Kilgour–Matas report

David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia-Pacific), investigated the Falun Gong allegations

The Kilgour-Matas report is a disputed investigative report by Canadian MP David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas into allegations of organ harvesting from live practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement in China, which was published July 2006 and a revised version in January 2007. The investigation was commissioned by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, and concluded that "there has been, and continues today to be, large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." China has repeatedly denied the organ harvesting allegations in the report.

The report received a mixed reception. U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak said in March 2007 that the chain of evidence Kilgour and Matas were documenting showed a "coherent picture that causes concern." In November 2008, the United Nations Committee Against Torture asked for "a full explanation of the source of organ transplants", citing Nowak's note that an increase in organ transplant operations coincided with "the beginning of the persecution of [Falun Gong practitioners]". The Committee called for China to investigate the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for any abuses be prosecuted. Investigations by Ethan Gutmann and European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott arrived at similar conclusions. However, a Congressional Research Service report by Dr. Thomas Lum stated that the Kilgour-Matas report relied largely on logical inference, without bringing forth new or independently-obtained testimony; the credibility of much of the key evidence was said to be questionable. Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen was sceptical about the logistical plausibility of the allegations after visiting the site. He said that, depending on who you believe, "the Kilgour-Matas report is either compelling evidence that proves the claims about Falun Gong... or a collection of conjecture and inductive reasoning that fails to support its own conclusions".

Upon release of the initial report on July 6, Chinese officials declared that China abided by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. They denounced the report as smears "based on rumours and false allegations," and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them without any merit. A Congressional Research Service report said that some of the report’s key allegations appeared to be inconsistent with the findings of other investigations, though did not provide details. The US state department maintained that "[i]ndependent of these specific allegations, the United States remains concerned over China’s repression of Falun Gong practitioners and by reports of organ harvesting."

Kilgour and Matas were nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for their research, and received the 2009 Human Rights Award by the International Society for Human Rights for the work. In 2009, the authors published the report as a book, titled "Bloody Harvest."

The reports led to the Australian Health Ministry's abolition of training programs for Chinese doctors and the banning of joint research programs with China on organ transplantation.. The US National Kidney Foundation expressed that it was "deeply concerned" about the allegations. Taiwan urged its citizens not to travel to China to receive transplants.

Organ transplantation in the People's Republic of China

Main article: Organ transplantation in the People's Republic of China

File:AdultKidneyTransplantWaittimes.jpg

Comparison of average wait-times, in days, for an adult kidney transplant, in different countries

China has had an organ transplantation programme since the 1960s, and is one of the largest organ transplant programmes in the world, peaking at over 13,000 transplants a year in 2004.Involuntary organ harvesting is illegal under Chinese law; though, under a 1984 regulation, it became legal to remove organs from executed criminals with the prior consent of the criminal or permission of relatives. Growing concerns about possible ethical abuses arising from coerced consent and corruption led medical groups and human rights organizations, by the 1990s, to start condemning the practice. These concerns resurfaced in 2001, when The Washington Post reported claims by a Chinese asylum-seeking doctor that he had taken part in organ extraction operations.

By 2005 the WMA had specifically demanded that China cease using prisoners as organ donors. In December of that year, China's Deputy Health Minister acknowledged that the practice of removing organs from executed prisoners for transplant was widespread - as many as 95% of all organ transplants in China derived from executions, and he promised steps to prevent abuse.

Sujiatun allegations

Main article: Persecution of Falun Gong

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement which was banned by the government of China in 1999, being labelled as an "evil cult" by the official Chinese press. Amnesty International noted the arbitary arrests and physical torture upon Falun Gong practitioners in the Chinese government's suppression campaign.

Practitioners of Falun Gong in Hong Kong enacting "live organ harvesting" in China.

Throughout March 2006, the Falun Gong-affiliated The Epoch Times (ET) published articles containing allegations by three anonymous individuals claiming to be eyewitnesses to organ harvesting at the Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital and beyond, labelling it "Sujiatun Concentration Camp". One of the individuals, said to have worked in the Malaysian-owned hospital, alleged that the basement housed 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners, the bodies of whom were thrown directly into a 'crematorium' after their organs had been extracted. Another individual who identified himself as a veteran military doctor in Shenyang was cited by ET to corroborate the claim. He said Sujiatun was just one of up to 36 such sites across China between which practitioners were rapidly transferred.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman rejected the Epoch Times claims about Sujiatun, stating that the hospital was incapable of housing 6,000 persons, and that the allegations were logistically impossible. Investigators sent by dissident Harry Wu to Sujiatun three days after the story surfaced found no evidence of the existence of the alleged concentration camp. In April 2006, US State Department officials who had visited the site twice reported back that no evidence was found that the site was being used as anything but a normal public hospital. Kilgour, and Ethan Gutmann, adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies stated that three weeks between when the story broke to when the US representatives' visited was long enough for the Chinese to have covered it up.

