But, it’s not hard to figure out that the large incisions on the body (int the photo) suggest that organs have been removed in an unethical way–they can get tissue from the throat area–in this case they took the heart and the brain. According to the Kilgour Matas report confirming these organ harvesting targeting Falun Gong to be true and happening ( http://investigation.go.saveinter.net ), usually they take all the vital organs they need from the body to be sold to the highest bidder. A kidney is sold for $60,000 and a liver goes for $130,000. In China, the organ extractions from the Falun Gong are done in a very barbaric way, mutilating the bodies that are cremated afterwards. It is doubtful that this macabre practice will stop with the new regulations of August l–as we know the cadre rarely abide to their own rules,especially when there is a lucrative market involved–and unless our governments push to stop these atrocities that amount to genocide. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=6a97d044-615a-496b-b7d6-e79e36636592

This link shows the denial from the regime and a response from the authors of the report on organ harvesting.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-10/44796.html

And this is the statement from the Falun Gong group responding on more denial issues submitted by Harry Wu. On many blogs Bobby is using Harry’s report to discredit the Kilgourr-Matas report

Statement Concerning Harry Wu’s Efforts to Undermine Organ Harvesting Reports
Whose interest is served by attacking reports of widespread organ harvesting and killing of Falun Gong practitioners?
(8/15/2006 3:20)

NEW YORK (Falun Dafa Information Center) – Harry Wu, head of the China Information Centre, has made a number of statements attacking and undermining reports that Falun Gong practitioners have been targeted for organ harvesting by the Chinese authorities. He has actively approached the media and members of US Congress to persuade them the allegations are fraudulent and has even accused Falun Gong practitioners of fabricating the story, even though the initial witnesses and investigators of this atrocity are not Falun Gong practitioners.

The Falun Dafa Information Center feels it is time to respond to Mr. Wu’s actions so the public can discern the facts for themselves.

We acknowledge the work that Mr. Wu has done over the years in exposing many of the atrocities in China. It was Mr. Wu himself who, years ago, was instrumental in bringing to light the PRC’s gruesome policy of harvesting organs from death row inmates. Of course, even petty thieves can be sentenced to death in the PRC, let alone political prisoners.

In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced its aim to “eradicate Falun Gong at any cost.” Now, with the lucrative organ harvesting trade already in place, the witnesses’ claims, shocking as they would seem under different circumstances, only confirmed our greatest fears. After all, the Chinese regime considers Falun Gong its No. 1 enemy, and practitioners are treated as non-persons who can be tortured and murdered with no consequence. In recent years, tens of thousands of these innocent men and women have been locked in labor camps and not allowed any contact with the outside world or have simply gone missing.

Given such a background, these shocking claims—of organs being harvested from a readily accessible supply of captive, healthy people who practice Falun Gong—are not only believable, but also paint a picture that is highly probable.

Our reaction to the witness accounts was to immediately call for help from the US government and international agencies and to call for an investigation. We were thus shocked and puzzled to hear that Mr. Wu had taken it upon himself to write a secret letter to certain members of Congress undermining our efforts before he had a chance to speak with us or meet with the witnesses. If he truly felt it was a “greater expression of sympathy and support to keep them [Falun Gong] from straying too far from the facts” as he claims, why try to keep the letter hidden from us?

In fact, Mr. Wu already seemed intent on refuting the allegations before he fully understood the situation. His March 21, 2006 letter to members of Congress stated that news of a concentration camp in Sujiatun was fabricated, and that his position was based on “first hand investigations conducted.” Yet, in a later statement he says his “team” did not investigate the hospital in Sujiatun until March 27. The witnesses saw Mr. Wu’s disposition as hostile and refused to meet with him under such circumstances.

It should be noted that where Mr. Wu failed to find evidence, others have found plenty. Most notable are independent investigators David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, a former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia Pacific. In their 140-page report (http://investigation.go.saveinter.net), they state:

We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners… Our conclusion comes not from any one single item of evidence, but rather the piecing together of all the evidence we have considered. Each portion of the evidence we have considered is, in itself, verifiable and, in most cases, incontestable. Put together, they paint a damning whole picture.

Regarding the fact that journalists and diplomats visited Sujiatun weeks after the initial reports surfaced and found no evidence that the site was being used for organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, Matas and Kilgour considered the findings of such show-tours insignificant: “We would not have expected these visitors to find anything… An operation leaves no trace in an operating room after it is completed. Operating rooms are cleaned up, sanitized, made antiseptic after each and every operation.” Instead, Matas and Kilgour highlighted a series of telephone interviews with medical staff from hospitals across 10 provinces in China. During the interviews, these staff members openly admit that organs used in transplant operations at their hospitals come from Falun Gong practitioners.

