A recent report is claiming that China is still carrying out massive executions of tens of thousands of its political prisoners to harvest their organs. The report found that Chinese government statistics on organ harvesting are unreliable, and majority is being done secretly with no official record.
The report was done by former Canadian lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas and journalist Ethan Gutmann, Fox8 News reported. According to Matas, the Chinese Communist Party is claiming that only 10,000 of legal organ transplants are being done annually, but the report estimated that 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted every year in hospitals across China.
Who Is Being Executed?
The authors of the report said those who are executed include imprisoned religious and ethnic minorities such as Uyghurs, Tibetans, underground Christians and practitioners of the forbidden Falun Gong spiritual practice, Fox8 News listed. Official statistics indicate that more than 100 hospitals in China are authorized to conduct organ transplant operations, but the report verified 712 hospitals that perform kidney and liver transplants.
According to CNN, 5,019 organs transplanted in 2015 are unaccounted for. The number of organ transplants that are not documented federally falls around 50,000 to 90,000.
Death Penalty Worldwide said China has the highest number of executions every year than other nations, with around 2,400 executions performed in 2014. Official figures from the Chinese government, however, aren't revealed to the public.
'Barbaric' And 'Nazi-Like'
New Jersey Rep. Christopher Smith told Voice of America that China's forced organ harvesting is "barbaric" and "Nazi-like." He added that the Chinese government and hospitals receive great financial benefits from the practice.
"I can't imagine what it would be like for a prisoner to be in jail, and know that tomorrow, 8 a.m., you're going have your pancreas or your liver taken, then you'll be killed," Smith further told Voice of America. An 86-year-old Chinese woman said the country's conservative wisdom deems mutilating a body after it dies as improper.
Former prisoners said they were being forced to undergo blood tests and medical exams. Those forced examinations didn't occur just once, but regularly.
China's embassy spokesperson Zhu Haiquan responded to the claims and vehemently denied it. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the allegations are "imaginary and baseless" and don't have "any factual foundation," CNN reported.
On June 13, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution urging China to put an end to harvesting prisoners' organs and to stop the 17-year maltreatment against Falun Gong. The resolution requires yearly policy compliance reports to Congress and restricts the State Department's visa issuance to people in China and other countries involved in human organ trafficking.
