Nobel Peace Prize nominee in Calgary to speak against forced organ harvesting in China

2010 Nobel Peace Prize nominee David Kilgour and award-winning author and China analyst Ethan Gutmann appeared together in the Downtown Central Library Oct. 29, to host a live forum and lecture about the alleged forced organ harvesting by the Chinese Communist Party against minority and religious groups in China. One group in particular are the Falun Gong, a spiritual religion centered around meditation and beliefs from both Buddhist and Taoist traditions.

The lecture was largely focused on the origins of the organ harvesting tradition,and the testimonies and evidences published in Gutmann’s new book, “The Slaughter.” I will describe and  summarize the content of the lecture below.

In 1999, the Chinese government implemented a national crackdown agenda in response to the wild growth of the Falun Gong religion. Their numbers were reported to be in the range of 79 million at that year, surpassing the member count of the communist party. Aside from the obvious anti-religious ideals, the communist party feared losing control over the massive popularity of the group.  thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested and tortured in the years to come. On top of the endless stream of propaganda in the news media, China was no longer a same place for Falun Gong members.

In 2006, Former MP David Kilgour and Human Rights lawyer David Matas published a controversial report detailing the allegations of forced organ harvesting in china. The Kilgour-Matas Report is centered around the fact that the percentage of organ donations rose exponentially in China around 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong members started. It also denied China’s claim that death-row inmates were the source of the organs, by asserting that the number of criminals cannot account for the significant rise in organ donors, and that chinese traditions make citizens generally shy away from organ donations. The waiting time for patients on an organ waiting list is ridiculously short for China, ranging from 1-2 weeks for a matched liver. This is contrasted by the astronomical one to three years waiting time for U.S. patients. This of course, was met with much criticism, as the evidence is circumstantial. Nonetheless, this did not stop the authors from gaining a Nobel Peace prize nomination in 2010. The Kilgour-Matas report also offered over a hundred testimonies from perpetrators to victims.

Mr. Gutmann in particular talked about the account a Vietnamese man, who had traveled to China twice in order to get a kidney transplant. During the first time, the surgeon actually gave him a list of names, and went down it  with the man until they had several candidates. one hour later, the doctor came back with a quite fresh kidney, and the surgery proceeded. After recovery, it was discovered that the man’s body had rejected the kidney. And so the doctor went down the list once again, and came back with another kidney soon after. This process continued 4 times over the course of 2 months, until the man gave up and returned to Vietnam, as his body kept rejecting the kidneys. He went back a few years later, where the SAME process was repeated 4 more times before his body had accepted a kidney. In Gutmann’s own words, 8 innocent people had to die so that this man could get a kidney. This is called transplant tourism, where people travel to morally-loose nations like China in order to receive cheap and/or fast organ transplants.

One account that stuck to me was how Mr. Gutmann initially found interest in this controversy. He had interviewed an old Chinese woman in Toronto where they discussed her experience at a Chinese labor camp.  One aspect of the interview quite disturbed Gutmann, in that the woman partook in a medical exam, in which in no way had any practical medical use. The doctor had examined her vital organs, instead of her actual health conditions.

During the questioning period, I had the chance of asking Mr. Gutmann and Kilgour a couple of questions.

Me: Why do you think this issue hasn’t been more prominent on western media?

Gutmann: I don’t believe that at all. I think that a lot of media sources have reported on this. Just a week ago I was interviews by CBC news.

Me: For mainland Chinese citizens, how do you think they view the topic of Falun Gong and the issue of organ harvesting?

K: Well actually I think Ethan will have a lot to say about this, but I remember being in Beijing and overhearing a conversation of a mother and daughter when they heard about Falun Gong. The daughter said to the mother, “Falun Gong? They eat their children don’t they?” *audience laughs* That’s the kind of effect that non-stop propaganda, ever since April 1999, can have on the general population.

G: When the internet was made available to the average citizen, I think there was a tremendous leap in awareness. I mean when we think about it, we believe that our actions have no effect in China. But when the internet did open up, Chinese began to learn English, and they started searching up these issues. They found the Kilgour-Matas report, they found the western media news sources. I think that there is some perception of this among the general public… the evidence is overwhelming.

It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk with these two gentlemen. Ethan Gutmann’s “The Slaughter” is on sale now, and contains even more eyewitnesses and testimonies from both sides of this conflict. I do recommend buying the book or reading up further on this topic, as it is riveting, and at the same time, bone chilling.