Those Who Have Persecuted Falun Gong Will Not Escape Punishment

In late July of 2006, the first World Transplant Congress (WTC) was held in Boston. More than 6,000 doctors and scientists from 85 countries participated, including more than a hundred doctors and medical professionals from China. Renowned human rights lawyer Terri Marsh officially delivered a criminal complaint to the Massachusetts Prosecutor's Office on behalf of all practitioners and their families detained in China's prisons and detention centres who have had their organs removed against their will. The defendants of the complaint are three Chinese surgeons: Chen Zhonghua, Zhu Tongyu and Shen Zhongyang. This is the first international human rights lawsuit that Falun Gong has filed specifically regarding the atrocities related to live organ harvesting. A Canadian independent investigative report concluded on July 6th, 2006, that allegations of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners in China are true.

Defendant Chen Zhonghua is the president of Tongji Hospital Transplantation Research Institute in Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Zhu Tongyu, another defendant, is the dean of Changzheng Hospital Organ Transplantation Centre in Shanghai. The third defendant, Shen Zhongyang, is the dean of the Oriental Organ Transplantation Centre at the First Central Hospital in Tianjin. Doctors in these three hospitals, where they are directors, have admitted in recorded telephone conversations that the sources of the hospitals' organ transplants include living Falun Gong practitioners. The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) holds tapes of the phone conversations as evidence.

The criminal complaint accuses the three defendants of violating United States Criminal Code-Title 18, Section 2340A (a ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture) which was approved and implemented by the United States in 1994. The defendants are accused of harvesting, stealing and selling organs from prisoners, including detained Falun Gong practitioners, without their consent. These defendants should be held accountable as chief perpetrators or as accessory perpetrators, especially regarding the organ harvesting atrocities. They have not only committed crimes of torture; they have also have committed genocide, the most serious crime recognised by international criminal law. The formal complaint was successfully delivered to the defendants.

In addition to the criminal complaint, over 50 legal notices were served to other Chinese delegates attending the WTC by the Human Rights Law Foundation (based in Washington DC). The notices warned professionals currently engaged in organ transplantation that any medical professionals (including surgeons and nurses) who participate in, support, abet, and assist in the inhumane practice of illegally harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners will be held legally responsible.

Marsh said that the recent criminal complaint against the three Chinese surgeons is just the beginning of criminal complaints by Falun Gong practitioners. The Human Rights Law Foundation will publish a report to further disclose the crimes the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) has committed against Falun Gong practitioners. The report is intended to provide evidence for international human rights organisations, legal organisations and Falun Gong practitioners to facilitate their filing lawsuits against the perpetrator(s) of these crimes, including the crimes of harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners.

A statistic published by the International Advocates for Justice on May 1st, 2006, shows that Falun Gong, as a group, filed 57 civil and criminal lawsuits against more than 30 high level Chinese government officials in five continents over the past six years. The defendants included the following former CCP leaders: Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Xia Deren, Zhao Zhizhen and Huang Huahua. The International Advocates for Justice also stated that the lawsuits filed by Falun Gong are the largest body of lawsuits so far in the twenty-first century, and that the charges are for the most severe crimes tried under international law.

According to the published statistics, Falun Gong, as a group, has filed lawsuits against Jiang Zemin in sixteen countries, including: the USA, Canada, Chili, Bolivia, Peru, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. In addition to Jiang Zemin, other high level Chinese officials sued have included: the Vice Head of the Chinese Communist regime and Ministers of the Culture Ministry, Commerce Ministry, Information Industry Ministry, Public Security Ministry and Education Ministry.

To date, Falun Gong has won at least three civil lawsuits.

The main crimes that Falun Gong has filed complaints about include genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. These are the most severe crimes recognised under international criminal law.

Harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners for profit and the subsequent cremation of the bodies to destroy evidence in Sujiatun and at least 36 additional secret camps were exposed in the beginning of March, 2006. Insiders said that such crimes started in 2000 to 2001 and reached a peak in 2001 to 2003. The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), formed by the Falun Dafa Association and Minghui/Clearwisdom website, was established on April 4th, 2006. The CIPFG demands a full investigation of all places that that have been used to detain Falun Gong practitioners during the past seven years, including: forced labour camps, prisons, detention centres, hospitals and mental hospitals. The CIPFG calls on all international organisations, including human rights associations, state agencies and media, to join its independent investigation and leave no leaf unturned in investigating the crimes committed by the Chinese Communist regime.

On July 6th, 2006 an independent investigation team released the "Report Into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China." The investigation was conducted by David Kilgour, a former Canadian MP, and international human rights lawyer David Matas. At a press conference, Mr. Matas said the report's findings represent "a grotesque form of evil which, despite all the deprivations humanity has seen, would be new to this planet." The investigators reached the following conclusion after two months of thorough investigation and collection of evidence: "We believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."

A report from the New York Times in 2005 commented that CCP forced labour camps exist outside the law, and that one finds there depravity and darkness beyond the rule of law. The Minghui/Clearwisdom website lists more than 2,930 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners persecuted to death since July of 1999. An inside statistic from the CCP in October 2001 showed that there were at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners sentenced and more than 100,000 were sent to labour camps without any legal proceedings. Under the genocidal policy of Jiang's regime, the 610 Office systematically follows these policies: "destroy their [Falun Gong practitioners] reputation, remove their sources of economic support, and annihilate their bodies;" "Those killing Falun Gong [practitioners] are not held responsible, and [it will be] counted as suicide" and "no need to identify, directly cremate [the bodies]" of steadfast Falun Gong practitioners. In prisons, forced labour camps and concentration camps that illegally detain Falun Gong practitioners, it has been discovered that staff frequently perform unusual physical examinations on Falun Gong practitioners. Moreover, large numbers of practitioners have been and continue to be secretly transferred to other locations, and many practitioners have disappeared.

Organ transplant cases have sharply increased in China in recent years. Take liver transplants as an example, there were only 78 liver transplant cases in China during the eight years from 1991 to 1998. In comparison, during 1999 there were 118 liver transplants. The increase continues in 2000 with 254 liver transplants and in 2001 with 486 liver transplant cases in China. In 2003 the number of liver transplant cases increased to more than 3,000. The head of the Chinese Medical Association Organ Transplant Society disclosed that in 2005, there were nearly 4,000 liver transplants and 10,000 kidney transplants in China.

According to an investigative announcement by the WOIPFG, the Tongji Hospital Transplantation Research Institute in Wuhan City, led by defendant Chen Zhonghua, is a key research centre for the Chinese Public Health Ministry, and the Institute performed more than 1,000 kidney transplants during the month of February in 2005.

All this information, taken together, indicates that there is a large, live organ bank in China. The number of organ transplants is more than ten times the number of officially admitted executions. This information and the Canadian independent investigation report can find no explanation other than the existence of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners.

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, good people who believe in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," is a severe challenge to basic human values and dignity, and it is a test of everyone's conscience and of every country's rule of justice.

The recent criminal complaints against the three suspected Chinese surgeons are necessary to stop the evil persecution and to reestablish dignity and justice in this world. Through such legal procedures, people can see that justice is not far off. Murderers covered with the blood of their victims can no longer get away with their evil deeds. This gives hope to thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China suffering under this persecution.

Committing so many bad deeds is like committing suicide, as traditional Chinese culture has long recognised that "people who commit such deeds will perish." After seven years of persecuting Falun Gong, the CCP is reaching the end of its own life. The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party has triggered a tide of withdrawals from the CCP. More than 12 million Chinese people have renounced the CCP and its related organisations. Collapse is not far off.

A medical professionals responsibility is to save people! We hereby hope those who have participated in this killing for profit will wake up and stop participating in such horrible atrocities. We call on these medical professionals to provide evidence and to step forward as witnesses to expose the atrocities. Save yourselves from becoming defendants and meeting the same fate as the CCP.