The report

At the request of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, David Kilgour and David Matas reported on July 20, 2006 that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners throughout China were victims of systematic organ harvesting whilst still alive. The findings of their investigation were controversial as the conclusions were based on circumstantial evidence. The Falun Gong allegations were not verifiable due to the lack of independent bodies which investigate conditions in China, eyewitness evidence, and official information about organ transplantation. The investigation was conducted by remote interview as Kilgour and Matas did not have direct access to the country. The authors said the combination of the strands allowed them to deduce that the allegations of China's harvesting of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners were true.

Kilgour and Matas sought to visit China for further investigation but were denied entry. The authors had difficulty in verifying the Falun Gong allegations due to the lack of independent bodies which investigate conditions in China, availability of eyewitness evidence, and official information about organ transplantation. They had to conduct their investigation by interview as they were unable to get direct access to the country. Mandarin speaking investigators, presenting themselves as potential recipients or relatives of potential recipients, called in to a number of hospitals and transplant doctors to ask about transplants. The calls resulted in a number of statements that Falun Gong practitioners were used as sources of organs for transplantation.

Reception

China has repeatedly denied the organ harvesting allegations in the report. Upon release of the initial report on July 6, Chinese officials immediately declared that China abided by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. They denounced the report as smears "based on rumours and false allegations," and said the the claims had been investigated and found to be without any merit.

A Congressional Research Service report by Dr. Thomas Lum stated that the Kilgour-Matas report relied largely on logical inference, without bringing forth new or independently-obtained testimony; the credibility of much of the key evidence was said to be questionable. Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen was sceptical about the logistical plausibility of the allegations after visiting the site. He said that, depending on who you believe, "the Kilgour-Matas report is either compelling evidence that proves the claims about Falun Gong... or a collection of conjecture and inductive reasoning that fails to support its own conclusions".

Kirk C. Allison, Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine in the University of Minnesota, (2006) and Tom Treasure of Guy's Hospital, London (2007), considered the report "plausible from a medical standpoint" based on the numerical gap in the number of transplants and the short waiting times in China compared with other countries, Allison said that the "short time frame of an on-demand system [as in China] requires a large pool of donors pre-typed for blood group and HLA matching," and would be consist with the Falun Gong allegations about the systematic tissue typing of practitioners held prisoner.

Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV aired a programme in June 2007 which refuted the Epoch Times allegations, and attacked the Kilgour-Matas report. The programme showed how the hospital was not equipped for organ transplantation; the premises and staffing were inadequate for housing thousands of prisoners; and that the alleged incinerator was a water-boiler. The hospital itself denied the claimed witnesses were employees; and doctors interviewed also denied involvement.

In May 2008 two United Nations Special Rapporteurs reiterated their previous request for the Chinese authorities to adequately respond to the allegations, and to explain the source of organs which would account for the sudden increase in organ transplants in China since 2000. In November 2008, the United Nations Committee Against Torture noted its concern at the allegations and called for China to "immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims", and take measures "to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished". In 2007, Kilgour and Matas continued to assert that "large scale" organ harvesting was still taking place. but David Ownby, a noted expert on Falun Gong, said: "I see no evidence proving [organ harvesting] is aimed particularly at Falun Gong practitioners."

Amnesty International stated that it is "continuing to analyze sources of information about the Falun Gong organ harvesting allegations, including the report published by Canadians David Matas and David Kilgour." Amnesty points out that there is "a widely documented practice of the buying and selling of organs of death penalty prisoners in China." The report from Amnesty continues to say that while "it is unknown how many Falun Gong practitioners are being executed by the Chinese authorities...various sources indicate China may be executing between 10,000-15,000 people a year."

A Congressional Research Service report by Dr Thomas Lum considered that the Kilgour-Matas report relied largely on making logical inferences, without bringing forth new or independently-obtained testimony. According to Lum, Kilgour and Matas' conclusions rely heavily upon transcripts of telephone calls with reported PRC respondents, and the credibility of the telephone recordings is questionable, due to the Chinese government's controls over sensitive information.

