Landmark Decision from London People’s Tribunal[*]
Clive Ansley[**]
For almost thirty years, China has been running a hugely lucrative Murder for Organs Industry in which scores of thousands of China’s citizens are systematically examined for blood type, tissue type, and organ condition, with results then entered into a massive computer database. Herds of these people are kept alive, waiting to be killed on demand and “harvested” when a “customer” requiring a kidney, liver, heart, lungs, corneas, or skin grafts produces tissue samples matching those of an individual in the database. That person is then killed on a hospital operating table and becomes a non-consenting organ donor.
The majority of executions in China are now performed in hospitals, and detention centers have been constructed in close proximity to all the more than 700 Chinese hospitals currently performing organ transplants, largely for wealthy “organ tourists” from western countries with significant participation by Canadians.
This massive Crime Against Humanity, unparalleled since the Third Reich, has for many years drawn largely from captive herds of Falun Gong practitioners, and Uighurs. More recently, there is evidence that some Tibetans and underground Christians are also being selected to become “donors.”
The first instances of this criminal practice go back to about 1991. But awareness by western scholars and lawyers studying China only developed from about 2006, with publication of the impeccably researched Bloody Harvest by Canadians David Kilgour and David Matas. Shortly thereafter, further documentation appeared in State Organs by David Matas and Torsten Trey. In 2014 the available documentation was greatly enhanced with the publication of Ethan Gutmann’s The Slaughter. In 2016 the two Davids collaborated with Gutmann to produce an omnibus Update.
Two main organizations have led the struggle over the years to expose this grotesque Crime Against Humanity and hopefully find a way to stop it. One is Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) in Washington, DC. The other is the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) located in Sydney, Australia.
Since 2006, a relatively small number of people world-wide have experienced huge frustration and often heartbreak because of the seeming total indifference of media and government, almost uniformly unwilling to act or speak on principle when confronted with their own personal financial interests in placating, massaging, and generally indulging China’s economic and military bullies. The evidence of the appalling crimes in China has been available for more than fourteen years now. But with the exception of one excellent series in the Globe and Mail five years ago, who among us has ever seen a word of this unspeakable atrocity in any media?
Our Justin Trudeau typifies the leaders of all the major western powers. None can plead ignorance to what is happening in China (though they all will claim no prior knowledge when they inevitably are forced to confront the irrefutable evidence). Until Meng Wanzhou unexpectedly entered his life, Trudeau seemed to think the leaders of the CCP walked on water. But there is no possibility that Trudeau did not learn of Chinese Murder for Organs many years ago.
Those who were publicly pushed to speak out often answered that the supporting evidence was “not sufficiently probative, conclusive, reliable….”
The evidence was there, published and provided to governments and their leaders over and over again. No one, aside from the small coterie of China hands addressing the matter, would look at it.
UNTIL NOW!
On March 1 2020, the Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting Against Prisoners of Conscience in China (London Tribunal), delivered its final judgement.
This international tribunal consisted of seven prominent international personalities, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, formerly lead prosecutor against Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Court, The Hague.
The other six included three internationally renowned human rights lawyers, a transplant surgeon, a Chinese historian, and a businessman. They were selected for, among other factors, the condition that they had had no prior knowledge of the organ harvesting allegations against China and did not therefore join the tribunal with any prior opinions on the subject.
Using standard courtroom procedure, including rigorous cross examination of all 50 witnesses who provided evidence, and applying the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, the tribunal made a number of stunning findings, including without limitation:
- That the systemic murder of prisoners of conscience had been going on for at least two decades in China; and
- That the Chinese government is implicated; and
- That this mass killing has not ceased but is still occurring, and occurring at an increasing rate; and
- That credible figures for the number of involuntary “donors” are in the range of 60,000 to 90,000 each year; and
- That not even a minute fraction of the transplant operations performed each year can be accounted for by the number of organs legitimately available from consenting donors; and
- That the Chinese government has, since at least 2001 been consistently lying to the world and to the medical communities worldwide.
Here is the tribunal’s concluding paragraph:
- ….any who interact in any substantial way with the PRC including: Doctors and medical institutions; Industry, and businesses, most specifically airlines, travel companies, financial services businesses, law firms and pharmaceutical and insurance companies together with individual tourists; Educational establishments; Arts establishments…; should now recognise that they are interacting with a criminal state.
[1] In August 2019, Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada joined several organizations and individuals, including DAFOH and ETAC, in a joint letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights seeking a Commission of Inquiry into forced organ harvesting in China. The letter included a link to an eight-minute video summarizing the findings of the China Tribunal.
[2] Clive Ansley is a member of the board of directors of Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada. He has been actively involved with China and Sino-Canadian relations for almost 55 years. He speaks and reads Chinese and holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees in Chinese Studies and Law from Canadian universities, as well as a graduate degree in Chinese Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A former Canadian professor of Chinese History, Civilization, and Law, Mr. Ansley taught Chinese Law for a total of six years at the University of Windsor and the University of British Columbia. He has also taught in several Chinese universities. He has given evidence in many Canadian and foreign court proceedings, in addition to appearing regularly before Canadian tribunals, as a recognized expert on Chinese law. This article is an updated version of an opinion piece published in the Island Word on Vancouver Island, Canada on 3 July 2019.
