Chinese Democracy

Could local Falun Gong allegations of organ harvesting become a thorn in Beijing's Olympic crown?

by Aisha Sattar

FIGHTING BACK PEACEFULLY: Using Independence Mall as a symbolic backdrop, local Falun Gong practitioners spread their message of human-rights atrocities allegedly committed by the Chinese government, including the persecution of members and harvesting of their organs after execution. : Mark Stehle (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

When Jeff Kline's mother was diagnosed with end-stage liver cancer in 2003, doctors told her there was nothing they could do. There wasn't time for conventional treatments, and her age and type of cancer made her ineligible for a transplant. At 59, with no hope of getting a new liver, she was given less than two months to live.

But in the course of his work developing Web sites for nonprofits in Philadelphia, Kline came across a human-rights organization that described allegations of organ harvesting in China. Ironically, that site offered Kline hope. Desperate and curious, he went to Beijing, where a hospital initially rejected his plea for an organ donation because he was a foreigner. He returned to the U.S., started the online search anew and found a Taiwanese man with whom he arranged a meeting in Shanghai. The man worked for an official company that arranged transplants in China for people in Taiwan.

Three weeks later, after signing contracts, taking out a mortgage on the house to cover the $100,000 fee, and sending her overseas to a Shanghai hospital, Kline's mother had a new, functioning liver.

"After my mother's transplant, I went in chat rooms to talk to people about it," says Kline*. "I started receiving hate e-mails accusing me of 'complicity in murder.'"

Little did Kline, a social activist against the death penalty, know that the decision landed him in the middle of a growing international issue: Protestors across the globe claim the Chinese government has targeted members of dissident groups for arrest and, in some cases, execution, after which their organs allegedly have been harvested for transplants.

Among those groups is the Falun Gong. As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approach under the microscope of a human-rights campaign against China's government — a recent UPI/Zogby poll found that 59 percent of Americans support using the Games as a way to shine light on China's poor human-rights record — the Falun Gong, being persecuted by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), has taken to spreading the word about these alleged atrocities. Locally, they're doing so on Independence Mall.

Organ trafficking has evolved into a global issue, as waiting lists continue to grow and developing nations offer organs and operations at deeply discounted prices. Currently, 6,750 patients are waiting for an organ in Pennsylvania; only 975 have received an organ this year. Meanwhile, 42 percent of eligible Pennsylvanians are registered as organ donors, but few have discussed the issue with their families, which can cause problems if donors haven't made their loved ones aware of their wishes.

Ten years ago, the Bellagio Task Force — a consortium of doctors, social scientists and human-rights activists — examined the ethical issues underlying harvesting organs from executed prisoners. It concluded: "The notion that someone on death row can give meaningful consent to a procedure — particularly when death row is a miserable hovel in a local jail and the prisoner is kept shackled — is in itself very difficult to accept." Today, nations are considering options to prevent their citizens from obtaining organs abroad.

When Kline's mother received her liver in 2003, the persecution of the Falun Gong had been ongoing for four years. While it was old news that organs in China came from executed prisoners, it was unthinkable that China's poorly funded health-care system would use a spiritual group to supply its growing economy of transplant tourism.

Master Li Hongzhi, a former grain clerk and army musician, started Falun Gong in 1992 to practice Qigong, a traditional Chinese art practiced through five basic movements, combining breathing, stretching and meditation. Qigong has three main tenets: truth, compassion and forbearance. Li's popularity as a Qigong master grew along with criticism of the practice in the state-run press.

In 1999, the publication of an article that was critical of Master Li sparked a protest in which more than 10,000 practitioners organized peacefully in front of Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound off Tiananmen Square. It was an audacious move. No group in the history of the Chinese communist regime (CCP) had ever petitioned at the residence of the leadership. The large numbers, and the fact that the incident occurred a few weeks before the 10th anniversary of Tiananmen Square protests, stunned the CCP, leading to the swift crackdown.

The CCP sees the Falun Gong as a threat, practitioners believe, because their numbers are too large. By their unofficial count, they outnumber the Communist party's membership of 60 million, with more than 100 million practitioners. They believe that Jiang Zemin, then-president of the PRC, ordered the persecution because Qigong undermined his control of the Chinese people's hearts and minds.

