WASHINGTON (CNN) -- China has denied allegations of harvesting and selling the body parts of executed prisoners, sometimes before the donors were clinically dead.
The allegations were made by a Chinese doctor, Wang Guoqi, during testimony to U.S. lawmakers Wednesday, where he described coordinated procedures between surgeons and Chinese government officials to extract convicts' organs immediately after executions.
Wang, who is seeking political asylum in the U.S., said he worked at execution grounds, helping surgeons operate in ambulances to harvest the organs of executed prisoners, without prior consent.
Denying the claims, Beijing accused Wang of lying.
"Any clear-sighted person can see that this is a vicious slander against China," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said.
"I believe for personal purposes, they have gone so far as to create those sensational lies."
"With regard to the trade in human organs, China strictly prohibits that. The major source of human organs comes from voluntary donations from Chinese citizens," she said.
Chinese officials say organs are only transplanted from executed convicts with consent.
China executes more prisoners each year than any other nation. According to reports from the human rights group Amnesty International, China executed more than 1,000 people last year alone.
Wang's testimony is not the first time such an allegation has been made, but his testimony is considered rare because it offers an eyewitness account from someone who claims to have been directly involved in the practice.
A state department official in Washington told CNN the White House has expressed its concerns to China over reports of the practice.
Tortured conscience
Wang told the U.S. House of representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights he had also worked at a crematorium, carving skin off convicts bodies for use on burns victims.
Corneas and other body tissue were also removed for transplant, Wang said.
His hospital, the Tianjin Paramilitary Police General Brigade Hospital, then sold the body parts for profit.
Speaking before the subcommittee, Wang described the procedures, saying that often group executions were organized to facilitate the demand for organ transplants.
"It is with deep regret and remorse that I stand here today testifying against the practices of organ and tissue sales from death row prisoners," he said.
"My work required me to remove the skin and corneas from the corpses of over one hundred prisoners, and on a couple of occasions, victims of intentionally botched executions."
Wang said that prisoners were given blood tests to determine their compatibility with donor seekers.
He said his conscience was tortured after an incident in October 1995 when he was ordered to remove skin from a prisoner still alive.
The prisoner -- sentenced to death for robbery and murder -- was administered an anti-blood clotting agent and then shot.
Wang said the prisoner did not die immediately and was taken into the back of an ambulance where urologists removed his kidneys.
Wang and other surgeons then harvested the prisoner's skin before putting the body -- still not dead -- in a plastic bag then into a truck.
Shortly after that incident Wang said he had requested a transfer within the hospital before entering the U.S. with a fake passport, aiming to alert the international community to the practice.
While living in the U.S., Wang made contact with Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu -- himself once imprisoned in China.
Wu heads the Laogai foundation, a non-profit organization campaigning against the collection of organs from Chinese Prisoners.
'Only in China'
According to Wu, Chinese government documents show Beijing is actively helping military hospitals make money selling the skin, corneas, kidneys and livers of executed prisoners.
"This human rights violation is very unique. It does not happen in any other country, only in China," Reuters quoted Wu saying.
Wu said patients outside of China who are willing to pay for the organs are helping to drive a growing trade.
Sometimes the money comes from Americans, he said, with a kidney for a foreign patient probably costing around $30,000.
According to an unwritten policy, he said, priority recipients of organs were high-ranking officials, wealthy overseas Chinese and other foreigners.
Human rights activists say China isn't the only guilty party and the business of organs for sale happens elsewhere.
But they say the practice of removing organs without consent from the prisoner or relatives was an abhorrent human rights violation.
Evidence 'overwhelming'
"Congress cannot allow this horrific situation to go unchallenged," said U.S. Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who heads the panel that held Wednesday's hearing.
While some Congress members were skeptical whether Wang's allegations were true, Michael Parmly of the U.S. State Department's human rights bureau said the evidence was "overwhelming and growing".
"[The] sources who have reported this are credible and numerous," he said.
Ros-Lehtinen and other members of congress have introduced a resolution to prohibit visas for any Chinese physician seeking transplant related training in the United States.
She said the bill would send a strong human rights message to Chinese doctors.
"It tells the Chinese doctors that they better be careful, their visas will not be automatically stamped for approval," she said.
(from CNN website at cnn.com ) |
