Canada must end complicity in China’s brutal organ-trafficking regime

Forced organ harvesting deserves special attention in the context of China, where this practice is driven by the state
By MARIA CHEUNG 

A photo from the documentary Human Harvest, by Vancouver director Leon Lee. The film explores China's organ harvesting industry, and won the prestigious Peabody Award. 

The clock is ticking on Canada’s chance to enact important measures against organ trafficking.
For the past two decades, the Chinese regime has been killing prisoners of conscience for their organs. 

The purchase and sale of human lives has become an industry, and Canada, among other developed countries, has been supporting it.
Bill S-240 seeks to put a stop to Canadian complicity by criminalizing organ tourism. 

The bill has received unanimous consent from both the Senate and the House of Commons, and is awaiting final Senate approval before the end of the parliamentary session before it can be passed.
This is a critical moment of decision for Canada.
As a member of the Canadian Committee of the International Coalition To End Transplant Abuse In China, I have been among those advocating for Bill S-240, an act that brings important changes to the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in order to combat organ tourism.

Live organs on demand
Organ trafficking is a global phenomenon. 

However, forced organ harvesting deserves special attention in the context of the Chinese. 

In China, this practice is driven by the state.
It’s directed at prisoners of conscience to advance policies of genocide. 

Forced organ harvesting in China is carried out at such scale that it constitutes an industry.
Since the early 2000s, Chinese hospitals have been providing live organs on demand. 

Perfectly matched organs can be obtained in weeks or even days.
With an estimate of 60,000 to 100,000 major organ transplant cases per year in China, the availability of organs cannot be accounted for by the number of death-row executions and voluntary organ donations.

Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans targeted
The sudden boom in organ transplantation in China coincides with the start of the eradication campaign against Falun Gong. 

Since July 1999, Falun Gong practitioners have been incarcerated and tortured in massive numbers. During captivity, Falun Gong adherents have been singled out for organ examinations and blood tests.
As well as the Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans and some Christian sects are also being targeted. Forced organ harvesting is continuing despite China’s announcement that it’s going to stop the illicit practice.
Human Rights Watch reported in December 2017 that the Chinese government forcibly collected biodata, including DNA and blood samples, from 19 million Uyghurs that year under the guise of a free public health program in which all citizens are given physical examinations.
At the same time, the Chinese regime began mass arrest and incarceration of Uyghurs, with a million Uyghurs imprisoned in concentration camps. 

Meanwhile, a priority lane labelled as “special passengers/human organs transport lane” appeared in the Kashgar airport of East Turkestan.

Canadians travel to China for illicit organs
For the past two decades, Canada, among other developed countries, has been a participant in this abuse. 

Dr. Jeff Zaltzman, the head of renal transplants at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, revealed in 2014 that he alone had at least 50 patients who had gone to China for transplants. 

Zaltzman has since advocated for changing legislation to address the issue of forced organ harvesting.
Canada has, in fact, been identified as one of the seven major organ-importing countries, alongside the United States, Australia, Israel, Japan, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Barring a few exceptions, the Canadian Criminal Code only criminalizes acts committed in Canada. As such, it is currently legal for Canadians to travel abroad and obtain organs from illicit sources, because such acts do not take place on Canadian soil.
A scene from the documentary Human Harvest, by Vancouver director Leon Lee. The film explores China’s organ harvesting industry. 

An extraterritorial offence
Bill S-240 recognizes the extraterritorial nature of organ transplant abuse. 

By making the purchase of organs, and obtaining organs without donors’ informed consent an extraterritorial offence, the bill creates important measures to stem the flow of organ tourism to countries such as China.
The proposed legislation would also bring Canada into further conformity with emerging international legal norms, such as the principle against transplant commercialism enshrined in The Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism.
Countries like Israel, Spain, Taiwan, Italy and Norway have already enacted similar legislation. 

The European Union and United States have issued a declaration and resolution respectively condemning the crime of forced organ harvesting.
On Dec. 11, 2018, the China Tribunal — an independent people’s tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, former deputy prosecutor who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia — stated the following in its interim judgment:
“The Tribunal’s members are all certain — unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt — that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”
The final judgement is due to be released on June 17.
It’s vital that Canada ensures Bill S-240 is passed.

