{"id":20782,"date":"2014-08-10T01:08:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T01:08:17","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:16:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:16:21","slug":"chinas-long-history-of-harvesting-organs-from-living-political-foes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=20782","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s long history of harvesting organs from living political foes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Enver Tohti was a surgeon in a hospital in Xinjiang, in the northwestern part of China, when, in June 1995, he was instructed by his superior to prepare for an adventure \u2014 surgery in the field.<\/p>\n<p>In the morning, when the doctor and his team arrived at their destination, he realized they were at \u201cthe Western Mountain Execution Grounds, which specialized in killing political dissidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you hear a gunshot, drive around the hill,\u201d he was told.<\/p>\n<p>He asked why they were there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don&#8217;t want to know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the shot rang out, he drove where he was told, and saw \u201c10, maybe 20, bodies lying at the base of the hill.\u201d The police led him to one in particular, a man of \u201cabout 30 dressed in navy blue overalls,\u201d and told him that this is the man Tohti would be operating on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018Why are we operating?&#8217; Tohti protested. \u2018Come on. This man is dead.&#8217; \u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Tohti felt a faint pulse, stiffened and corrected himself. \u201cNo. He&#8217;s not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOperate, then. Remove the liver and kidneys. Now! Quick! Be quick!&#8217;?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A stunned Tohti did as he was told, trying to pretend this was normal procedure. He \u201cglanced questioningly at the chief surgeon. \u2018No anesthesia,&#8217; said the chief surgeon. \u2018No life support.&#8217; \u201d The anesthesiologist \u201cjust stood there, arms folded. \u2018He&#8217;s already unconscious,&#8217; the man reasoned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The anesthesiologist was wrong.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Enver&#8217;s scalpel went in, the man&#8217;s chest heaved spasmodically and then curled back again.\u201d After Tohti removed the organs and stitched him up \u2014 \u201cnot internally,\u201d as there was \u201cno point to that anymore\u201d \u2014 he noticed that blood was still pulsing. He was sure the man was still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mHr8ZPrnCq4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Enemies of the state<\/strong><br \/>\nReports of organ harvesting in China are nothing new, as the government has admitted that the organs of death-row prisoners have been used for transplants, and BBC investigations have found that \u201cBritish women apply the collagen of executed prisoners to their faces every night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But according to longtime China analyst and human-rights investigator Ethan Gutmann in his disturbing new book, \u201cThe Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China&#8217;s Secret Solution to its Dissident Problem\u201d (Prometheus Books), the realities of the practice are far more awful.<\/p>\n<p>Organs coming out of China \u2014 which sometimes wind up in American bodies \u2014 are taken not just from the worst Chinese criminals, as China claims, but also from prisoners of conscience, especially practitioners of the banned and derided practice Falun Gong, who never committed, or were even accused of, capital crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Making this far worse, though, are the revelations that authorities aren&#8217;t waiting for death to claim their bounty. In an effort to increase the chances of successful transplant, Gutmann writes, the organs are often taken from prisoners while they are still alive.<\/p>\n<p>Gutmann estimates that to date, more than 64,000 Falun Gong practitioners have suffered this fate, with more being added to the count every day.<\/p>\n<p>Given the way it&#8217;s demonized by the Chinese government, Falun Gong&#8217;s origins were shockingly simple. A man named Li Hongzhi sat outside on the corner of a \u201crundown apartment block\u201d in 1992 to teach \u201cvery slow, meditative exercises to anyone who was interested.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This would seem innocuous, but there was another element, \u201ca hardcore Buddhist morality system of compassion, truthfulness and forbearance,\u201d that accounts for the movement&#8217;s rapid growth and stunning popularity and helps explain why the Communist Party came to perceive the movement as a threat.<\/p>\n<p>Falun Gong quickly attracted millions of followers and by 1995 rivaled the Communist Party in size. This, combined with a desire by the party to turn China into a global economic power \u2014 something that could be difficult to achieve if your entire population is meditating \u2014 turned Falun Gong into public enemy No. 1.<\/p>\n<p>By 1996, articles began appearing in the state-run Chinese media calling Falun Gong \u201cpseudoscientific, feudal, superstitious nonsense,\u201d and practitioners found themselves under increasing surveillance.