Today, due to extensive anti-Falun Gong propaganda in China, many Chinese are suspicious of the group and its purported political agenda. Allegations of torture and organ harvesting from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, however, have overshadowed concerns about the group's politics.

In April 2003, Canadian human-rights lawyer David Matas and ex-member of parliament David Kilgour released a report on organ-harvesting allegations titled "Bloody Harvest." It concluded that China engages in "large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."

Last November, China admitted that it had been using organs from executed prisoners for transplants since 1984. (While the Chinese government does not release the number of prisoners executed annually, Amnesty International calculated that at least 1,010 people were executed during 2006, a number that does not fulfill the increasing demand for organs.) Governed by a 1984 document titled "Rules Concerning the Utilization of Corpses or Organs from the Corpses of Executed Prisoners," these organs fuel a lucrative transplant economy that supports underfunded hospitals.

Falun Gong practitioners claim that the CCP deliberately targets the group for its organs to meet market demand, citing as evidence the secrecy surrounding the transplants and the fact that donors wait for recipients rather than the other way around. Practitioners also tend to be healthier because of their exercise regimen. In order to protect their families, practitioners often refuse to identify themselves once arrested, which makes them easy to "disappear."

Kline, however, is skeptical. "The Falun Gong needs more solid evidence," he says. "It is possible the group is trying to use the issue for their own freedom." So is Harry Wu, human-rights activist and 19-year veteran of China's "re-education through labor" camps, who

: Mark Stehle (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

a newspaper with local correspondents that's been branded a propaganda tool by the CCP for its critical coverage of China,

Although Falun Gong practitioners launched The Epoch Times, Stephen Gregory, chairman of the board of the English language editions, has stated that the newspaper is neither owned nor representative of the group. The paper, which was started to address "a growing need for uncensored coverage of events in China," relies on "a network of local reporters throughout the world" who are "able to provide well-sourced stories that no one else has through the original reporting." It seeks "to speak out for those who are oppressed, and cannot speak for themselves."

To date, there have been no eyewitness accounts of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, but as Matas and Kilgour pointed out, finding a witness is virtually impossible because victims die from the extractions and are cremated. Besides, the only other witnesses are the medical personnel performing the procedure, who are reluctant to testify. Amnesty International acknowledges that the practice of harvesting organs from death-row inmates is widely documented, but is "continuing to analyze sources of information about the Falun Gong organ-harvesting allegations, including the report published by Canadians David Matas and David Kilgour."

At least one local Falun Gong practitioner, however, is convinced. "As a doctor who has studied the evidence," says Dr. Jingduan Yung, "I'm very convinced it is happening."

On a rainy weekend in May, I went to Independence Mall and observed a Falun Gong practice. It looked similar to tai chi, except the practitioners exercised on circular blue mats with closed eyes, accompanied by a wistful Chinese melody streaming from the speakers.

Posters featuring horrific pictures of torture victims lined the sidewalk. A woman was handing out pamphlets detailing the nightmarish practices of the CCP, including harvesting organs from imprisoned practitioners. From the canopy decorated with yellow and red tapestries bearing the symbol of the Falun — the wheel of law — another young woman encouraged curious pedestrians to sign the petition calling for Condoleezza Rice to help stop the persecution against the Falun Gong in the United States and the world.

I asked who had organized the gathering, and a practitioner pointed out a middle-aged Chinese man.

"Are you the local leader?" I asked. He looked uncomfortable.

"No, just the local contact. We don't organize like that."

"How many members are there?"

"About 150."

"I read that Falun Gong is persecuted even in the U.S. by Chinese operatives. Has anyone in Philadelphia experienced that?"

"The Chinese government sends spies, yes. But no, no one has been targeted in Philadelphia."

: Mark Stehle (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

"Do you fear repercussions against your family back home?"

"Sometimes, my family members receive threatening phone calls." (Several other members reported this, as well, but said that hasn't influenced their decision to practice, since one of the Falun Gong tenets is truth.)

"Another practitioner told me that a spy infiltrated the group and collected information. Is that true?"

"Oh, I think she meant the group in New York, but yes that did happen. A woman spy ... she collected names of family members, telephone numbers."

"Do you fear practicing so openly in Philadelphia?"

"The Chinese government has people working for them everywhere. The spies could be here watching us right now. You never know where they might be."

