law should have come into effect immediately. What exactly is forgivable about these crimes that a "phase-in" period is allowed?!
- The newspaper which first came out with these allegations was The Epochtimes. Accusations of it being a tabloid newspaper aside, in the week immediately subsequent to this exposure, 2 separate offices of The Epochtimes were broken into - one in America and one in Japan - and the computer hard drives removed. No other valuables were taken. If these allegations were completely untrue, if there is nothing to be found, why the fearful tactics?
- To date, independent investigations has been denied access to the hospitals in question. China has, however, taken a group of American officials to the site, and obviously found nothing. If a murderer leads the police into his house, he'd be a mental retard if they found dead bodies lying in the lounge room. The visit proves and disproves nothing.
I'm sorry this post is so long, but I think it's something that needs to be told. I don't want to point fingers and say, "See, China is harvesting organs" - even though there seems to be quite a lot of people who agree, "It's been happening for a while now". The report suggests that it has been, at least before the law came in, an active industry regularly committing such heinous crimes and generating enormous amounts of profit for the associated hospitals.
On Thursday afternoon, one of the cowriters of the report, David Kilgour, and the current serving Vice President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, will be present at a forum to discuss this very issue. By his own admission, McMillan-Scott has accessed Falun Gong practitioners, who, along with his interpretor, were arrested for the contact, and one of them has not been heard from since.
Location: The Theatrette, Parliament House, Macquarie Street
Time: 17th August 2006. 5:30-7:00pm
Go and find out why two high-profile politicians (well...one ex-politician) would volunteer so much of their time and effort for a bunch of allegations that the Chinese government has so far unwaveringly dismissed as "fabricated and baseless".
About a month ago, a former Canadian Secretary of State and a human rights lawyer jointedly published the results of their preliminary investigations into the allegations against China of harvesting organs from political prisoners.
This report almost coincided with the annual Australian-Chinese human rights dialogue - which probably not many people know exists, even though it has just marched away from the anniversary of its first decade.
At the press conference following the dialogue, only 3 media groups seemed vaguely interested in questioning the organ harvesting claims. In fact, not many media outlets reported it. Sydney Morning Herald had about 2 articles on it, and ABC radio interviewed an Australian doctor, who agreed "that organ harvesting has always been known to happen in medical circles".
The report itself admits in the introduction that no concrete evidence has been gathered that can solidly prove either side of the allegations or denials. The second hand evidence it has gathered - through interviews, primarily with secondary witnesses, either by association to perpetrators or victims, or independent journalists who obtained offers of organ donation from hospitals - appeared sufficiently alarming for this report to be published.
To remove this discussion from the actualities and messiness of the entire organ harvesting business itself and the silent consent that seems to occur in some medical circles, let's look at the circumstances surrounding this case.
- The number of organ donations available for transplant increased enormously from early 2000 compared to pre-1999 rates. The Falun Gong persecution began in late 1999. It is well-known outside China that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in their appeal process and their locations since have not been disclosed by the police. This is not to say, of course, that Falun Gong practitioners are the only victims, as political prisoners comprise anyone from qigong practitioners to devout Christians who refuse to recognise the Communist-run church to democratic activists.
- The immediate and sustained response from China is to deny these allegations. The allegations first came out in MARCH 2006. The Chinese government, apart from denying everything, promised to implement a law in JULY 2006 banning organ transplants. This is a sickening farce. If it's serious about banning organ transplants, the law should have come into effect immediately. What exactly is forgivable about these crimes that a "phase-in" period is allowed?!
- The newspaper which first came out with these allegations was The Epochtimes. Accusations of it being a tabloid newspaper aside, in the week immediately subsequent to this exposure, 2 separate offices of The Epochtimes were broken into - one in America and one in Japan - and the computer hard drives removed. No other valuables were taken. If these allegations were completely untrue, if there is nothing to be found, why the fearful tactics?
- To date, independent investigations has been denied access to the hospitals in question. China has, however, taken a group of American officials to the site, and obviously found nothing. If a murderer leads the police into his house, he'd be a mental retard if they found dead bodies lying in the lounge room. The visit proves and disproves nothing.
I'm sorry this post is so long, but I think it's something that needs to be told. I don't want to point fingers and say, "See, China is harvesting organs" - even though there seems to be quite a lot of people who agree, "It's been happening for a while now". The report suggests that it has been, at least before the law came in, an active industry regularly committing such heinous crimes and generating enormous amounts of profit for the associated hospitals.
On Thursday afternoon, one of the cowriters of the report, David Kilgour, and the current serving Vice President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, will be present at a forum to discuss this very issue. By his own admission, McMillan-Scott has accessed Falun Gong practitioners, who, along with his interpretor, were arrested for the contact, and one of them has not been heard from since.
