Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers are an essential resource for any investigation that takes place under an information blackout and they have played an important role in our investigations. The majority of the accounts we refer to were relayed to us at significant risk to the witnesses and their families. Often, the testimony itself simply cannot be verified, but in the context of new investigative techniques that reveal a landscape of mass transplant activity, the whistleblowers’ testimony has new explanatory power. However, it is important to note that they often provide only one piece of the puzzle.

“Annie”, who first made a public statement about the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in March 2006,¹ was an employee at Sujiatun Hospital and knew that requests for goods such as toilet paper and rice were increasing dramatically. The supplies were sufficient not just for her hospital but also for a second hospital full of patients. Ultimately, her husband, a surgeon, told her that the hospital was housing practitioners of Falun Gong and murdering them for their organs in large numbers.²

Her husband told her that he had personally removed the corneas from approximately 2,000 anaesthetized Falun Gong prisoners in Sujiatun hospital in Shenyang City in northeast China during the two-year period before October 2003. The surgeon made it clear to his wife that none of the cornea “donors” survived the experience because other surgeons removed other vital organs and all of their bodies were then burned. Annie is not a Falun Gong practitioner.

A Military Doctor in Shenyang

On March 31, 2006, a person who identified himself as a senior military doctor, who belonged to the General Logistics Department of the Shenyang Military Command, wrote to the Epoch Times.^{3 4}

“Sujiatun is one of 36 similar secret detention facilities. From the information I can access, Jilin has the largest camp that detains Falun Gong practitioners, with the code of 672-S. There are more than 120,000 people detained there, including Falun Gong people from throughout the country, serious offenders, and political prisoners. Just the Jilin Jiutai region, which has the fifth-largest secret detention facilities holding Falun Gong practitioners, detained more than 14,000 of them.”

According to this military doctor, who chose to remain anonymous for his safety, “… the Chinese Communist Party Central Military Commission had documentation since 1962, and has followed through to today, that all death row and serious offenders can be treated according to the needs of national and socialist development and can be dealt with according to the ‘revolutionary protocol.’”

“The seizure of organs from serious offenders was legalized by a supplementary regulation enacted in 1984. Many local public security departments deal with this either by directly transplanting from these people and cremating them afterwards, or by wounding them, forming death rituals, directly transplanting, and then cremating. After 1992, with the rising costs of industrial raw materials as a result of the development of many industries, human bodies became a valuable raw material. Both living bodies and corpses became raw materials.”

“At present, the Chinese Communist Party Central defines Falun Gong members as an enemy class. This means that there is no need to report if they are treated in line with the needs of economic development. In other words, like serious offenders, Falun Gong people are no longer seen as human beings, but raw materials for products, and they became a commodity.”

He wrote again to the Epoch Times in April 2006 to give more details of the process.

“Anyone targeted for organ transplantation would be taken away from prisons, forced labor camps, detention centers, secret camps, etc. At that point, their real name would be replaced with a code corresponding to a forged voluntary organ’s name … the next step would be to undergo the live organ transplant … this person is no longer seen as a human being, but an animal. [Doctors] who have performed one or two cases may still have some lingering fear, but after tens of thousands of live transplants and destroying the bodies while still alive, one becomes numb.”⁵

“All organ sources targeted are said to be voluntary. Falun Gong and other inmates use their real names during custody. However, a forged name is used during organ transplantation. They become a fictitious person, but this person’s information is complete. There was also a signature on the voluntary organ donation form, but of course it was signed by someone else.”

“I have seen more than 60,000 such counterfeit forms. Basically, it says that the person voluntarily donates the organ and bears all the consequences. Many signatures were from same person’s handwriting.”

“These materials will be kept for 18 months and be destroyed afterwards. They are kept at the provincial level of military commands and can be accessed only with approval from the commissioner(s) of the Central Military Commission.”

“In fact, the number of underground, unofficial organ transplants in China is several times higher than the official figures. With an abundant source of living organs, many hospitals with military backgrounds also engage in large-scale organ transplantation in private, in addition to the official reports they submit to their superiors.”

“China is the center of international live organ trading, and has accounted for more than 85% of the total number of live organ transplants in the world since 2000. According to the data reported to the Central Military Commission, a few people have been promoted and became Generals due to their ‘achievements’ in this field.”

“The military acts as the organ transplantation management system. This type of management and organizational core belongs to the military system. This is something that the civilian government cannot match, because once it becomes a military secret, no one can acquire the information. We all understand how the military system works.”

“The Central Military Commission authorizes relevant military personnel and units to manage military affairs. All information pertaining to these activities is regarded as a military secret. Personnel responsible for military control have the authority to arrest, detain or execute any doctors, police, armed police, and researchers who leak information.”

A Healthcare Worker in Jinan

On April 14, 2006, a healthcare worker who worked in Jinan healthcare system for more than 20 years wrote to the overseas newspaper Renminbao:⁶

“The Shandong Qianfoshan Hospital and the Police General Hospital of Shandong Province colluded with the prisons and forced labor camps in a large-scale operation to conduct live organ harvesting for transplants. The hospital obtained directives from the [Party] Central and was fully involved.”

