Falun Gong Group Files Criminal Complaint against Chinese Doctors for Committing the Crime of Torture by Harvesting Organs from Living People

Renowned human rights lawyer Dr. Terri Marsh officially delivered a criminal complaint on July 24th, 2006 to the Massachusetts Prosecutor's Office on behalf of all Falun Gong practitioners and their families who are being detained in China's prisons and detention centres, and who have had their organs forcibly extracted against their will. The complaint was submitted during the first World Transplant Congress held in late July 2006, in which hundreds of surgeons and medical professionals from China came to Boston to attend. This is the first international human rights lawsuit that Falun Gong has lodged regarding the atrocities related to live organ harvesting, after the Canadian independent investigative report concluded on July 6th that allegations of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners in China were true.

The defendants in the criminal complaint are the visiting president of Tongji Hospital Transplantation Research Institute in Wuhan City, Chen Zhonghua, and the dean of Zhongshan Hospital Organ Transplantation Centre in Shanghai, Zhu Tongyu. They stand accused of violating the United States' "Torture Criminal Statute" (Title 18 USCA Section2340A) and "Torture Convention" approved and implemented by the United States in 1994. The defendants were accused of harvesting, stealing and selling organs from prisoners, including Falun Gong practitioners in prisons without their consent. They should be held accountable for being chief perpetrators or accessory perpetrators, particularly, regarding live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. They have not only committed the crime of torture, but also have committed the most serious crimes of genocide according to the international criminal law, and violated the "Universal Declaration on Human Rights," "International Convention on Citizens Rights and Political Rights" and other related regulations. The lawsuit also pointed out that the defendants' behaviour has not only violated American law and international conventions, but also violated China's "Temporary Regulations for Utilising Death Penalty Prisoners' Bodies and Organs" and the United Nations' regulations on principles of medical ethics regarding doctors protecting prisoners from being tortured and other inhuman treatment or punishment.

The two defendants were charged mainly because of the fact that doctors in the hospitals where they are directors admitted in recorded telephone conversation that the sources of the hospitals' organ transplants include Falun Gong practitioners.

Therefore, the plaintiffs' lawyer required the prosecutor to immediately investigate the defendants and others who were charged with crimes related to torture, and issue arrest warrants and detain the defendants, not allow them to leave the United States, and initiate criminal procedure as soon as possible according to federal law.

In addition to the criminal complaint, over 50 legal notices were served to other Chinese delegates to the WTC by the "Human Rights Law Foundation" established in Washington DC. It warned all professionals who are currently engaging in organ transplant, that if any medical professionals, including surgeons and nurses participate in, support, abet, and assist in the inhumane practice of illegally harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, they will be held legally responsibile. The lawyers of the foundation who have been engaging in international human rights work for years, based on the requirement of the international justice and society's moral principles, will also pay close attention, and look into related criminal acts of any medical staff who may be involved in live organ harvesting.

The Falun Gong group expressed that the charge itself is not the purpose: they hope that all medical staff in China who engage in organ transplants will not be accomplices of the CCP in the persecution of Falun Gong, and immediately withdraw from being involved in the persecution, provide related criminal evidence, and assist in putting an end to the inhuman persecution. If they do not repent quickly, Falun Gong practitioners will not only thoroughly expose to the world the inhuman crimes of all medical staff who have participated in organ harvesting, but will also file lawsuits against them for their evil deeds around the world.