The CCP's tight rein on the media and the Internet allows little news or information to filter into China about Falun Gong's status or activities abroad. Today, efforts to expose the persecution continue globally online, in the Legislatures of 60 countries, in the prisons of China and at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

Local practitioners gather every weekend to counteract the CCP's representation of them as an "evil cult" by demonstrating the practice's serene and non-compulsory nature. Practitioners are free to come and go; all materials are available for free; there are no membership lists or identifiable leaders; and entire families often exercise together.

They want to show the Chinese tourists passing by that unlike on the mainland, they can practice freely in the U.S., and their human rights are respected. The backdrop of the Liberty Bell is a salient symbol attesting to their freedom.

It seems that the Falun Gong are also ubiquitous; they appear to be anywhere there might be large crowds. Whether it's an anti-war rally in Center City, or a leisurely stroll through a park, it is not uncommon to see a small Falun Gong contingent.

In Philadelphia, the group is diverse in terms of age, gender, education and ethnicity. Practitioners appeal to everyone passing by to learn about their persecution in China, but particularly to the busloads of Chinese tourists who have no access to information about Falun Gong on the mainland.

For some Chinese, seeing the group practicing peacefully in public might be shocking, since public practice by practitioners in China leads to swift arrests and lengthy detentions in the "re-education through labor" camps. In fact, a dedicated practitioner named "Sherry" said that a Chinese man once smacked her on the arm when she tried to hand him a flier.

Despite encountering disbelief and indifference, the local Falun Gong is dedicated to exposing the brutal persecution of its own members. In April, the group organized a panel on organ harvesting at the Ethical Society, which included Matas; Torston Trey, a doctor and co-founder of Doctors Against Organ Harvesting; and Erping Zhang, executive director of the Association of Asian Research and a voluntary spokesperson for Falun Gong.

One of the main organizers was Adam Welsh, a 28-year-old graduate student. About a year and a half ago, while walking through Chinatown, a woman handed him a flier about Falun Gong.

"Normally, I wouldn't pay attention to something someone handed me on the street," he says, "but the woman was so warm and genuine, and I thought maybe what she was handing me had something to do with her attitude."

He took a look at the flier describing the Falun Gong's spiritual philosophy and, intrigued, he decided to learn more. Soon, he was participating in the exercises at the Liberty Bell and over the course of subsequent months, he "started finding answers to questions I'd been asking my whole life. Things that had never before made any sense started becoming clear."

A year and a half later, the impact of his practice was so deep that Welsh changed his entire course of study to match his newfound priority of fighting the unjust persecution of a philosophy he found beautiful. He switched his concentration from philosophy of the mind to political philosophy and now plans to attend law school so that he can pursue legal action against the CCP for crimes against humanity. Welsh currently balances schoolwork with reporting for The Epoch Times about local China-related events.

Galen Chen : Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

According to International Advocates for Justice, 50 lawsuits charging CCP leaders with genocide and other crimes have already been filed around the world. Welsh believes that "someday, the CCP leadership will be held accountable for its crimes, just as the Nazis were during Nuremberg."

Although the number of Falun Gong practitioners in the U.S. is difficult to determine, the group has been successful in creating a strong online presence through English-language Web sites and impacting Western media coverage of the movement, which has been largely sympathetic. Falun Gong has used the Internet to raise awareness, garner support, strengthen communities, counter the propaganda of the Chinese government and portray the persecution as an issue of human rights and freedom of religion.

The United States Senate and House of Representatives both passed resolutions in 2002 condemning CCP crackdowns, and practitioners have testified before Congress in hearings on human rights and trade with China. Welsh's willingness to learn and adapt, to use what's at hand to promote the cause of Falun Gong, is not unique.

Yupei Gong, a psychiatrist at a Philadelphia hospital who came from China in 1995, is interested in becoming an Epoch Times reporter so that she can raise awareness of Falun Gong's plight.

As a young child, Yupei was a "quiet, introverted idealist" who wrote literature praising the Communist party and dreamed about becoming a lawyer or reporter. But her revolutionary fervor died with Chairman Mao in 1976, leaving a huge void.

Under Deng Xiaoping, the state shifted its focus from controlling the daily lives of citizens toward economic development. No longer under total surveillance, groups and individuals began circulating articles that exposed the lies of the Communist party. Yupei, who had once been an avid supporter, felt angry and resentful.