With all due respect to Mr. Wu’s many accomplishments and the difficult time he spent while imprisoned in the laogai 20 years ago, things have evolved in often terrifying ways since then. He assumes many things are not feasible or are false just because, perhaps, he himself did not experience them decades ago.

In many ways the labor camp system’s operations have become more covert in recent years. How could Mr. Wu know which new torture method is promoted among the prison guards today? Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China are living this reality today and every day. They are, sadly, the real experts.

Mr. Wu says there are no facilities that can hold over 1,000 prisoners or detainees either in Sujiatun or its vicinity. China is a big place. If authorities want to hide more than 1,000 people from external investigators, they can. By now Mr. Wu should know about the expansive network of hidden tunnels and thousands of acres of underground facilities in Shenyang. Even Chinese state-run media has widely reported on them.

In another instance, Mr. Wu finds the idea of 4,500 live organ extractions carried out over three years to be “impossible in theory and unfeasible in practice.” Given the fact that these victims are to be cremated afterwards anyway, medical doctors have said it is now possible to remove organs quickly enough (some in 20 minutes) to reach this figure.

Throughout his career, Mr. Wu has shown how the Chinese regime does not follow rules or laws in treating labor camp prisoners. It is, therefore, surprising to see Mr. Wu now assume that the Chinese penal system, including hospitals closely tied to labor camps, strictly follow the rules of “organ transplantation” when dealing with Falun Gong detainees.

As a result of Mr. Wu’s attempts to discredit the witness reports, some members of Congress have chosen to dismiss this humanitarian issue when they could put real pressure on the regime to end such atrocities. Whose interests, then, is Mr. Wu really serving with his campaign? Whatever his intentions, it is clear his actions have not been constructive. We urge him to reconsider his approach and instead continue to contribute his valuable lifetime knowledge to exposing the crimes of the CCP.

The witness reports are horrifying, and in a way, we all wish they weren’t true. But when a Chinese surgeon cheerfully tells a potential transplant customer they have a supply of livers from Falun Gong practitioners, from living bodies, what are we to conclude? How should we, as human beings and members of the international community, react to this kind of information? For the CCP to hold spiritual practitioners in camps like livestock until it is time to slaughter them for their organs is an evil greater than we can imagine. If it is one day fully revealed, this is an issue that could shake our humanity to the core.

# # #

NEWS - Aug 15, 2006
Falun Dafa Information Center, http://www.faluninfo.net

The reason Mr. Fletcher’s comments and links are still in here at all is because I was trying to not squelch “discussion” in the thread … however, as with the Circumcision threads, I do not want to allow the thread to be “moderated” by outside voices, especially voices that come across as being more than a little bit politically interested in a subject.

As I said previously - and am reiterating - I have no knowledge about Falon Gong, or about Epoch Magazine. I’m not going to research them, and nor am I going to research other side of the discussion. I simply do not have the time to do either side any justice.

The post stays … as do my warnings about Mr. Fletcher. Here are the reasons, for you to accept, or reject, as you will:

1) Mr. Fletcher has no less than six blogs he’s taken the personal trouble of creating, all of them anti-Falon Gong … plus a bit. He is more than a little interested in putting forth his political ideas - which is fine. He has blogs he can do that on, and has been allowed to place his links on my own blog, although I felt a need to point out the nature of this apparent interest. Also, realizing that he even objected to me reading about the downside of communism … left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. I have some rather strong opinions regarding communism which I will refrain from exploring in detail at this time.

I would no more, through my silence, defend the extremism I found on Mr. Fletcher’s blogs than I would use my blog to give credence to the extremism that leads people to try to convince others that the Holocaust never happened … and in fact, I see a parallel on one of Fr. Fletcher’s blogs - which is devoted entirely to his insistence that Tiananmen Square never happened.

2) The “piece of spam” that I received was, indeed, the first - and last - of its type to hit my inbox. And you’re quite right, I did not research it. I’m certainly guilty as charged, and for that, I apologize. I did, however, make it plain that I had not researched it at the outset … thus putting a caution on my post for readers to be aware of.

All the same … if that was the first and only of that type of spam to hit my inbox, it contained the same type of information I’ve been receiving for many years now from another source - a source that I personally have a great deal of respect for: “The Voice of the Martyrs“. The general information is not new to me.

I haven’t been to China, and neither have I attended a torture session - or even an autopsy. I admit my ignorance. That said, the post - and all of the discussions pro and con - will stay, if for no other reason than this sort of thing should be discussed.

That’s why I invite - and relish - comments and questions like your own … but take serious issue with “outside moderators” and arguments made by people with political motivations - with the apparent intention of hijacking a discussion… and who do not at least disclose their interest when they comment.

If there are other things you’d like me to comment on, please feel free to ask. All I can give you is my opinion - my reasons for doing what I do. Thanks for taking the time to read - and comment.

I’m really surprised by your exchange with Mr. Fletcher.