Location: The Theatrette, Parliament House, Macquarie Street
Time: 17th August 2006. 5:30-7:00pm
Go and find out why two high-profile politicians (well...one ex-politician) would volunteer so much of their time and effort for a bunch of allegations that the Chinese government has so far unwaveringly dismissed as "fabricated and baseless".
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-15 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 05:31 am (UTC)In some cases the reporter/researcher assume that China is guilty prior to the investigation, as a result their reports are often biased. Part of this assumption/bias is due to the opacity of Chinese governments and one may very well question that: "If they have got nothing to hide, then why dont they just become more transparent?" A possible answer is because China is now precariously treading on the thin line of maintaining total control whilst embracing the west for the benefits in wealth. Being judged continously for the lack of humanitarian governance means that the Chinese government is even more unwilling to expose possible weaknesses for the West. Just recently America wrongly accused China of possible currency manipulation, and blamed China for its foreign expenditure deficit. Therefore any alarming reports would provide ammunition for various parties to strike.
Of course, the other party's ultimate intentions are often irrelevant. It does not change that fact that if its common practice for Chinese hospital were to involuntarily remove organs for profit, it is unforgivable.(lets not grey the matter by putting a nametag on the involuntary patient, whether they are political prisoners or just some starving countrymen seeking money to survive)
And in all fairness there are plenty of independent human rights group that investigate injustices all around the world. So I am not discrediting them just because the reported evidence is usually negative.
In fact, increasingly I am pained by new insights into my view of China. At a first glance, the economy/market seems to be growing at a rapid rate, where living standards have risen across the board, albeit at dramatically
varied pace. The image of the nation has became that of a rising tiger, the national language are now learnt by more and more people. And culture and arts are increasingly celebrated in the west. China is also making progress in adopting foreign best practises when making new laws/regulations on particular aspects of the market. (sorry for the frequent economic references, its the field I know best ;D)However, it seems many core fundamental institutions are eroding. Education is turning into businesses. Spending on education has not increased as a percentage of economic growth, and increasingly, public schools are turning quasi-private. They are indefintely raise fees whilst not needing the transparency that private schools do. Jargon aside, schools are turning into profit, and the lack of government funding means the schooling system is much more discriminatory and greatly favour the rich. In addition, the quality of education has also declined. Tertiary education is now VERY relaxed and up from 3% graudation rate in the late 1970s, up to 80-90% of students now graduate. The abolishment of "key" (zhong dian) universities means that it is increasingly difficult for companies to distinguish between candidates. Combined, talent is lost and university graduates are unable to find jobs domestically.
Man....sorry for the out of topic reply and I guess I've written a long-ass entry of my own.... /bow /sorry!
no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 08:45 am (UTC)Nice to see you bring your own "expertise" into this XD I known next to nothing about economy, so you might want to verify for me. Is it true that despite the huge economic boom going on in China now, the actual "distance" between the impoverished and the cream of the crop, so to speak, is actually also increasing consequentially and dramatically? In the light of that, I think, it does put a slight blemish on the proud Chinese claims that "China is a much better place now", because it's not a better place for everyone. It might even be a lot worse for some people, because along with western technology and ideology, a lot of diseases were also introduced into China (most notably HIV and the various strains of hepatitis viruses) and the responses by the health authorities are generally reactionary rather than preventory.
But before we forget, of course, China's not the only country guilty of opacity. A lot of countries in the Middle East and parts of Africa are confounding efforts by WHO to contain certain diseases because they refuse to disclose their prevalence/incidence rates, or forthrightly deny the existence of an epidemic - much like what China has done in the past few years with SARS and bird flu.
Hehe...you sound like an economics essay XD Take that as a compliment.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 11:20 am (UTC)Like I mentioned, China's living conditions has improved across the board, but at dramatically varied rates. Coastal cities that receive a lot of foreign investment is much more well off than the country side. The biggest problem of this is urbanisation. I think one statistics is that for every job created in the city, there are 6 people moving from the countryside to the city to find jobs. The result is citysides turning into slums and the whole bad "city image" thing. This also moves labour away from agricultural production and that is bad for a country still in transition. (Even established economies like USA do everything to protect their farmers, at the expense of pissing off the WTO)
And ya, most economists agree that rural areas can use a good boost, but as they put it. "At least now they have something to eat"
no subject
Date: 2006-08-17 10:55 am (UTC)You can say that again for Australia.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-17 11:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-17 12:10 pm (UTC)Lol nuu thanks for quoting that without pointing at all the typos.
Well China is way worse. This is anecdotal but my aunty told me that University graduates are too common now in China. There are lots of uni graduates working as babysitters.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7279166
is the link if your interested.
The economist website has some free articles that are available for viewing and surprisingly its got a lot of stuff on human rights and like...medical stuff.