Epoch Times: May 31- 2007 - Finding ways to change the behavior of those responsible for the harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners in China was a common theme in discussions at two recent forums held this last Thursday at the University of Chicago and last Friday at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
"We should be doing everything we can to use the Olympic Games event as leverage to get China to clean up its human rights record," said David Matas, an international human rights lawyer and a co-author (with David Kilgour) of "Bloody Harvest: Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China."
Matas added, "Obviously if China can get away with this now without anybody outside China noticing, or caring, or doing anything about it while it is hosting the Olympic Games, then after the Olympic Games are over then things will go back to where they were and far worse."
Citing the 1936 Nazi Olympics as example, Matas said the Nazis "cleaned up their act a little bit before Germany hosted the Games, but things got far worse afterwards."
Matas urged that in pressuring China on the issue, the focus should be getting China to set up long-lasting mechanisms "that would not dismantle" when the Games are over.
Also speaking at the same two events were Dr. Kirk Allison, Director of Program in Human Rights and Health at the University of Minnesota, and Mr. Erping Zhang, Executive Director of the Association for Asian Research.
Sanctions
Allison pointed out that since 95–99 percent of the organs in China's transplants are taken from persons executed for a variety of reasons, including practicing Falun Gong, Chinese transplant physicians who return to China after studying abroad will have a very slim chance to avoid participating in that system.
To show how a transplant physician would take part in the system, Allison cited from the Kilgour/Matas report the story of a transplant tourist who received a kidney transplant in China in May 2004.
The man's wife "saw around 20-sheets of papers with relevant info of organ suppliers and their HLA info. The doctor picked a few from the list and put them in order. Once the organ arrived, a cross-match would be performed. If the test result was positive, the transplant operation had to be canceled, and if it is negative, the operation would proceed."
The doctor in the story, Allison said, is like someone who enters a seafood restaurant and points toward the lobster tank saying, "I want this one." When the physician determines the blood type or HLA type of the transplant, he said, "He is determining the order of execution."
In response to this situation, Allison says universities outside China should cease training Chinese transplant surgeons, cancel collaborations with them, and redirect funding streams; journals should reject the organ transplant data from China; and physicians should dissuade patients from seeking organ transplants in China.
Allison noted that the Transplantation Society has already called to stop accepting transplant data from China that are based on organs procured from executed prisoners; a number of journals have followed its lead; and the main hospitals in Queensland, Australia, already have had a moratorium on the training of Chinese transplant physicians.
Erping Zhang looked toward the political realm for means of changing China's behavior. He noted that because "China is an export-based economy, the U.S. and Western countries have a lot of leverage to pressure China to perform better on human rights issues. It is high-time for all of us to pressure this [U.S.] administration to not look the other way."
Evidence in Mass Crimes
Matas emphasized that mass crimes often meet mass denials, and that they do not yield the kinds of evidence sought in most investigations about human rights violations.
That is why, he explained, investigations into mass crimes, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, have to step outside of the strict rules of evidence.
Referring to the organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China as mass crimes, Matas said, "This allegation is not going to produce that sort of evidence."
"The allegation is people are being killed for their organs; there is no surviving organ donor. The allegation is their bodies are cremated; there is no corpse for autopsy. The allegation is this happens in the operating room; there are no witnesses from the public. This happens in China, so there is no access … there won't be government records. Since it takes place in the operating room, if there is such a crime, it will be cleaned up afterward," said Matas.
The Kilgour/Matas reports use the terminology "Evidence of proof and disproof" instead of evidence.
Matas said that he and Kilgour began the investigation simply by gathering in all the relevant evidence "without necessarily each evidence on its own proving anything." Then they looked at it altogether and made assessment based on all the evidence rather than any one piece in isolation.
The revised Kilgour/Matas report Kilgour/Matas report, released in January this year, reinforces the conclusion in the first report of July 2006 that large-scale organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners in China has been taking place, expanding the "elements of proof and disproof" from 18 to 33.
One of the added elements in the revised edition is the responses from the Chinese regime.
The Chinese regime has failed to respond to the first report in a persuasive way, according to Matas, who finds the Chinese regime's responses to the Kilgour/Matas reports "feeble" and "evasive."
"They had evidence at their disposal that we didn't have," he said.
"If the allegation is untrue, they could personally refute it. Their very evasion, unwillingness, and inability in itself help to confirm the conclusion," said Matas, also citing examples of how Chinese embassies and consulates in various areas have tried to prevent people from hearing him and Kilgour speak or from reading their reports.
Matas pointed out that since the story of organ harvesting has reached the public the Chinese regime has passed two laws about organ transplant, which in essence are the same; the first took effect July 1 last year, the second May 1 this year.
The reason, he thinks, is that the Chinese regime is "feeling a certain amount of embarrassment from the publicity that has been generated on this issue." So he urges that people outside China to continue pressure the Chinese regime.
Commenting on the fact that there are efforts to improve the Chinese transplant system in order to eliminate abuses, Matas said, "It's fine to get everything to shift, but I don't think that's an excuse for allowing the present system to continue until the shift has taken place.
"The practice that is going on now should stop now."
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