When I read your post I was surprised to begin with: you got a piece of spam and believed everything in it without cross-checking. The original article came from “The Epoch Times,” a privately held organisation with the goal of attacking the Chinese Communist Party — at least, that’s what they say they are on their website.

When I read the article, I thought the pictures were odd: they claimed to be of people who had been beaten to death, and then had their organs harvested, and then been sewn up again. But if I wanted to claim that someone died of suicide (the article says this is the strategy of the Chinese government), I wouldn’t beat them to death. Ditto if I wanted to harvest someone’s organs. When someone is beaten to death, they are likely to die of suffocation, blood loss, or of their vital organs being damaged to the point of no longer being able to support life. None of which, I would have thought, are good ways to kill someone whose organs you want to transplant. Not that I know anything about transplantation, but I would have done more research before publishing the article. And then, if I were trying to hide what I was doing, I would cremate the body without sewing it up or taking photos. If I were making an example of my victim, I would take pictures of my victim without sewing up the body. So why was the body sewn up? And who took the picture? The whole thing just seems strange.

Okay, so you choose to publish the article without doing any research. That’s fine, it’s your blog.

Then someone posts who has an explanation for the photos that actually seems to make sense (they are autopsy photos), and you announce that you won’t listen to him because 1) he has an interest in the topic (like the Epoch Times *doesn’t*?) and 2) you believe all criticism of the Chinese government whether it’s true or not because the Chinese government is bad.

Moof, I expected better of you.

Even bad people and organisations can have stories made up about them, or true stories distorted to make them more publishable. I don’t know enough about Falun Gong to make any judgement about their persecution, and all I know about China is that the people I know who have been there really liked it. (None of the people I know who visited were arrested; this might contribute to their evaluation of their experience.) I don’t have a side to take. Mr. Fletcher might have an axe to grind, but clearly so do the Epoch Times, so my own bias would be to ignore them both.

This has nothing to do with taking sides. It’s about respect for critical thinking.

I do hope that you’re not going to come in and try to refute each person who agrees with the article. I don’t know much about Falon Gong, but if they’re against Communism, then that’s 1 point in their favor, as far as I’m concerned.

You’re not going to make any converts here.

Here’s another investigation you should take a look, it’s from Harry Wu of Laogai Research Foundation. He investigated Falun Gong’s Sujiatun claim and found it not credible:

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm

Take into consideration the culture and thought of the modern Chinese- they don’t usually make up fabrications about the Chinese Communist Party because if they do (a.k.a. critize or disagree)they will be punished severely. Since the conception of the Chinese Communist party, they have ruled with fabrication and violence. They lie to deceive and kill or threaten to kill to create fear and obedience. This is the culture they have created.

Chinese people will avoid confrontation at all costs.

Any type of accusation or complaint the CHinese people publicly make- will be made knowing they could face life threatening punishments. Who would accuse the Chinese Communist Party so frivolously?

If China is innocent why will they not give Visa’s to the to investigators? Why did the U.S. investigators have to wait two weeks to see the hospital, and why did they have a government official tour them through the hospital keeping careful track of what they could see?

To find out more about the Chinese Culture created by the Chinese Communist Party read the “Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party”

http://ninecommentaries.com/

I read the entire article, and I have to admit that it’s a real chin dropper. Horrific! But listen Dr. Scan Man, you can’t identify with this sick, greedy individual, or hold him up as an example for your country. Every nation on earth has its share of monsters.

We can all be ashamed for the sake of that man, and people like him, since they don’t seem to have the sense to have any shame of their own … but you should be proud to be an Indian.

Thank you for sharing that with us. I hope that the media attention brings about a little justice there …

You don’t have to do anything; that is not my intention. As to my blogs:

- “A Chruch in China” is a photo log of my 2004 trip to rural China, and my encounter with a Protestant church started by an American couple 20 years ago.

- “Sujiatun Fact or Hoax” is the catalog of search results I found after I looked into this allegation. One day in Chinatown some FLG practioner shoved a flyer in my face. Big mistake.

- “What’s wrong with organ harvesting” consists of my understanding of organ donation culture in China, and the fact even properly donated organ must be “harvested”.

- “TAM Myth” is about passive journalism and mis-reporting on TAM as result of it. I ctied Columbia School of Journalism article, and a former Canadian diplomat’s take on the subject.

- “Falun Gong Politics” has one article - a Pulitzer winner from Wall Street Journal. Many of us in the West do not know FLG’s political history in China, and the crack-down’s origin in Chinese Communist Party’s own political strugge, where aging Cultural Revolution era cadres used the sect as a political pawn.

- “Diayutai” has the research I did 10 years ago on China’s claim of this disputed island. Both ROC and PRC claims the island.

(Not that it matters, but just in case this is what you are insinuating - I’m an American, and I have never been a PRC citizen a day in my life.)