I apologize for the length of the following article. It was sent to me by someone I recently met who had escaped from Communist China. The Communist Chinese are harvesting organs from political and religious prisoners. This is being done without the consent of the prisoners.<\/p>\n
Here is the article:<\/p>\n
Former New York Times reporter’s testimony to\u00a0 the China Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting\u00a0\u00a0Berlin, 23.02.2019<\/p>\n
Dear Judges of the Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting from\u00a0 Prisoners of Conscience in China,<\/p>\n
Please note the some half a dozen stories I wrote about human organ transplant\u00a0 while working as a journalist in China (at the New York Times.) My research began\u00a0 without any preconceived idea about the situation. It was prompted by a report that\u00a0 Chinese airlines were not cooperating in getting organs to recipients in time. I\u00a0 followed where the reporting took me – the result was this series of articles.<\/p>\n
I would also like to submit the following observation, and four additional points:<\/p>\n
Observation: While I personally believe there is an illegal organ trade, I remain\u00a0 unsure of its scale and the sources of organs. I think probably these are not \u201conly\u201d\u00a0 death row prisoners and prisoners of conscience but may also include e.g. missing\u00a0 persons, victims of murder gangs, mental health patients, otherwise healthy victims\u00a0 of accidents whose relatives are paid for the organs, soldiers who desert, and others.\u00a0 As for numbers: | don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Additional Points:<\/p>\n
During the lunch Dr. Chen accused me of causing him a lot of trouble with my\u00a0 reporting. Recently organizers at a major heart and lung transplant conference in\u00a0 Washington D.C. had rejected a poster of his after initially accepting it, on the\u00a0 grounds that the research was based on death row prisoners. Dr. Chen did not deny\u00a0 this but said it was my fault for having caused him \u201ctrouble\u201d with my articles. I said, |\u00a0 had nothing to do with the poster, and if it was rejected due to involuntary donors\u00a0 such as death-row prisoners then that was his responsibility, not mine.<\/p>\n
Dr. Chen asked, \u201cBut what are we supposed to do?\u201d I replied, \u201cDon\u2019t submit findings\u00a0 gathered from before you said you stopped using involuntary donors\u201d (i.e. Dec.\u00a0 2014.) He looked at me as if to say, \u201cthat\u2019s impossible,\u201d but said nothing further to\u00a0 me on the topic. During this conversation Dr. Tong was listening carefully. He turned\u00a0 to Dr. Chen and the following is a verbatim record of their brief conversation, from<\/p>\n
memory, which I wrote down immediately afterwards (the lunch was not a\u00a0 reporting event.)<\/p>\n
Dr. Tong: \u201cPrisoners can\u2019t be used?\u201d [\u201cILIAA AEA?)<\/p>\n
Dr. Chen: \u201cNo (we) cannot use (them).\u201d [\u201cAfe}4\u201d. J<\/p>\n
Dr. Tong: \u201cWhat about prisoners of conscience?\u201d [\u201c t\u00bb48″4?”]<\/p>\n
Dr. Chen: \u201cCan\u2019t use any of them.\u201d [\u201c#@8 7 A8\/H.\u201d]<\/p>\n
Dr Tong looked down at the table and said nothing further. Dr.Chen also fell silent.<\/p>\n
I drew three – analytical – conclusions from this conversation:<\/p>\n
e The use of prisoners of conscience for organ transplant has taken place (the\u00a0 state has itself admitted the use of death row prisoner organs.)\u00a0 It is common knowledge, at least among some medical specialists.\u00a0 The Dec. 2014 ban on using death row prisoner organs may not be effective\u00a0 or even real, since even a lung surgeon like Dr. Tong was apparently unaware\u00a0 of the ban. If it was a real ban it might be reasonable to assume he would\u00a0 know, since the state and party through their propaganda and information\u00a0 systems are able to transmit messages of importance very fast.<\/p>\n