China plans globalization of mass murder
China has further ambitions to develop organ transplantation into an export industry as part of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative.
The industrialization and globalization of organ transplantation is the industrialization and globalization of mass murder. 

If this practice is allowed to take root in human societies, ever more vulnerable populations would be sacrificed in the pursuit of a healthy life by the powerful and the rich.
The cost of inaction means a continuation of Canadian complicity in one of the worst crimes of our times. 

It is vital that Canada passes this legislation before the end of this parliamentary session, bringing this complicity to an end.

Chinese Barbarity

Kachin women from Myanmar raped until they get pregnant in China

By Emma Graham-Harrison

Refugees in Myitkyina, Kachin state, northern Myanmar. 

Burmese and Chinese authorities are turning a blind eye to a growing trade in women from Myanmar’s Kachin minority, who are taken across the border, sold as wives to Chinese men and raped until they become pregnant.
Some of the women are allowed to return home after they have given birth, but are forced to leave their children, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, titled Give Us a Baby and We’ll Let You Go.
One survivor said: “I gave birth, and after one year the Chinese men gave me a choice of what to do. I got permission to go back home, but not with the baby.”
China is grappling with a severe gender imbalance; the percentage of the population who are women has fallen every year since 1987. 

Researchers estimate that factors including sex-selective abortion, infanticide and neglect of female babies mean that there are 30 to 40 million “missing women” in China, who should be alive today but aren’t.
That means millions of men are now unable to find a wife, and there has been a rise in trafficking across the borders of neighbouring, poorer nations.
Many of the Kachin women are trafficked out of Myanmar by their relatives, friends or people they trust; in one case a woman was betrayed by someone from her bible study class. 

They are often promised jobs across the border in China, and discover only after they cross over that they have been sold into sexual slavery.
“My broker was my auntie, she persuaded me,” a woman who was trafficked aged 17 or 18 told Human Rights Watch. 

Over three years, HRW spoke to nearly 40 victims who had escaped, or been allowed to leave but without their children, many still struggling to deal with the emotional impact.
All came from, and had returned to, Myanmar’s northern Kachin state or neighbouring Shan state, where the ethnic Kachin have been fighting the government for decades. 

A 17-year ceasefire ended in 2011, and the renewed conflict has displaced more than 100,000 people and left many struggling to survive.
With men taking part in the fighting, women often become the only breadwinners for the families, and with jobs badly paid and hard to find, many feel that they have no choice but to pursue work in China where wages are higher even for illegal migrants.
“Myanmar and Chinese authorities are looking away while unscrupulous traffickers are selling Kachin women and girls into captivity and unspeakable abuse,” said Heather Barr, women’s rights co-director at Human Rights Watch.
“The dearth [of work or legal] protections have made these women easy prey for traffickers, who have little reason to fear law enforcement on either side of the border.”
Myanmar’s government reported 226 cases of trafficking in 2017, but experts told Human Rights Watch they believe that the real number is much higher.
There are few incentives for trafficked women or their relatives to seek official help.

Families seeking police aid to track missing daughters, sisters and wives were turned away in Myanmar, or were asked for money, HRW found.
Many of the areas where the women are trafficked from are controlled not by authorities in the capital, Yangon, but by the opposition Kachin Independence Organisation, so the government has no record of what is happening there.
In China, when some survivors tried to seek help from security forces, they were jailed for immigration violations not supported as crime victims.
Those who were repatriated were often simply dumped at the border, stranded far from their community, the report found. 

And if they do make it back, they face social stigma, and little chance of getting justice, even if they tried to seek it.
“When Myanmar authorities did make arrests, they usually targeted only the initial brokers in Myanmar and not the rest of the networks in China,” the report found. 

“Police in China never arrested people that knowingly bought trafficked ‘brides’ and abused them.”

