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Falun Dafa Association of Australia Inc FALUN DAFA ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA INC Falun Dafa Association of Australia Submission to the inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism By the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade 7 August 2017 Falun Dafa Association of Australia Submission to the inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism Preface The Falun Dafa Association of Australia Inc. appreciates the opportunity to make this submission to the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (the Committee). This submission includes input from the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, Victoria Branch Inc., and the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, Queensland Branch Inc. Organ harvesting from anyone, anywhere, is abhorrent. We are encouraged to see that the Committee is conducting this inquiry, and hope that it results in some tangible and meaningful outcomes for Australia to play a role in curtailing the practice of organ harvesting – particularly in China (which is our area of greatest knowledge and concern), as well as other areas of the world where organ harvesting occurs. Our focus in this submission is to offer information that can support Australia’s further inquiry into this grave matter. So far, the standard response from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been that there is not enough evidence (or independent verification) to support the allegations of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. However, quite the opposite conclusion is drawn when the existing investigations are reviewed by concerned doctors, bio-ethicists, Freedom House and the US Congress. While contesting evidence can be a positive process, it is clear that there is no published data that rationally refutes the reports of organ harvesting referenced in this submission – only statements of obfuscation, denial and attacks on the authors. 7 August 2017 3 of 23 Falun Dafa Association of Australia Submission to the inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism Table of contents 1 Background ............................................................................................................. 5 1.1 Development of abusive organ transplantation in China ................................................. 5 1.2 Forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners .................................................. 6 2 Response to terms of reference ............................................................................ 11 2.1 Organ trafficking offence to have extraterritorial application ....................................... 11 2.2 Accede to 2014 Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs ... 11 2.3 Extent of organ trafficking and transplant tourism ........................................................ 12 3 Recommendations ................................................................................................ 13 Appendix A Brief overview of Falun Dafa ................................................................... 15 Appendix B Response to DFAT, 1 Nov 2016 ................................................................ 17 4 of 23 7 August 2017 Falun Dafa Association of Australia Submission to the inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism 1 Background 1.1 Development of abusive organ transplantation in China 1960s–1980s A 1994 Human Rights Watch report, Organ Procurement and Judicial Execution in China explains how China's organ transplant program began during the 1960s, expanded during the 1970s – although success rates remained low – and appeared to be faltering by the early 1980s. The following is an extract from a US Congress hearing in 2001, titled Organs For Sale: China's Growing Trade and Ultimate Violation of Prisoners' Rights: Governmental sanctioning of organ harvesting from prisoners reportedly began in 1979 with the issuance of a document from China's Public Health Ministry entitled Rules Concerning the Dissection of Corpses. This document asserted the legality of the practice and laid the foundation for future generations, such as the ones issued in 1984, the regulations entitled Provisions for Regulations on the Use of Dead Bodies or Organs from Condemned Criminals. In this 1984 document, the Chinese regime provided detailed instructions on the conditions and the procedures for harvesting organs from executed prisoners, including the coordination between health personnel and prison and public security officials and the need for confidentiality in the entire process. The Human Rights Watch report also notes two unrelated factors that combined after 1983 to boost China’s transplant program – a series of “crackdown on crime” campaigns, which increased the number of criminals sentenced to death (and therefore the supply of transplantable organs), and the introduction of anti-rejection drug Cyclosporine A, which raised the success rate in transplant operations. In the absence of proper legal safeguards for prisoners' rights, this caused the evolving relationship between China's surgical capacity, patient demand and organ supply to develop in a particularly abusive direction.1 By 1984, at least 98 hospitals around China had started organ transplant operations. Senior government cadres were reportedly given preferential status for organ procurement, while prompt organ transplant surgery was also widely available for high-paying foreign or overseas Chinese patients. 1990s In the 2011 article, “The Xinjiang Procedure” in the Weekly Standard,2 investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann details how, during the 1990s, the Uighur people of the vast north-west region of China had become victims to fuel China’s transplant program. Prisoners sentenced to death had been supplemented by political prisoners. Gutmann 1 Organ Procurement and Judicial Execution in China, Human Rights Watch report, 1994. Available from https://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/china1/china 948.htm 2 Available from http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-xinjiang-procedure/article/610145 7 August 2017 5 of 23 Falun Dafa Association of Australia Submission to the inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism recounted witness testimony from Enver Tohti, a general surgeon in an Urumqi hospital in 1995, and his experience of cutting out vital organs while a prisoner was still alive, and a young Uighur doctor who took blood from Uighur political prisoners in 1997 prior to their evisceration. By the end of 1999, the Uighur crackdown would be eclipsed by Chinese security’s largest-scale action since Mao: the elimination of Falun Gong. By my estimate up to three million Falun Gong practitioners would pass through the Chinese corrections system. Approximately 65,000 would be harvested, hearts still beating, before the 2008 Olympics. An unspecified, significantly smaller, number of House Christians and Tibetans likely met the same fate. 1.2 Forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners 1.2.1 Falun Gong – the perfect “donor” victims Clive Ansley, a Canadian barrister and solicitor who practised and taught law in China for 14 years, was living in China when the persecution began. He described the scale of the campaign to eliminate Falun Gong in an affidavit:3 The decision taken in 1999 by then President Jiang Zemin to move against the Falun Gong was explicitly a decision to completely eradicate all members of the movement. This does not necessarily mean execution. The goal is to achieve a total elimination of Falun Gong practitioners from Chinese society. Since the persecution of Falun Gong4 began on July 20, 1999, a large number of Falun Gong practitioners have been incarcerated in various forms of detention to force them to renounce their beliefs. Several factors made detained practitioners an ideal new source of vital organs, which became a perversely “logical” next step for the Chinese Communist Party to take – from using death row prisoners’ organs to live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Organ harvesting5 is the forced extraction of organs from a living person, for transplant to a paying recipient. Vital organs such as livers, hearts and lungs, as well as kidneys and corneas, are sold on demand at enormous profit. It was common, particularly in the early years of the persecution, for Falun Gong practitioners who appealed publicly to refuse to reveal their names and addresses when detained. This was to protect their families and avoid involving people at their workplaces. Many practitioners became unidentified prisoners – beyond the contact of family or carers, in a system designed to eliminate them. Practitioners have been detained in large, concentrated numbers, forming an easily accessible pool of retail organs that facilitates brief waiting times for matching and a stable supply to meet an increasing transplantation demand. 3 Clive Ansley, “Canadian Lawyer’s Testimony”, Falun Dafa Australia, 27 September 2006, Retrieved 2 August 2017 from http://falunau.org/2006/09/canadian-lawyer-s-testimony/ 4 See Appendix A on page 15 for a brief overview of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong). 5 In this document, we use the terms organ harvesting and organ trafficking interchangeably. 6 of 23 7 August 2017 Falun Dafa Association of Australia Submission to the inquiry into human organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism As living “organ banks”, practitioners are available for “live” organ extraction, which reportedly can improve an organ
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