ETAC STATEMENT
China at the Universal Periodic Review must account for the vast number of transplants its hospitals report, up to 100,000 a year, far beyond the official figures – 13,263 for the year 2016.
Researchers David Matas, David Kilgour and Ethan Gutmann have identified the sources of organs as prisoners of conscience – Tibetans, Uighurs, House Christians and primarily practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong. See
and
The European Parliament and the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the House of Commons Parliament of Canada have called reports of this sourcing from prisoners of conscience as “persistent and credible”. See
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The United Nations Rapporteur on Torture, the United Nations Rapporteur on Torture and the United Nations Committee on Torture have all called on China to explain the discrepancy between the volume of its transplants and the volume of its identifiable sources. See
- Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak
- Report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Asma Jahangir
- Concluding observations of the Committee against Torture
- Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of China
The European Parliament and the UN Committee on Torture, in two separate years, and the United States Congress House of Representatives have all called on the Government of China to cooperate with an independent investigation with a credible, transparent, and independent investigation into organ transplant abuse in China. See
ETAC notes the advance questions of Germany this year to China for the Universal Periodic Review:
“How does China react to allegations of organ harvesting in prisons and detention facilities? Can China provide data on annual numbers of organ transplantations and legal sources of organ donations in order to dispel these allegations?”
See
The Government of China denies that it ever harvested organs from prisoners of conscience and claims that sourcing of organs from prisoners sentenced to death has stopped. The Government of China claim that all transplants are sourced from donations.
Government of China claims of sourcing from donations are contradicted by the donations statistics from its donation centres and the availability of transplants booked in advance without coordination among patients. The Government statistics of transplant volumes are contradicted by cumulative transplant volume figures coming from individual hospitals. When China produces unsatisfactory answers to the questions Germany asked or if China does not answer the questions, States should continue to pursue the matter.
All States that participate in the Universal Periodic Review for China should assert that there is continuing credible, persistent and troubling evidence of organ transplant abuse in China. They should also assert the need for China to cooperate with an independent international investigation to address this evidence.
For further information contact David Matas at dmatas@mts.net
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