David Ownby, a noted expert on Falun Gong, said "Organ harvesting is happening in China, but I see no evidence proving it is aimed particularly at Falun Gong practitioners." Glen McGregor of theOttawa Citizen said "Depending on who you believe, the Kilgour-Matas report is either compelling evidence that proves the claims about Falun Gong... or a collection of conjecture and inductive reasoning that fails to support its own conclusions". He said he was one of the few journalists who had not treated the report as fact, and that he had for this reason been compared to holocaust deniers by Matas and Kilgour. McGregor said that the allegation is "a substantial escalation that none of these groups [Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN's Special Rapporteur on torture] have confirmed".

The Christian Science Monitor said, "The report's evidence is circumstantial, but persuasive." In 2009, Kilgour and Matas published the report as a book, titled "Bloody Harvest."

In 2009, Kilgour and Matas received the 2009 Human Rights Award by the German-based International Society for Human Rights, and were nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for their research. They were the subject of two separate nominations for the prize; one from Canadian federal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, and one from Balfour Hakak, chairman of the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel.

Impact on international transplant policies

On August 14, 2006, a statement from the US National Kidney Foundation (NKF), referring to the Kilgour Matas Reports, stated that the foundation "is deeply concerned about recent allegations regarding the procurement of organs and tissues through coercive or or exploitative practices" and that "any act which calls the ethical practice of donation and transplantation into question should be condemned by the worldwide transplantation community." The statement from NKF also condemned organ transplant tourism in general.

In December 2006, the Australian Health Ministry announced the abolition of training programs for Chinese doctors in organ transplant procedures in the Prince Charles and the Princess Alexandra Hospitals and the banning of joint research programs with China on organ transplantation. .

The Medical Post, on March 11, 2008, reported that a petition signed by 140 Canadian Physicians "urging the Canadian Government to issue travel advisories warning Canadians that organ transplants in China are sourced almost entirely from non-consenting people, whether prisoners sentenced to death or Falun Gong practitioners", was submitted to the Canadian House of Commons. In February 2008, Canadian Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj introduced a bill that would make it illegal for Canadians to get an organ transplant abroad if the organ was taken from an unwilling victim. Wrzesnewskyj states that the final impetus to introduce the bill was the findings of the Kilgour-Matas report..

In early 2007, Israeli health insurance carriers stopped sending patients to China for transplants. This was in part related to an investigation in which Israeli authorities arrested several men for tax evasion in connection with a company that mediated transplants of Chinese prisoners’ organs for Israelis. One of the men had stated in an undercover interview that the organs came from “people who oppose the regime, those sentenced to death and from prisoners of the Falun Gong.”

Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv prohibited Jews from deriving any benefit from Chinese organ harvesting, "even in life-threatening situations". Other Rabbis oppose the use of Chinese organs for transplants. In October 2006, the Chairman of the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), Joseph Wu, stated that Taiwan condemned, "in the strongest possible terms", China's harvesting of human organs from executed Falun Gong practitioners. In August 2007, a statement from Hou Sheng-mao, Director of Taiwan's Department of Health, urged Taiwanese Doctors to not encourage patients to get commercial organ transplants in mainland China.

Response of Chinese authorities

The Chinese Embassy in Canada replied to the first version of the Kilgour-Matas report immediately upon its release on July 6, stating that China abided by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. The authors were accused of wanting to smear China's image. "[T]he so-called 'independent investigation report' made by a few Canadians based on rumors and false allegations is groundless and biased." The Chinese Embassy in Washington also said the allegations were "totally fake" and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them meritless.

Amnesty International, responding to statements from the Chinese government, stated:

Amnesty International has noted the response of the Chinese authorities to the Canadian report, which states among other things that China has 'consistently abided by the relevant guiding principles of the World Health Organization endorsed in 1991, prohibiting the sale of human organs and stipulating that donors' written consent must be obtained beforehand'. Amnesty International considers this statement to be at odds with the facts in view of the widely documented practice of the buying and selling of organs of death penalty prisoners in China.

The January, 2007 revision of the Kilgour-Matas reports state that the Chinese government claim of having "consistently abided" by the relevant World Health Organization principles is unsubstantiated by facts. They note that the Chinese Transplantation Network Assistance Centre Website until April, 2006 carried a price list for transplants, archived version of which are still available online and also that many individuals can attest to paying for organ transplants in China. They state that the Chinese government's claim of written consent being obtained beforehand is also belied by the facts. They note Human Rights Watch documenting that consent is obtained from executed prisoners in only a minority of cases and that "the abusive circumstances of detention and incarceration in China, from the time a person is first accused of a capital offense until the moment of his or her execution, are such as to render absurd any notion of "free and voluntary consent.""

