Taiwan: Keelung City Council Passes Resolution Against CCP's Live Organ Harvesting

The Keelung City Council unanimously passed a resolution against the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) live organ harvesting on May 22nd, 2006. Councilors Chang Chin-huang and Han Liang-chi each stated that no other regime in the world other than Hitler's Nazi regime would dare to do such a thing as selling organs harvested from living people. They hoped that the Health Bureau would write letters to medical facilities, requiring them to be self-disciplined, avoid getting unwittingly involved in atrocious human rights abuses, and safeguard the quality of people's medical treatment and safety.

Keelung City Council passes resolution against the CCP's live organ harvesting

Chang Chin-huang stated that he would ask the Health Bureau to raise possible approaches, write to the council and at the same time supervise the functions of this council. He hoped the Health Bureau would write to big hospitals to stop medical staff from working as commissioned agents, require strict management over hospitals, and punish offenders according to the law if anything improper occurs.

Many people in Taiwan journey to Mainland China to illegally receive organ transplants. Regarding this Han Liang-chi believed that such acts are not in accord with the humanitarian principles and should be firmly opposed.

The text of the resolution is as follows:

We call upon the United Nations, International Human Rights Organisations and International Health Organisations to send investigators to the Mainland to look into facts, reveal the truth and safeguard basic human rights, and urge the CCP to stop the above mentioned malfeasances.

We urge the city government (Health Bureau) to issue documents to supervise, guide and assist the city's medical facilities to make related codes of ethics for regulating organ transplants in the Mainland areas, and avoid getting unwittingly involved in human rights persecution.

We urge the city government to quickly start up various civil and official promotion and guidance networks to extensively inform people that organ transplant facilities in the Mainland are involved in illegal live organ harvesting, and the risks involved, so as to safeguard the quality of people's medical treatment and safety.

Taiwan's Department of Health replied to the "Taiwan Association for Rescuing Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners" on May 2nd, 2006. In its letter No. 0950016951, the Department of Health makes it clear, regarding the issue of Taiwanese people going to the Mainland areas for organ transplants: For those who spread, broadcast or publish information about human organs trafficking via advertisements, publications, broadcasting, television, electronic messages, computer networks or other media, the Department of Health will, according to item No.18 of the Ordinances on Human Organ Transplants, fine them over 90,000 yuan to 450,000 yuan in New Taiwan Dollars (TWD). Physicians who get involved in intermediating acts, besides the punishment as mentioned above, will also be reprimanded for breaching medical ethics, and other medical staff will be handled according to related rules of law.

The Department of Health also reminded the public that going outside Taiwan for organ transplants involves risks if they do not have transparent information about the hospitals and the quality of physicians in that area. Moreover, it is still controversial even if the organs for transplantation obtained conform to human rights and medical ethics. Those who want to go outside Taiwan for organ transplants, should discuss it with their chief physicians first, and cautiously evaluate the appropriateness of organ transplants outside Taiwan and matters relating to follow-up care.