How Chinese Doctors Who Harvest Organs Get Away With Murder

By Ewelina U. Ochab

During the final weeks of December 2018, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) released a new report which confirms that doctors were involved in organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. 

The report came to light a matter of weeks after a people's tribunal, under the name of the Independent Tribunal Into Forced Organ Harvesting from Prisoners Of Conscience in China (the China Tribunal) opened its doors. 

The China Tribunal ran for three days with the aim of exploring the issues surrounding organ harvesting in China. 

During the hearings, the panel heard the evidence of approximately 30 witnesses and experts on the topic. 

The China Tribunal anticipates conducting further hearings in early 2019 to provide a forum for discussion on the growing evidence of atrocities.

Up to three hundred supporters of the practice of Falun Dafa march through the city center of Vienna, Austria on October 1, 2018, to protest against importing of human organs from China to Austria. 

The China Tribunal has already released an interim decision on the evidence available to date. 

The members of the China Tribunal unanimously agreed that "in China, forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.”
Such vagueness of the interim judgment is to be expected when you consider the nature of the crimes that are reported to have been committed. 

The business of organ harvesting is not leaving many witnesses to tell their stories.
The China Tribunal identified several human rights violations, including breaches of the right to life in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to be recognized before the law (Article 6), the right for equality before the law (Article 7), the right not to be subject to arbitrary arrest (Article 9), the right to fair trial (Article 10), the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty (Article 11), and the right to be free from torture (Article 5).
The China Tribunal has not yet answered the question of whether crimes under international law have been committed. 

Violation of some of the international crimes that are alleged to have been committed could only be established by a properly empowered international tribunal, although the China Tribunal should have the capacity to at least identify their concerns.
The China Tribunal also collected evidence from witnesses and experts that may help with any further action taken to address the issues that surround organ harvesting and any crimes committed by those that take part in the practice. 

A final judgment is expected in early 2019.
In its interim judgment, the China Tribunal said that “Dangerous concepts of sovereignty that might now allow other countries to do within their borders to their own citizens what they pay no regard to humanity being a single family protected by essential and codified rights. These concepts have to be confronted and by confronting them with clear and certain decisions, such as ours concerning forced organ harvesting, real benefits may follow.” 

 This is a call for international action to investigate the atrocities and prosecute the perpetrators. However, currently, there is no international court with jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute the atrocities perpetrated within the territory of China. 

China is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and so the International Criminal Court (the only permanent international criminal court in existence) does not have territorial jurisdiction over the atrocities perpetrated in China. 

The UN Security Council could establish an ad hoc criminal tribunal to look into the atrocities. However, any such step by the UN Security Council would be blocked by Chinese veto (China, as one of the permanent five, has a veto right that blocks any proceedings at the UN Security Council). Understandably, the China Tribunal cannot fully investigate the crimes and prosecute the perpetrators. 

However, what the China Tribunal can do is shed light on the atrocities and trigger actions to be taken by the international community.
At this stage, the China Tribunal has not confirmed whether any crimes under international law have been committed. 

Yet, based on the witness and expert testimonies heard by the China Tribunal, it is clear that organ harvesting has ultimately led to the deaths of patients. 

The practice has a clear criminal character. 

Whether manslaughter or murder (or even mass atrocities as genocide or crimes against humanity), may be a matter of evidence that will need to be collected. 

Yet, it is clear that there is no legality to such a procedure. 

The question is then - will Chinese doctors who harvest organs get away with murder?

Chinese Barbarity

HUMAN ORGANS HARVESTED FROM EXECUTED CHINESE PRISONERS ARE USED FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
By WENDY ROGERS AND MATTHEW ROBERTSON

Scientist He Jiankui’s claimed use of the genetic tool CRISPR to edit the genomes of twin girls led to international condemnation.
His actions have focused a spotlight on research ethics—and what the consequences should be when scientists “go rogue."
The Chinese Academy of Science initially looked into He’s conduct, and a subsequent internal government investigation has allegedly identified multiple violations of state laws.
He has now been fired by his university.
But beyond just this example, what does happen when scientists fail to comply with globally-accepted guidelines for ethical medical research?
We examined this issue focusing on published research involving recipients of organ transplants performed in the People’s Republic of China.
International professional standards ban publication of research that:

1. involves any biological material from executed prisoners
2. lacks human research ethics committee approval
3. lacks consent of donors.