Point 2: Soon after the publication on Nov. 16, 2015, of a story in which I reported\u00a0 the use of death row prisoner organs was ongoing, a defamation campaign against\u00a0 me was quickly organized by the state. It went like this: the office of Dr. Huang Jiefu\u00a0 contacted me (they had not responded to previous requests for an interview,) and,\u00a0 surprisingly, agreed to allow me to interview Dr. Huang. When I arrived at the\u00a0 interview location there were already two journalists present from Chinese media.\u00a0 During the 2-hour long interview these people barely spoke but observed the\u00a0 interview with Dr. Huang and took notes. The next day many identical reports began\u00a0 to appear in the Chinese media accusing me of erroneous reporting.<\/p>\n
Point 3: About a year later, I was required to go the Foreign Ministry for a warning,\u00a0 about an unrelated matter. While there I asked my interlocutor about the organs\u00a0 reporting, how the state viewed it. She replied, \u201cYou can do that reporting.\u201d I was a\u00a0 little taken aback and asked, \u201cDon\u2019t you find it too sensitive?\u201d She responded, \u201cJust\u00a0 be sure you make clear that the leaders are going to deal with this\u201d (within the\u00a0 context of our conversation I took this to mean Xi Jinping.) I asked her about the\u00a0 military hospital system and organ transplant practices there and she froze, saying\u00a0 only, \u201cI know nothing about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Point 4: Finally, I\u2019d like to say that it was my impression the New York Times, my\u00a0 employer at the time, was not pleased that I was pursuing these stories, and after\u00a0 initially tolerating my efforts made it impossible for me to continue. The newspaper\u00a0 made a hash of the edit of my story of Nov. 16 2015, substantially changing its\u00a0 sense through an unfortunate cut at the end, and a senior colleague in Beijing\u00a0 attempted to pin the blame on me. The subsequent correction, which was not\u00a0 delayed due to needing to check anything (as it says) but simply due to inattention<\/p>\n
or overwork on the part of editors, shows that there were two editing errors only,\u00a0 not reporting errors. More broadly, I conducted several conversations in person or\u00a0 by email with senior editors but essentially my requests to continue this line of\u00a0 investigation – for which I\u2019d need time – were ignored. Editors appeared to believe\u00a0 the organ donation issue in China had been solved by the state\u2019s admission that they\u00a0 had used prisoner organs and its promise of Dec. 14 they no longer were doing so. I\u00a0 was told there was \u201cnothing new\u2019 to the story. Another editor commented, when I\u00a0 tried to broaden the investigation from death row prisoners to prisoners of\u00a0 conscience, based on my conversation with Dr. Chen and Dr. Tong described above,\u00a0 that people who believed that prisoner of conscience organs were being used were\u00a0 on \u201cthe outer fringes of advocacy\u201d – that is, not rational. The usual arguments were\u00a0 presented, for example that Falungong are irrational and unreliable, and so on. It\u00a0 was Clear to me the issue was unwelcome. I cannot be sure, but I suspect that this\u00a0 series of articles contributed to a decision by headquarters in February 2017 not to\u00a0 promote me, against the advice of regional editors. I left the paper in June 2017.<\/p>\n
I hereby declare this all to be true and exactly as happened, according to the best of\u00a0 my memory and based on notes taken at the time.<\/p>\n
Didi Kirsten Tatlow<\/p>\n
There are a few things about this article that are extremely important. The first is that this practice is continuing. The second is that most of world is aware of this practice. The Third is what this practice says about the Communist Chinese regime’s regard (or lack of regard) for human life. Israel has blocked its medical insurance programs from funding Chinese organ transplants for Israelis. (article here<\/a>) I think the rest of the world needs to follow that example.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I apologize for the length of the following article. It was sent to me by someone I recently met who had escaped from Communist China. The Communist Chinese are harvesting organs from political and religious prisoners. This is being done … Continue reading