Archive for the ‘Falun Gong’ Category
My Testimony on Chinese Organ Harvesting to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
2172 Rayburn HOB, 2:30 PM, September 12, 2012:
Thank you for inviting me to participate in this profoundly important hearing. Beginning in 2006, I began conducting comprehensive interviews with medical professionals, Chinese law enforcement personnel, and over 50 refugees from the Laogai System, in order to piece together the story of how mass harvesting from prisoners of conscience evolved in China. Based on my research, the practice began in Xinjiang in the late 1990s. By 2001 the practice expanded nationwide, with Falun Gong providing a much larger, and frequently anonymous, pool of potential ‘donors.’
Yet my time today is short. I too was skeptical when I began my investigation, as some of you may be today. So instead of offering my conclusions, I invite you to draw your own conclusions from my evidence—twelve witnesses, each of whom fills in a critical piece of the organ harvesting puzzle—before I speculate, briefly, on the implications and the full human cost.
Murder on the Chinese Communist Party Express
If what flashed through your mind when you read that title was a British expat and a Chinese high official’s wife…I hope to persuade you by the end of my article to think quite differently.
In solidarity with the living and the dead
Over the last 24 hours several well-meaning friends have sent me the BBC article “China to end organ donations from executed prisoners” (or the Guardian or NYT’s version, etc.) with the single word: “Congratulations!”
Well, I appreciate the sentiment. But following the Chinese medical establishment’s lead, none of these articles mention prisoners of conscience. I want no part in hiding bodies. Nor should David Kilgour and David Matas, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, or Edward McMillan-Scott accept any such congratulations until the Chinese Communist Party allows a comprehensive and transparent investigation into the harvesting of political and religious prisoners of conscience– Uighurs, Falun Gong, Tibetans, and House Christians–from 1997 to 2012.
What has occurred–over 65,000 dead by my estimate–is a crime against all humanity. And yet, ironically enough, only the victims’ families have the right to absolve China. No Western entity possesses the moral authority to allow the Party to bury the full history of genocide in exchange for promises of medical reform.
Bullseye!
CONGRESSMAN PITTS. “Madam Speaker, an article in last Monday’s Weekly Standard reveals the systematic execution and harvesting of organs in China’s prisons.
The genesis of genocide…
Photo by Simon Gross/3 Lotus Media
- Winner of The Browser’s 2011 Leaderboard Competition (i.e. best long-form essay of the year according to the readers)
- Winner of The New York Times Sidney Award (i.e. David Brooks liked it)
Cisco Systems and China’s Big Brother Internet: Ten essential publications
Google the keywords “Cisco, Falun Gong, lawsuit and China” and you won’t get far in our memory-hole society. So here are my best picks for journalists and everyone else. Copy, distribute, and quibble if you like. But read to the last entry, because it’s important to accurately reflect history and the collective gathering of evidence. This investigation has never been a silver bullet, but a slow chain reaction. A long time coming perhaps, but be assured that it has now gone critical.
1) The Great Firewall of China
1997: Groundbreaking article on the early efforts to censor the Chinese web written by the only journalists to actually make it inside the PSB: Geremie R. Barme and Sang Ye.
In an equipment-crowded office in the Air Force Guesthouse on Beijing’s Third Ring Road sits the man in charge of computer and Net surveillance at the Public Security Bureau.
2) The Anaconda in the Chandelier
2002: Prescient essay on Chinese (and Western) self-censorship by Perry Link.
Normally the great snake doesn’t move. It doesn’t have to. It feels no need to be clear about its prohibitions. Its constant silent message is “You yourself decide,” after which, more often than not, everyone in its shadow makes his or her large and small adjustments–all quite “naturally.”
3) Government Counterstrategies
2002: Critical chapter from the RAND publication You’ve Got Dissent! by Michael S. Chase and James C. Mulvenon which traces the first hacking attacks on North American Falun Gong websites back to China.
The name of the organization, “Information Service Center of XinAn Beijing,” sounded innocuous enough, but the street address told a very different story. The address, #14 East Chang’an Street…in Beijing, is that of the Ministry of Public Security, China’s internal security service…
Tibet’s Endgame — My review of “Tragedy in Crimson”
In this shaky, unsustainable age of free content and bargain-rate kindle, it is understandable that National Review would want to keep my review of Tim Johnson’s new book behind the paywall. Fair enough. Lord knows, I can relate. But David Kilgour informs me that he is putting it up for free on his website tonight. So go to David’s website and look around, lots of interesting stuff there. Alternately, since the barn door is open, you can read my take on the book here.
“How many harvested?” revisited
Back in 2009, I gave a talk at the Foreign Press Association in London. I’ve lost 35 pounds since then (made you look!) and I have also revised the numbers slightly based on new information (and some mulling as well). That’s what this post is about. Since 2009, I have been quoted in several places, most recently here) on my estimates of how many Falun Gong were harvested during the last decade or so.
[UPDATE: I was also quoted recently (and fairly extensively) in CQ Global Researcher v.5-14 on the subject of Falun Gong organ harvesting and trafficking. Here's a teaser: "At least 62,000 were victims of organ harvesting operations from 2000-2008, according to Matas and Kilgour and Ethan Gutmann, an investigative journalist." Anyway, you can buy the entire report here]
The truth is that outside of a few, select individuals in the Chinese military hospitals and the 6-10 office, we don’t know the answer to that question. But I believe estimates are possible, and even useful, as long as we do not engage in false precision and stay reasonably conservative. My estimates are based on a sample of approximately 50 Falun Gong refugees from the Laogai system. Not what I would like, but good enough for a wartime sample. Yet I also flag that inherent imprecision by coming up with a low estimate and a high estimate. I don’t truly believe in either extreme. The truth is probably found somewhere in the middle and that’s why I provide a best estimate, or a median.
Shrewd observers will note that I originally gave a best estimate of approximately 85,000, and now I’m saying about 65,000. I’ll give you the rationale for those new numbers in a minute, but here’s the main reason they changed: I sat down with the Laogai Foundation researchers in DC and they informed me that they had revised their total estimate of the Laogai System (defined as labor camps, prisons, black jails, psychiatric hospitals, long-term detention centers, the lot) down from 4-6 million to 3-5 million. I have reasonable confidence in their logic surrounding this point, so I have revised my estimates accordingly.