Matas told the United States Committee on International Relations that he and Kilgour are reinforced in their conclusions by "the feeble response of the Government of China." He says that despite their resources and inside knowledge, they have not provided any information to counter the report. "Instead," he said, "they have attacked us personally and, more worrisome, attacked the Falun Gong with the very sort of verbal abuse which we have identified as one of the reasons we believe these atrocities are occurring."

David Matas says that he and Kilgour find it hard to take the Chinese government's line seriously, "China will deny all abuses of human rights in the most frivolous manner imaginable," he said at a public forum in Brisbane. "David Kilgour and I have been around the world talking about our report, and have engaged with the government of China on human rights abuses. And the types of response we get are silly in the extreme," Matas said. According to Matas, the Chinese government claimed the report is "filled with rumors," though "every single piece of evidence in the report is independently verifiable." He said that the Chinese government "very often... manufacture[s] quotes. They say we said something, put it in quotation marks, and then disagree with this manufactured quote... our report is on the website, and you can word check it and see that these manufactured quotes are not real. So it’s hard for us to take these kinds of opposition seriously..." What they’re engaged in is propaganda and disinformation, rather than real debate."

Other reports

Ethan Gutmann, adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, calculates that the number of practitioners killed for organs could be as high as 162,000, with 13,500 being the low-end estimate, and 87,750 being the median. In July 2006, Dr. Kirk C. Allison, Associate Director of the Program in Human Rights and Medicine in the University of Minnesota, released a statement on a forum held at the World Transplant Congress in Boston, reinforcing the findings of the Kilgour-Matas report and calling for academia and medical circles stop cooperation with China on organ transplantation. Kilgour and Matas noted that Dr. Allison had arrived independently at the same conclusion as theirs, shortly before their initial reports were released.

Professor Tom Treasure of Guy's Hospital, London, in a March 2007 article entitled "The Falun Gong, organ transplantation, the holocaust and ourselves," published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, confirms the plausibility, from a medical standpoint, of the allegations.

In May 2008 two United Nations Special Rapporteurs reiterated their previous request for the Chinese authorities to adequately respond to the allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. They also asked the authorities to explain the source of organs for the sudden increase in organ transplants in China since 2000. The request was a follow-up to previous communication on August 11, 2006, made with Sigma Huda, UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons. In 2006 the three Special Rapporteurs drew on information submitted by individuals and volunteer groups, including FalunHR, raising questions about the identifiable sources of organs, the short waiting times for finding perfectly-matched organs, and the correlation between the sudden increase in organ transplants in China and the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. In 2006 Chinese authorities responded only with categorical denials, and failed to address the critical issues raised by the Special Rapporteurs, according to a syndicated MarketWire report. The follow-up communication by Ms. Jahangir and Mr. Nowak, sent on January 25, 2007, also called on the authorities to address the issues. In November 2008, the United Nations Committee Against Torture made a strong statement on the matter. The Committee, citing the UN special Rapporteur's note that the increase in organ transplant operations coincides with “the beginning of the persecution of [Falun Gong practitioners]”, stated that it is concerned with the information that Falun Gong practitioners "have been extensively subjected to torture and ill-treatment in prisons and that some of them have been used for organ transplants." The Committee called for the state to immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims of organ harvesting, and take measures to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished.

Another investigation was independently undertaken by European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott who went to China on a fact finding mission during May 2006. He interviewed two witnesses: Cao Dong and Niu Jinping, one of whom, Cao Dong, said he knew of organ harvesting camps, and he had seen the cadaver of one of his friends, a Falun Gong practitioner, with holes in his body where the organs had been removed." Shortly following his meeting with McMillan Scott, Cao Dong was arrested. The authorities transferred him to Gansu province and issued an arrest warrant. He was prosecuted in December on four alleged charges. The judges ruled that the case could not go to trial because the case fell within the jurisdiction of the 610 Office in Beijing [the office charged with persecution of the Falun Gong].

External links

• The Kilgour and Matas report
• Videos of a press conference with Kilgour and Matas
• China's Gruesome Organ Harvest by Ethan Gutmann, Adjunct Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Cover Story in The Weekly Standard.
• "CNN Caught In Genocidal Correctness" by China democracy activist, John Kusumi.