First Known Survivor of Forced Organ Harvesting Speaks Out to the World
- Expert opinions on CT scans regarding the missing part of liver and lung
- Media Release (below)
- Mr Cheng’s full Testimony – interviewed by David Matas HERE
- Press event by Stop Forced Organ Harvesting by the CCP (SFOH) and supported by ETAC HERE
- Media coverage (scroll down past media release)
MEDIA RELEASE
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
- First known survivor of China’s state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting practices speaks out
- New evidence shows Chinese doctors forcibly removed part of victim Mr Cheng’s liver and lung
- Mr Cheng endured years of imprisonment and torture for practising Falun Gong
- Victim subjected to forced blood tests three times in a year while incarcerated – a technique known to test health of organs
- “China’s Gestapo” – 610 Office – tried to coerce victim into consenting to the operation
- After dramatic escape from China, Mr Cheng is now in the United States speaking out at a forum
- Transplant experts have confirmed scans show that sections of Mr Cheng’s liver and left lung have been surgically removed
- Falun Gong Protection Act introduced to the US Senate last week, addressing the ongoing crimes of forced organ harvesting in China
- 60,000 to 100,000 organ transplants estimated to be carried out every year in China, many of which are taking place using organs harvested without consent
- Campaigners and experts emphasise the purpose of the forced partial organ removal is unknown
[Washington D.C/ London: 9 August 2024]: Today, the first known survivor of China’s 25-year forced organ harvesting crimes against prisoners of conscience will publicly reveal his horrific brush with death at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
Mr Cheng Pei Ming, who is from a rural area in Guozhuang Village in Shandong Province, East China, will speak at a forum in Washington D.C about his detention, torture and first-hand experience of China’s forced organ harvesting industry.
Mr Cheng will reveal that he was detained and tortured multiple times in China for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual qigong practice in the Buddhist tradition, between 1999 and 2004. During his detentions, he was subjected to forced blood tests three times in a year – a practice commonly used to test the health of transplantable organs. In 2002, he received a sentence of eight years in prison for advocating for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, and was imprisoned at Harbin Prison.
In July 2004, Mr Cheng was transferred to Daqing prison, where he was systematically tortured, with guards trying to force him to renounce Falun Gong. In November 2004, distraught from hours of unbearable torture on “the big stretch,” where the victim’s four limbs are tied up and stretched, Mr Cheng swallowed a small rusty nail and small blunt blade that he found on the windowsill of the torture room.
Although he showed no signs of ill health from swallowing the objects, he was forcibly taken to hospital on November 16, 2004. Mr Cheng was pressured by officials from the CCP’s infamous “610 Office” to sign consent forms for an operation. But he refused and was held down by prison guards and forcibly injected with an unknown substance which caused him to lose consciousness. Before the operation, his family were told there was an 80% mortality rate for the operation.
Mr Cheng awoke on November 19, 2004, shackled to the hospital bed with an IV tube taped to his foot, a drainage tube in the left chest, oxygen tubes in his nose, and a 35 cm long incision on the left side of his chest. Usually, the procedure to remove similar size objects would be an endoscopy – putting a tube down through the mouth into the stomach to retrieve the objects – rather than open surgery. However, Mr Cheng had a long left-sided chest incision.
Transplant experts have now confirmed from present-day CT scans that segments 2 & 3 of Mr Cheng’s left liver lobe are missing, and half of the left lower lobe of his lung is also missing. The scans will be presented at the forum today alongside a dedicated report on his case [1].
While the purpose of the surgery is unknown, removal of segments 2 and 3 of the liver is consistent with harvesting hepatic tissue for paediatric liver transplantation, which is a technique developed in the 1990s to treat children with liver failure. Unethical medical experimentation is also a possible explanation according to experts.
Mr Cheng was returned to detention at Daqing prison after the forced surgery, suffering from shortness of breath and fatigue.
He continued to suffer torture by prison guards, refusing to renounce Falun Gong. In March 2006, he began a hunger strike and was subsequently transferred to Daqing Longnan Hospital, where his sister was present on arrival. Mr Cheng was shackled to a hospital bed and told that surgery was planned. Mr Cheng heard a prison guard tell his sister that he had ingested a knife and that the surgery required to remove it had a mortality rate of 80%. This was the second time his family had been told this, but this time, neither Mr Cheng nor any member of his family were asked to consent to the operation.