<\/p>\n<p>By 1999, Falun Gong had 70 million practitioners \u2014 one out of every 20 people in China \u2014 and they began being arrested for the practice. During one massive, peaceful demonstration, Chinese police steered thousands of protesters into a position that made it look like they had surrounded a government building, thereby justifying an intense crackdown. The police that day, Gutmann writes, \u201cacted with unusual brutality, spilling blood for the first time in Falun Gong history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chinese officials were so concerned about the movement&#8217;s potential power that Jiang Zemin, the Communist Party chairman, was seen in a limo, circling the protesters several times so he could observe the enemy firsthand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hunting the Falun Gong<\/strong><br \/>\nThus began what practitioners would come to call \u201cThe Persecution.\u201d On June 7, 1999, Jiang \u201cgave an internal speech calling for the urgent disintegration of Falun Gong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three days later, the Chinese government unofficially created The 6-10 Office, their version of \u201ca special intelligence unit created under wartime powers.\u201d Its sole function was the organization&#8217;s eradication.<\/p>\n<p>The following month, on July 20, every identifiable Falun Gong coordinator in China was placed under arrest. The government claimed to have arrested just 150 people. From interviews, Gutmann determined that 10,000 practitioners were detained in the city of Harbin alone.<\/p>\n<p>Practitioners were given two choices: Sign a document renouncing Falun Gong, or be left at the mercy of the authorities. Those who signed were allowed to return home. Those who didn&#8217;t were sent to prison.<\/p>\n<p>Once incarcerated, practitioners found themselves at the bottom of a frightening pecking order, as the actual hardened criminals had been given the go-ahead to keep them in line with beatings, torture, rape and even murder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCriminal prisoners would taunt the practitioners: \u2018If you don&#8217;t do what we say we&#8217;ll torture you to death and sell your organs.&#8217; \u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the PR war against Falun Gong intensified \u2014 81 anti-Falun Gong books were published, leaders of the official state religions denounced it and even children were being inoculated against it, painting banners in school denouncing the group \u2014 millions of the peaceful practitioners faced horrors including torture via electric baton and a version of the medieval rack.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA middle-aged peasant woman named Zhao Jinhua had been arrested while working a field,\u201d Gutmann writes. \u201cAfter nine days of beatings, electric shocks and sleep deprivation, she was pronounced dead on Oct. 7, the first confirmed case of death by torture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By mid-2000, Gutmann estimates that at least 1 million Falun Gong were imprisoned in China, many of whom would never see daylight again. By 2005, Falun Gong investigators reported that 3,000 practitioners had died from their torture. Gutmann says that, knowing that the group was designing figures that would stand up to outside scrutiny, \u201cthe real figure is undoubtedly higher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robbing the living<\/strong><br \/>\nAs horrible as these tales are, they would seemingly be matched, if not surpassed, by tales from victims of live organ harvesting. Unfortunately, those victims don&#8217;t live to tell their tales.<\/p>\n<p>But others have tried speaking for them, only to have the world respond with a collective yawn.<\/p>\n<p>In 2006, \u201ctwo prominent Canadian human-rights attorneys, David Kilgour and David Matas, [released] \u2018Report Into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.&#8217; \u201d The report \u2014 which reached conclusions similar to Gutmann&#8217;s regarding how many Falun Gong have had their organs harvested \u2014 was ignored by Western media, governments and human-rights groups alike. Even the Dalai Lama, after meeting with an investigator about the allegations, initially pledged support but then withdrew it due to pressure from his staff.<\/p>\n<p>Also that year, the Epoch Times, a Falun Gong newspaper, went public with similar allegations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was alleged that in 2001, [at a hospital in the city of Sujiatun],\u201d writes Gutmann, \u201caccounting-department employees noticed that requests for food, toilet paper and specialized hospital equipment rose dramatically without a corresponding increase in patients.\u201d By the following year, this \u201crepresented a discrepancy of perhaps a thousand people or more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The husband of one of these employees was a surgeon there who reported \u201cextra \u2018patients&#8217; in the subterranean depths of the hospital and some makeshift operating rooms down there, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhenever he received a certain phone call, he would descend the depths prepared to operate. The patient would have been given \u2018a small amount of anesthesia&#8217; (as \u2018the hospital had a limited supply&#8217;), then he and several other doctors would \u2018remove the patient&#8217;s kidneys, skin tissue, corneas and other organs to order.&#8217; The remains of the \u2018patient&#8217; would then be carried down to the old boiler, which doubled as an incinerator. The staff helped themselves to the occasional watch or ring as a tip.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Finding the \u2018bodies<\/strong><br \/>\nGutmann, who presents numerous other firsthand witnesses in the book and also quotes one Falun Gong investigator as saying that 600 hospitals in China were involved in organ harvesting, makes clear that his purpose for this book is to present evidence \u2014 to make the Falun Gong claims seem too indisputable to ignore.