But as described in our new paper, we found that research which does not comply with these standards is regularly accepted for publication in international peer-reviewed journals.

Human organ transplants in China
Using a scoping review methodology, we examined 445 studies published in peer reviewed English language journals between January 2000 and April 2017.
The papers reported research involving recipients of human organ transplants (limited to hearts, livers or lungs) taking place in China.
The data included 85,477 transplants.
We found that 92.5 percent of the publications failed to state whether or not the transplanted organs were obtained from executed prisoners. 
Nearly all of them (99 percent) failed to report whether organ donors gave consent. 
In contrast, 73 percent of papers reported approval from an institutional ethics committee for the research reported in the paper.
Widespread ethical concerns over the inability of condemned prisoners to give informed consent for organ donation are exacerbated in the People’s Republic of China. 
Here, the judicial and police system lacks safeguards against procedural abuses.
Faulty convictions are extensively documented and extremely difficult to redress.
In addition, a growing body of credible evidence suggests that organ harvesting is not limited to condemned prisoners, but also includes prisoners of conscience. 
It is possible therefore that peer reviewed publications may contain data obtained from prisoners of conscience killed for the purpose of organ acquisition.
Who is responsible for ensuring that data based on research involving organs harvested from non-consenting prisoners is banned from publication?
We argue in our paper that reviewers and journal editors have a role to play.

Where do the organs come from?
In 19 papers involving 2,688 organs transplanted prior to 2010, the source of organs was reported as voluntary donors.
But as widely known in the transplantation community, there was no volunteer deceased organ donor program in China before a pilot started in 2010.
It therefore seems reasonable to assume that organs may have been sourced from prisoners, making claims about volunteer donation unreliable.
The two journals that published the greatest number of Chinese transplant papers identified in our study are Transplantation Proceedings, with 65 of the total 445 papers, and PLOS ONE, with 20. Other journals with papers identified by this study include the American Journal of Transplantation, and Transplantation (the official journal of the peak international body, The Transplantation Society.) These journals both have policies that explicitly prohibit the publication of research based on organ transplants from non-consenting and/or prisoner donors.
We argue that reviewers and medical journals should demand information about the source of organs in Chinese transplant research before these are published for the broader public and scientific communities. 
If they are demanding such information, the responses to those demands should be published.
And if they are not satisfied with the responses, they should refuse to publish the research.
When a paper is published without identifying the source of the transplanted organs, it risks sending the message that ethical standards may be ignored or breached. 
This undermines the incentive to comply with these standards in the future.

We’re all responsible
Our findings raise important and disturbing questions about ethical oversight on the part of all of those involved in the process of reviewing and publishing transplantation research. 
In response, we propose large-scale retractions of the papers identified by our research that are not consistent with international standards regarding organ donation.

Review shows many research articles do not specify where organs used came from.

We also propose a moratorium on all clinical transplant publications from China pending an international summit. 
The summit of transplantation community members and other stakeholders could develop appropriate policies and processes for handling future research.
Our hopes for these retractions are, however, not high.
As one of us (Rogers) found, securing a retraction can be a prolonged process even where there is evidence of overt falsehood in the paper. 
Journals are reluctant to retract articles, and even retracted articles continue to be widely cited.
Nevertheless, there is growing interest in trying to uphold the integrity of published research, as well as initiatives to demand the publication of all clinical trial data.
These initiatives offer some hope that breaches such as the ones we discovered will become less common.
As for the authors involved in retracted or ethically non-compliant research, there is little information about the impact on their careers.
Being the author on a paper that is retracted may lead to a ban by the journal, trigger an institutional investigation, or have no effect.
Academic misconduct investigations by universities are rarely reported in the public domain.
Apart from high profile cases like that of He, the nature and extent of the consequences for researchers who breach ethical standards is largely unknown.