Mr Cheng asserts that prior to being forcibly taken to the hospital, this time he had not swallowed any object and did not have a medical condition requiring surgery. He believes that officials were planning to kill him.
That night, before surgery was scheduled to be performed, Mr Cheng asked to be unshackled from the hospital bed to use the restroom across the hall. Returning to the hospital room, the guard forgot to shackle Mr. Cheng to the hospital bed, and then fell asleep, providing Mr. Cheng with an opportunity to flee via the hospital’s internal fire stairs.
After 14 years of evading Chinese authorities, including five years in Thailand where he was granted UN refugee status, Mr Cheng reached the United States in July 2020.
Today, at a forum in Washington D.C., Mr Cheng is speaking out to the world about his brush with death, to expose what happened to him, and China’s ongoing forced organ harvesting practices.
Commenting on his horrific experience with China’s forced organ harvesting practices, Mr Cheng said:
“After they took me to the hospital against my will, they tried to force me to sign consent forms for an operation. When I refused, six guards grabbed me and held me down and I was injected with something. The next thing I remember is being in a hospital bed with tubes in my nose and I was going in and out of consciousness. There was a tube with bloody liquid coming from under the bandaging that was on my side. I was also shackled to the hospital bed. When they took me to the hospital again and said I had to have another operation, I thought for sure they were going to kill me.”
Forced organ harvesting is the killing of prisoners of conscience in China so their organs can be removed and transplanted into a paying recipient.
In 2020, the China Tribunal, an independent People’s Tribunal chaired by world-renowned human rights barrister, Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, concluded “beyond reasonable doubt” that China has been forcibly harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience for many years, with the victims being primarily people who practice the Buddhist qigong practice of Falun Gong. The China Tribunal also found that forced organ harvesting amounts to crimes against humanity. As many as 60,000 to 100,000 organ transplants are estimated to be carried out every year, many of which take place without consent [2]. Evidence is building that Uyghur Muslims are also now killed for their organs in China [3].
Commenting on the case, distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers and Chair of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC)’s International Advisory Board said:
“This is a case of surgical assault resulting in the theft of organ parts, as well as pain and suffering. This case illustrates callous indifference to the human rights of prisoners of conscience in China. Not only was Mr Cheng incarcerated and tortured, he was drugged and assaulted by surgeons, who removed parts of his organs without consent or medical need.
“I do not know why the Chinese doctors removed parts of Mr Cheng’s liver and lungs, but I do know that he did not have a disease or illness requiring this surgery. The portion of liver removed is consistent with securing liver tissue suitable for transplantation into a child, but I have no means of knowing if this was the purpose.”
“What I do know is that Mr Cheng was surgically assaulted as part of a wider pattern of persecution, incarceration and torture, and that these events happened to him because he is a practitioner of Falun Gong.”
David Matas, an international human rights lawyer and ETAC Co-Founder said:
Mr Cheng. is, in one sense, typical, a Falun Gong practitioner organ extracted. In another sense he is unusual because he survived organ extraction, his vital organs – liver and lung – having been extracted only in part, and because he escaped both the Chinese authorities and China itself.
Like other Falun Gong practitioners, Mr Cheng. was never told he was going to be organ extracted. Nor was he told afterwards that he had been organ extracted. He found that out only after he fled China and was medically examined.
Despite the unusual nature of the case of Mr Cheng. – his survival and escape, his victimization demonstrates a general phenomenon, the brutality of the victimization of Falun Gong, a brutality that extends to organ harvesting. He illustrates a general phenomenon, the exception which proves the norm, the norm in this case being the gruesome reality of the mass killing of Falun Gong for their organs.
Momentum has been building for governments around the world to act against China’s illegal forced organ harvesting programme following the China Tribunal’s damning Judgment.
After successfully passing in the US House of Representatives with strong bi-partisan support, the Falun Gong Protection Act [4], addressing the crimes of forced organ harvesting in China, was introduced to the US Senate last week by Senator Marco Rubio and cosponsored by Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Roger Marshall. This legislation will impose sanctions on those responsible for, or complicit in, the involuntary harvesting of organs, especially those targeting Falun Gong practitioners, as well as requiring a report from the Secretary of State on China’s organ transplant policies and practices.
Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, President, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice
The Lantos Foundation has had the opportunity to interview Mr. Cheng about his shocking ordeal at the hands of his captors, and we found his first-hand testimony to be credible and deeply disturbing. The materials presented today are incredibly important because they offer further evidence of the egregious human rights abuse happening in China in the form of forced organ harvesting. This outrageous violation of fundamental rights continues, despite the Chinese government’s claims to the contrary, and we must do more to raise awareness about it and call on governments to implement laws and policies designed to stop it.
We commend Mr. Cheng for his bravery in sharing his story; we know that the Chinese government has no qualms about engaging in transnational repression when and where it deems it necessary. This makes his decision to speak out all the more courageous.
Dr. Eric Patterson, President of Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC)
The account of this survivor reveals deeply troubling evidence of coerced surgical procedures and severe human rights violations. At Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, we strongly condemn any form of involuntary medical intervention or abuse, especially forced organ harvesting targeting vulnerable populations.
This case highlights the urgent need to address medical atrocities carried out by the Chinese Communist Party. We stand in solidarity with all victims and call for robust action to prevent such atrocities, including support for measures like the recently introduced Falun Gong Protection Act. It is imperative that we work together to end these human rights violations and hold perpetrators accountable.
MEDIA COVERAGE
BMJ (British Medical Journal) – https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1786
The Diplomat – https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/first-known-survivor-of-chinas-forced-organ-harvesting-speaks-out/
The Telegraph – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/08/09/organ-harvesting-survivor-cheng-pei-ming-china/
The Sun – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jOQzcA0zN4
The Sun US – https://www.the-sun.com/news/12151379/organs-harvested-china-first-known-survivor/
The Irish Sun – https://www.thesun.ie/news/13580174/organs-harvested-china-first-known-survivor/
The Mirror –https://www.themirror.com/news/world-news/survivor-chinas-forced-organ-harvesting-636991
UCA – https://www.ucanews.com/news/first-known-survivor-of-chinas-evil-serves-as-a-wake-up-call/106009
The Epoch Times – https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/man-who-survived-removal-of-part-of-liver-lung-in-chinese-prison-speaks-out-5703183
Malaysia News – https://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/victim-chinese-organ-harvesting-woke-091225292.html
Yahoo – https://sg.news.yahoo.com/victim-chinese-organ-harvesting-woke-091225292.html
NTDTV – https://www.ntd.com/man-who-survived-removal-of-part-of-liver-lung-in-chinese-prison-speaks-out_1010113.html
That is China – https://www.thatischina.com/2024/08/09/china-sedated-a-victim-of-organ-harvesting-and-removed-parts-of-his-liver-and-lungs-for-sale/
Empressive Naija – https://www.empressivenaija.com/2024/08/chinese-organ-harvesting-victim-woke-up.html
Call Me Stormy – https://callmestormy.net/tag/cheng-peiming/
Head Topics – https://headtopics.com/uk/first-known-survivor-of-china-s-secret-organ-harvesting-57149784
MSN – https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/first-known-survivor-of-china-s-secret-organ-harvesting-trade-speaks-of-horrors/ar-AA1ouKBm
Daily Telegraph – https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/chinas-barbaric-practice-of-live-organ-harvesting-exposed-by-survivor/news-story/1130d6faeae49b8b39bfa372aed144e8
Ground News – https://ground.news/article/chinas-barbaric-practice-of-live-organ-harvesting-exposed-by-survivor
X
- https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1821924867190485452
- https://x.com/Diplomat_APAC/status/1822669807910523013
- https://x.com/MetroUK/status/1821758747896680448
END NOTES
[1] FORCED REMOVAL OF SEGMENTS 2 & 3 OF LIVER AND PART OF LUNG FROM PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE IN CHINA, Dr Charles Lee and Professor Sen Nieh (July 2024)
[2] Bloody Harvest / The Slaughter: An Update”, David Kilgour, Ethan Gutmann, David Matas (2016)
[3] Congressional Executive Commission on China, ‘What more must be done?’ (2024)
[4] Rubio Introduces Bills Countering Communist China’s Influence (2024)
