Illegal Organ Transplants

To the average Canadian, the thought of organ theft is shocking, but Sue Zhang says it's happening in China.

A group of Falun Gong practitioners gathered in front of Penticton City Hall Monday morning in an effort to bring information to the public.

The message has to do with the illegal organ transplant market in China that is seeping into British Columbia. Since last Tuesday, the group of volunteers has been visiting cities across BC in an effort to bring public awareness to this horror.

Sue Zhang says the group is hoping their message will get to the top of the government.

“It is very alarming and disgusting this practice, we want to talk to the three levels of government in Canada and send them the report of the organs being harvested. We would like the Canadian government to take a very strong stance on this, to openly condemn and take specific measures to stop this atrocity,” says Zhang.

Zhang says that organs are removed from unwilling donors and sold all over the world and she claims that some have even been sold in Vancouver.

According to a report titled “Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China,” Falun Gong practitioners have been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because they “see Falun Gong as a threat to its monopoly of ideological power.”

According to the report, Falun Gong teaches meditation through exercises intended to improve physical and spiritual health and fitness. It is believed there are as many as 60 million practitioners as of the mid-nineties. It was banned in July of 1999.

The report states that some organs from some 41,500 transplants in China have no identifiable source and the increase in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners could be an answer to that.

Winston Liu joined the group because of his personal experience with the CCP.

“In 2001-2003 I was in jail. Before that I was a graduate student studying for my PHD at one of China's most famous universities, our equivalent of MIT. Because I refused to renounce my faith in Falun Gong I was suspended on the first day of 2001. Police broke into my apartment and sent my wife and me to a detention centre and then to jail. When I was in jail I was forced to review a lot of propaganda material attacking Falun Gong, they asked me to write something down that renounced my faith. When I refused I was locked in a small room that was just about seven square metres, totally isolated. My wife was sentenced to 12 years in jail, she's still there,” says Liu.

Zhang says the reaction from residents in BC has been supportive and she encourages people to sign an online petition.