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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Falun Gong | 15/19 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:19:45.563084+00:00 | kb-cron |
In May 2008 two United Nations Special Rapporteurs reiterated requests for the Chinese authorities to respond to the allegations, and to explain a source for the organs that would account for the sudden increase in organ transplants in China since 2000. Chinese officials have responded by denying the organ harvesting allegations, and insisting that China abides by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. Responding to a U.S. House of Representatives Resolution calling for an end to abusing transplant practices against religious and ethnic minorities, a Chinese embassy spokesperson said "the so-called organ harvesting from death-row prisoners is totally a lie fabricated by Falun Gong." In August 2009, Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, said, "The Chinese government has yet to come clean and be transparent ... It remains to be seen how it could be possible that organ transplant surgeries in Chinese hospitals have risen massively since 1999, while there are never that many voluntary donors available." In 2014, investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann published the result of his own investigation. Gutmann conducted extensive interviews with former detainees in Chinese labor camps and prisons, as well as former security officers and medical professionals with knowledge of China's transplant practices. He reported that organ harvesting from political prisoners likely began in Xinjiang province in the 1990s, and then spread nationwide. Gutmann estimates that some 64,000 Falun Gong prisoners may have been killed for their organs between 2000 and 2008. In a 2016 report, David Kilgour found that he had underestimated. In the new report he found that the government's official estimates for the volume of organs harvested since the persecution of Falun Gong began to be 150,000 to 200,000. Media outlets have extrapolated from this study a death toll of 1.5 million. Ethan Gutmann estimated from this update that 60,000 to 110,000 organs are harvested in China annually, observing that it is (paraphrasing) "difficult but plausible to harvest 3 organs from a single body" and also calls the harvest "a new form of genocide using the most respected members of society". In June 2019, the China Tribunal— a non-governmental tribunal set up by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China—concluded that detainees including imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement are still being killed for organ harvesting. The Tribunal, chaired by British barrister Geoffrey Nice, said it was "certain that Falun Gong as a source—probably the principal source—of organs for forced organ harvesting". In June 2021, the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council voiced concerns over having "received credible information that detainees from ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations such as ultrasound and x-rays, without their informed consent; while other prisoners are not required to undergo such examinations." The press release stated that UN's human rights experts "were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged 'organ harvesting' targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China."