The retreat of the party from the day-to-day affairs of the people also enabled resurgence in religious activity. While the CCP has always been uncomfortable with religious movements, it was enthusiastically supportive of the re-emergence of Qigong and its claims to improve health. The new leadership hoped that promoting the practice of Qigong might improve the overall health of the population, which would enable the state to scale back health-care costs in the future.

But after Yupei "woke up from the communist dream," she was suspicious of any belief system, especially those that made glittering promises like many of the Qigong schools, which claimed to confer supernatural powers like levitation to practitioners and to prolong life beyond the normal lifespan. On hearing these claims, she thought, "Why live longer in this terrible country?"

She then became an atheist and found solace in a system that was neither religious nor political: the English language. Perhaps it was attractive because of its novelty, but English offered an escape from the grim state of affairs in the hospitals where Yupei trained as a medical student. The lies told by the CCP about prosperity and progress crumbled in the hospital wards and the pained faces of patients who couldn't afford the astronomical costs of medical care.

The peasants who came to her hospital paid high taxes but received pennies in wages. Not being able to afford basic medical services, many of them waited till near death, gathering all of their savings in the hopes of extending their lives, or at the least, alleviating the pain.

"A man came in with end-stage liver cancer," she says. "We were learning how to diagnose then, and I had to press his abdomen and observe his reaction. I barely pressed down and I could see the agony on his face. How can I help him? There were so many of them like him. I didn't enjoy being a doctor at the time. I couldn't bear to see the patient's suffering."

The patient was just one of millions who would die from lack of access to health care. She concluded early on in her medical career that Chinese people's lives were not worth much. "When I was learning anatomy," she recalls, "we were given a fresh cadaver in the lab. I remember asking where it was from. It was an open secret that this guy had just been executed. ... Once you're a prisoner, you're less than human. They call you an enemy of the state and you have no right to appeal."

Yupei lost herself in novels, and the first one she read, the one that brought her under the spell of the English language, was Gone with the Wind, which was also Chairman Mao's wife's favorite. For Yupei, the stories, the words and the sounds of English came to "symbolize freedom and democracy."

After scoring high in a nationwide test for physicians, she secured a fellowship and moved to the U.S. in 1995 to pursue psychiatry at the age of 30. During her training, she heard about another Chinese psychiatrist in Philadelphia. Knowing that Chinese psychiatrists were as rare as blue lobsters, she was intrigued and sought him out in 2001.

She respected him and was surprised to learn about his practice of Falun Gong. He gave her a copy of the Zhuan Falun, the foundational text of the Falun Gong, which she read. Incidentally, several passages in the text state that conventional medical treatment cannot fully cure illnesses, which are a form of karmic retribution. (Li writes that "hospital treatments only defer to the remaining half of life or later those tribulations that are the fundamental cause of illnesses. The karma is not removed at all." While Li has not dictated that practitioners should not take medicine, many practitioners with long-term illnesses, like diabetes, have chosen to stop taking prescription drugs because they felt that their health improved due to their practice.)

Yupei couldn't quite grasp the Zhuan Falun, so she forgot about it and it gathered dust on her table. Some time later, her friend invited her to D.C. to see the founder, Master Li Hongzhi, speak. He warned her beforehand that people often have physical reactions after hearing the master speak. She listened to the seminar and found it "nice," but remained untouched by his words and returned home.

The next morning she woke with a headache and a stomach ache. She called her friend, who advised her to go find the dust-covered book.

: Mark Stehle (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

"I put the book under my pillow and fell asleep. I dreamt that someone was cleaning a dirty table over and over. When I woke up, I started reading the book and it began to make sense," she recalls. "A feeling of happiness came over me and over time, through my practice, I found the true joy of knowing what it means to be present."

She noticed that she now treats her patients differently; she is more understanding.

But Yupei's family is still in China. Since she left in 1995 — four years before the persecution started — she wasn't fully aware of the CCP's anti-Falun Gong propaganda or the fear it had created in practitioners, their families and would-be supporters.

"When I told my family about my practice, I realized how afraid they were," she says. "Their reaction was horrible. They were scared for me and for themselves."

Despite the fear and the possibility of repercussion, she has decided to be open about her practice because of the meaning it gives to her life. As a doctor, she feels particularly affected by the CCP's violence against practitioners.

"I felt numb when I first heard about [the Sujiatun concentration-camp allegations]," she recalls. "As a physician, as a person from that city, I was heartbroken."