“Both the Shandong Qianfoshan Hospital and the Shandong Police General Hospital (commonly known as Laogai Hospital, since such hospitals belong to the labor camp system) directly participated in organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. These hospitals received and fully cooperated with instructions directly from the central level of the Communist Party. Many transplants using organs from living practitioners were performed by these two hospitals, which partnered with Shandong Provincial Prison, Shandong Province Women’s Prison, and other prisons and forced labor camps. These institutions streamlined the supply of organs, including surgeons, extraction of organs, transplantation, distribution of profit, etc. … The bodies of Falun Gong practitioners were used for hospitals’ interns to conduct experiments. ”

“Qianfoshan Hospital partnered with the Tianjin Oriental Organ Transplant Center to establish the Shandong Liver Transplant Institute. It boasted the largest transplant volume and the most advanced technology in liver transplantation in the province. The center also performed kidney, testicular, lung, and corneal transplants.”

The hospital has a capacity of 800 beds. It has over 300 senior technical personnel, 44 doctoral and graduate advisors, and more than 90 part-time professors from Shandong University.

An Armed Police Officer in Jinzhou

On December 10, 2009, an armed police officer in Jinzhou, Liaoning Province reported and testified via phone to the World Organization to Investigate Persecution of Falun Gong that he had guarded one of the organ harvesting sites and personally witnessed the entire scene of two military doctors excising organs from a female Falun Gong practitioner.⁷

The armed guard was an eyewitness to a surgery on April 9, 2002, in an operating room on the 15th floor of the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Command, People’s Liberation Army. He observed two military doctors extract organs from a female Falun Gong practitioner. The Military Identification No. of one of the doctors is 0106069. The victim was a middle school teacher in her thirties. Before the doctors killed her, she had been subjected to a month of severe torture, molestation and rape.

He stated,

“No anesthetic was given. The knife dug straight into the chest. Their hands didn’t even shake. If it were me, my hands would definitely shake…”

In 2002, this witness worked in the Liaoning Province Public Security system and participated in the arrest and torture of Falun Gong practitioners, including this female practitioner. She was covered in wounds from the ordeal. On April 9, 2002, the Liaoning Public Security department sent two military doctors to the scene, one from the Shenyang Military Command General Hospital and another who had graduated from the Second Military Medical University. This female practitioner was fully conscious when her heart, kidney, and other organs were removed without anesthesia. The witness, armed with gun, guarded the scene throughout the whole process. He also stated that Wang Lijun, head of Jinzhou City Public Security, gave an order that they “must destroy Falun Gong practitioners completely.”

A Vice President of a Medical University and Official of the Ministry of Public Security

In 2014 and 2015, Yang Guang, an expert in the Chinse issues who resides in Denmark, reported to the Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television about two of his friends. One of his friends was a vice president of a medical university in northeastern China, in charge of logistics for its two affiliated hospitals. Before 2009, he was put in charge of the two hospitals, each of which conducted 2,000 to 3,000 organ transplants every year. The real name and former workplaces of Mr. Yang’s first friend were verifiable online. There was no attempt to contact the witness, because of the dangers to which the contact would expose him. The hospitals’ and witness’s names are redacted for safety concerns.

Below are excerpts of the account of the first friend.

“The two affiliated hospitals of our university conducted 2,000 to 3,000 organ transplantation surgeries each year. Due to a pool of living organ sources, tissue matching took less than a month, sometimes as short as 48 hours…The 610 Office (the Communist Party bureaucracy charged with eradication of Falun Gong) transported organ sources to the hospitals in prisoner transport vehicles. Once the tissue matching was verified, the transplants were performed. After the surgeries, the bodies were cremated…We only get serial numbers [of the “organ sources”] and knew only that they were Falun Gong practitioners. Such cases accounted for 90% of transplants in the hospitals. The whole process was monitored by the members of 610 Office…We were required to maintain strict secrecy. All the serial numbers and data of organ transplants were reported to the supervising Chinese Communist Party Committee at the end of each year, and then were removed from our computers under the supervision of 610 Office personnel.”⁸

“Beginning in 2000, the 610 Office started to supply us organs of Falun Gong practitioners. There were no names and addresses, just their gender, age, and a serial number. Whenever our hospitals sent medical teams to collect blood samples from the prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers, I had to prepare the tools, drugs, coolers and provide transportation. I have the complete records in hand … The military and police hospitals usually conduct more transplants than civilian hospitals.”

The vice president added that the actual death row prisoners, criminals who had been sentenced to death, account for only a small number of the organs procured. Even in the ten biggest cities in China, no more than fifty prisoners were executed annually. Senior Chinese Communist Party officials and their relatives refuse to accept organs from death-row prisoners. Those organs were usually reserved for foreigners who come to China for organ transplants. Prices for foreigners are not fixed. In some cases, those with money, desperate for an organ, have been charged up to $2 million for a transplantation and hospital stay.⁹

Yang’s other friend worked in the Ministry of Public Security and was in charge of informant stations in a major city on the coast of mainland China. During the New Year holidays in 2012, he told Yang that as far as he knew, over the past decade, at least 500,000 Falun Gong practitioners’ organs were harvested for transplants in civilian hospitals in China. This number did not include those from the hospitals affiliated with the armed police, military, and public security. The statistics of these hospitals were top secret and even the personnel in the Ministry of Public Security could not obtain them.¹⁰

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