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to reviving earlier claims, Gutmann spoke with people on four continents including more than 50 surviving Falun Gong practitioners who had been incarcerated, many of whom had tales of being brought for medical exams that, as they ignored any real ailments or health signifiers, were clearly intended to determine the health of one&#8217;s organs.<\/p>\n<p>But if looking for evidence, it turns out that many of us may have been closer to all this than we realized. Some of us may have actually been in the same room as the corpse of a Falun Gong victim of organ harvesting and may have looked upon that corpse with wonder or even bemusement. You may, in fact, have even paid for the privilege.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cBody Worlds\u201d exhibit at Discovery Times Square, which puts manipulated corpses on display, advertises \u201cthe science and splendor of the human body through Plastination, a breakthrough in anatomy invented by trailblazing scientist Gunther von Hagens.\u201d The bodies are the remains of people who, we are told, donated their use to science. (Plastination is a process by which the liquid and fat in a corpse&#8217;s soft tissue is replaced with hard plastic.)<\/p>\n<p>Gutmann notes that there are actually two of these exhibits \u2014 \u201cBody Worlds,\u201d created by von Hagens, and \u201cBodies: The Exhibition.\u201d The latter show, he writes, is \u201cmanaged by Premier Exhibitions, a US entertainment company,\u201d but the bodies are provided by Professor Sui Hongjin.<\/p>\n<p>According to Gutmann, the inventor, von Hagens, opened a plastination factory in China in 1999 and hired Sui as his general manager. Later, Sui secretly set up his own factory, and the men became rivals, leading Sui to set up the \u201cBodies\u201d exhibition. After a man went on ABC&#8217;s \u201c20\/20\u201d in 2008 to accuse Sui of using executed Chinese prisoners, Premier placed a sign at the entrance to their exhibitions admitting that bodies they used were \u201creceived by the Chinese Bureau of Prisons,\u201d and that Premier \u201ccannot independently verify that [the bodies] are not . . . persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for von Hagens&#8217; exhibit, he had closed his Chinese factory in 2007, and \u201ctearfully [told \u201820\/20&#8242;] he had unilaterally cremated all his Chinese specimens and replaced them with Caucasians who had legally donated their bodies to science.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Organs for sale<\/strong><br \/>\nThe \u201cBody Worlds\u201d exhibit at Discovery Times Square, which puts manipulated corpses on display, advertises \u201cthe science and splendor of the human body through Plastination, a breakthrough in anatomy invented by trailblazing scientist Gunther von Hagens.\u201d The bodies are the remains of people who, we are told, donated their use to science. (Plastination is a process by which the liquid and fat in a corpse&#8217;s soft tissue is replaced with hard plastic.)<\/p>\n<p>Gutmann notes that there are actually two of these exhibits \u2014 \u201cBody Worlds,\u201d created by von Hagens, and \u201cBodies: The Exhibition.\u201d The latter show, he writes, is \u201cmanaged by Premier Exhibitions, a US entertainment company,\u201d but the bodies are provided by Professor Sui Hongjin.<\/p>\n<p>According to Gutmann, the inventor, von Hagens, opened a plastination factory in China in 1999 and hired Sui as his general manager. Later, Sui secretly set up his own factory, and the men became rivals, leading Sui to set up the \u201cBodies\u201d exhibition. After a man went on ABC&#8217;s \u201c20\/20\u201d in 2008 to accuse Sui of using executed Chinese prisoners, Premier placed a sign at the entrance to their exhibitions admitting that bodies they used were \u201creceived by the Chinese Bureau of Prisons,\u201d and that Premier \u201ccannot independently verify that [the bodies] are not . . . persons who were incarcerated in Chinese prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for von Hagens&#8217; exhibit, he had closed his Chinese factory in 2007, and \u201ctearfully [told \u201820\/20&#8242;] he had unilaterally cremated all his Chinese specimens and replaced them with Caucasians who had legally donated their bodies to science.\u201d<br \/>\nOrgans for sale<br \/>\nBut Gutmann remains skeptical, and notes that, in addition to creating these exhibits, plastination is used to preserve bodies for use by medical schools. The retail price for a plastinated body from one Chinese retailer? Twenty-one thousand dollars.<\/p>\n<p>So where does all this stand today? Pretty much where it&#8217;s been all along.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I write this, in January 2014,\u201d notes Gutmann, \u201cOmar Healthcare Service, a Chinese organ broker \u2018authorized by the Government of People&#8217;s Republic of China,&#8217; advertises freely to Western organ tourists on the Web.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/nypost.com\/2014\/08\/09\/chinas-long-history-of-harvesting-organs-from-living-political-prisoners\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enver Tohti was a surgeon in a hospital in Xinjiang, in the northwestern part of China, when, in June 1995,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1009,2124,1],"tags":[2004,2125],"class_list":["post-20782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-interviews","category-news","tag-art","tag-interview"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Enver Tohti was a surgeon in a hospital in Xinjiang, in the northwestern part of China, when, in June 1995,","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Art","Interviews","News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":129,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":11,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1009\">Art<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-2124\">Interviews<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}