Practicing means not only harboring guilt if anything happens to her family, but also exiling herself. But someday, Yupei says, she hopes she can go home.

Galen Chen, a Chinese refugee who now lives in New Jersey, cannot even hope to ever return to China. After the 1999 ban on Falun Gong, he repeatedly petitioned the CCP until he was put in a "re-education through labor" camp. Resisting the ban was a means of practicing the tenets of his faith.

While he knew about the possibility of detention, he felt "it was the right thing to do. Falun Gong changed my life and I wanted to live a righteous life."

During detention, he says he endured brainwashing, abuse and torture at the hands of prison guards and other inmates. Despite the pain and fear, he refused to renounce his faith, and the torture worsened. One night, guards put him between two wooden slabs and then ordered eight other inmates to stand on it and push down. He knew that if he didn't renounce at that moment, he would die. After enduring torture for almost a year, Chen surrendered.

After his release, Chen found a job with a British import/export company. A year and a half later, an American company based in Florida offered him a job because of his business contacts and relationships in China. He was able to obtain a visa, but with his Falun Gong background, there was no way he would make it past airport security. A friend arranged for an airport worker to sneak him past security, enabling his escape to the States.

Today, Chen, soft-spoken and courteous, appears healthy and a little plump. At first glance, he looks like a man who has seen few troubles.

His entire family lives in New Jersey, and they all practice Falun Gong. Authorities remained suspicious of Chen's parents after his release, even though they did not protest or practice publicly like Chen. Despite the fact that both parents used to be prominent musicians in the Central Philharmonic Orchestra, authorities planned to arrest and detain them. A serendipitous visit to his sister in the U.S. prevented them from getting arrested. They never went back.

However, to this day, Chen feels that if "I had to choose between 'live in guilty, horror and shame' or 'die upholding my belief,' I would choose the latter. But above that I choose life and demand freedom of belief, and I want the persecution to stop."

For practitioners to eliminate their karma, Master Li Hongzhi dictates that they must learn to forbear suffering inflicted by others, while not conceding their faith in the Falun Gong philosophy.

Recounting the immediate moments after his surrender, Chen says, "I was lying there like a dead fish, hearing screaming from other practitioners. I felt so bad about my surrender. I had gone through so much to keep the dignity — the pure place in my heart — so sad that I can't make it. At that moment, I gave in to evil. The mental damage continues.

"For one year, I didn't want to see anyone I knew before because before I was sent to the labor camp, I told them how good Falun Gong was," he says. "And now I didn't want to tell them that I was a coward. I lived in darkness. I want to die with belief, the best belief I found."

While Jeff Kline now acknowledges that the liver he found for his mother was likely harvested from an executed prisoner, he feels that if someone were executed solely to provide a liver for his mother, it would have been available immediately. Instead, it took doctors three weeks to locate an organ during which time his mother almost died.

His Taiwanese broker told him that sometimes people wait for months and die before an organ becomes available; this is still considered relatively short, given that in the U.S. and other Western countries, the recipients often wait for several years.

In China, Kline noted that there are cycles of availability, which may correspond to when the state conducts executions. Doctors told Kline that the date of execution was set in advance by courts to prevent hospitals from influencing when people are being killed. Hospitals find out about executions only three days in advance, during which time they do blood tests and obtain consent forms.

"The doctors did not hide the source of the organs," says Kline of an openness that made it easier for him to entrust them with his mother's life. But to him, the issue goes beyond Falun Gong's accusations. Organ donations should be the norm. "All organs should be available for donations and no one should be able to opt out, except maybe in the case of extreme religious belief. Why should people or their families necessarily get to determine what happens to their bodies when they die? There are already limits. You can't keep Grandma in the living room. What gives you or me the right to destroy our organs when they can save a life?"

Still, buying a liver in China was a last resort, after already waiting several years and visiting six transplant centers in the U.S. Instead, Kline's mother was given an extra year with her family, time that Kline will forever appreciate as the only way his mother would have been able to get to know her grandchildren.

"Some people ask me, 'How could you go?'" Kline says. "The doctors assured me that the prisoners gave consent; they produced a consent form in Chinese. Maybe the prisoners give consent because they give money to their families. ... If I knew that prisoners were being executed for their organs, I would never have done it."

(editorial@citypaper.net)