On May 12, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a hearing on forced organ harvesting in China, hosted by TLHRC Co-Chairs and Congressmen Christopher H. Smith and James P. McGovern.
The PRC is widely alleged to be a major harvester and trafficker of forcibly acquired organs. Available information indicates that Falun Gong practitioners have been the primary victims of this cruel practice, and there are now allegations that imprisoned Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities are also victims, based in part on accounts of mandatory medical testing in Xinjiang consistent with preparation for organ removal. Since 2015, Chinese authorities have claimed to only source organs from voluntary donors, but there are doubts as to the veracity of the claim. Data suggests that Chinese hospitals have performed many times more transplants than the highest estimates of ethically available donors can account for.
Organized by: Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
Panelists:
- Rep. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chair, TLHRC
- Rep. Gus Bilirakis, Member, TLHRC
- Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Chair, China Tribunal, and Former Lead Prosecutor, UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
- Matthew P. Robertson, doctoral candidate, Australian National University (Canberra) and co-author, “Execution by Organ Procurement: Breaching the Dead Donor Rule in China,” published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
- Ethan Gutmann, China Studies Research Fellow, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and author of The Slaughter.
- Dr. Enver Tohti Bugdha, an oncology surgeon who was ordered by the Chinese government to carry out the first known case of live organ harvesting in 1994.
- Robert A. Destro, Former Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Department of State, and Professor, Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America.
Link: humanrightscommission.house.gov
