Forced Organ Removal: China

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this debate and on his powerful speech.

Let us be clear about what we are speaking of here, because if what we are discussing is indeed the case it virtually defies credibility. But increasingly research and evidence is pointing towards what is being alleged, which is that the Chinese Government actively condone—indeed, are involved in—the murder of potentially thousands of their own citizens every year for the purpose of forcibly extracting vital organs including livers, kidneys, hearts and corneas, sometimes while those people are still alive, and without anaesthetic. Many of those people are in prison, mainly—we are told—for their beliefs or ethnicity. Often their families are told that they have died. They are young people in reasonable health, and their families are simply handed an urn of ashes.

Credible research findings strongly suggest that many thousands of people are being killed for their organs, particularly people in minority groups, most notably practitioners of Falun Gong—a peaceful, meditative practice—although Tibetans, Uighurs and, potentially, house Christians have also been targeted for political reasons.

The allegations that Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans and Uyghurs have been victims of that horrific practice are well documented and strong, as I shall recount. The suggestion that house church Christians may be affected requires further research. Either way, all the allegations of which we are now aware are sufficiently strong to require investigation by the international community.

It is of the highest necessity that the UK raises the issue with the Chinese directly, and calls for an international inquiry into the matter, ideally led by the United Nations. Even if the UN will not conduct a commission of inquiry, our Government should investigate the allegations and look at alternative mechanisms to bring to account those involved in those horrific alleged practices. If Britain as a nation is to maintain its status as a people concerned about grievous violations of human rights, it is imperative that the issue is addressed loudly and fearlessly, in co-operation with the other international organisations and leading parliamentarians across the world who are increasingly expressing concerns about the issue.

The Conservative party human rights commission, which I am privileged to chair, has recently conducted an inquiry into forced organ harvesting in China. During the course of the inquiry, I have been privileged to hear, in this House, first-hand testimony of those who have conducted research into the nature of the crime, and first-hand testimony by way of a powerful statement from a former Chinese doctor, Dr Enver Tohti, who has been required to perform an organ operation on an executed prisoner—for transplant, he believes.

The House has been privileged to host the UK premiere of the film “The Bleeding Edge”, a fictional film based on the testimony of witnesses to illegal organ harvesting. It was harrowing. I am deeply grateful to Mr Speaker for hosting the film, and to the actress, Anastasia Lin, who starred in the film and gave evidence at one of the hearings of the Conservative party human rights commission. I am aware of other films on the subject, notably “Human Harvest” and “Hard to Believe”.

As I speak, the Conservative party human rights commission is releasing a report of the inquiry, which can be found on the website www.conservativehumanrights.com. It contains more information than I can relay in this debate, but I will refer to some evidence received by the inquiry. The report was written by the vice-chair of the commission, Ben Rogers, who is an expert on human rights in China and elsewhere. I pay tribute to him for his dedicated work in this field and to the work of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the organisation for which he works.

Written evidence submitted to the inquiry included a statement from a former prisoner, Yu Xinhui, who wrote:

“Everyone in the prison knows about this”—

by which he means the removal of prisoners for organ harvesting.

“Usually in the prison, regardless of whether the person is deceased, if he is sent to the prison hospital, he faces the reality of having his organs removed at any moment. Everyone in prison knows that there exists a list of names. People…taken away, and no one will return.”

That list of names includes blood types and the health of patients’ organs so that the information is ready and available if a transplant request is made.

Yu Xinhui continued:

“I once asked a prison doctor, because this particular doctor was very sympathetic to us Falun Gong practitioners. He was especially sympathetic towards me, because we were from the same hometown. Once he told me secretly, saying, ‘Don’t go against the Communist Party. Don’t resist them. Whatever they tell you to do, just do it. Don’t go against them forcefully. If you do, then when the time comes, you won’t even know how you will have died. When it happens, where your heart, liver, spleen, and lungs will be taken, you won’t even know either.’”

Yu Xinhui had three physical examinations while in prison, the last of which was in March 2005. Many former prisoners of conscience have testified to having been subjected to physical examinations while in prison that went beyond normal medical check-ups and were clearly aimed at assessing the health of their organs.

The timing of this debate is apt, given new evidence that the scale of organ harvesting in China may now be far higher than previously estimated. The evidence has built to a point where ignoring it is not an option. There is now strong, academically well-researched information that between 50,000 to 90,000 organ transplants may occur in China every year and are, effectively, concealed by the Government. That is in a country where there is no tradition of organ donation. Indeed, Chinese official figures put the number of voluntary donations at a total of 120 for the entire 30-year period between 1980 and 2009.

Let me quote further from the Conservative party human rights commission’s report:

“Although there are a variety of sources of evidence, there are three key reports which provide detailed research into the practice of forced organ harvesting in China”—

the hon. Member for Strangford referred to those reports. Our report continues:

“The first, published on the Internet in 2006 and in print in 2009, was a report researched and written by the former Canadian Member of Parliament and former Government Minister David Kilgour and a respected human rights lawyer, David Matas, called Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for their organs. The second was Ethan Gutmann’s book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to its Dissident Problem, published in 2014.”

Both David Matas and Ethan Gutmann have given evidence to our commission. The third report, which was published this year, runs to 700 pages. It updates forensically those two pieces of research, is co-authored by David Kilgour, David Matas and Ethan Gutmann, and is entitled, “Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update.” I have heard Ethan Gutmann publicly invite from anyone, particularly from the Chinese, any evidence or comments that contradict the research in the report, but as of September 2016 none has been received.

The most important point made by the report, and indeed by David Matas and Ethan Gutmann in their evidence to the Conservative party human rights commission, is that the scale of forced organ harvesting in China is significantly underestimated. Their new research is forensic—they have inquired into the public records of no fewer than 712 hospitals in China that carry out liver and kidney transplants. Their detailed research leads them to conclude that potentially between 60,000 and 100,000 organs are transplanted each year in Chinese hospitals, which almost defies credibility. If those figures are correct, organs are being transplanted on an industrial scale, as the hon. Member for Strangford said. One hospital alone, the Orient organ transplant centre at the Tianjin first central hospital, is performing thousands of transplants a year according to its own bed occupancy data. Chinese official claims state that 10,000 organ transplants are carried out each year, but the authors of the report contend that that is

“easily surpassed by just a few hospitals.”

By way of background, according to Ethan the practice of forced organ harvesting began in China as long ago as 1994, when the first live organs were removed from death row prisoners on the execution grounds of Xinjiang. Dr Enver Tohti came to London to give evidence to us, and he told us about the process. He was a cancer surgeon in Ürümqi, Xinjiang province. In 1995, while he was simply doing his job, he was instructed by two of his hospital’s chief surgeons to prepare mobile surgery equipment—in other words, an ambulance—and to wait for them the next day at a hospital gate with the ambulance, the equipment and three other assistants. The following morning, at 9 am, the two chief surgeons arrived in a car and he was told to follow them. He did not know where he was going but, about half an hour later, they arrived at Western Mountain—Xishan—an execution ground where prisoners were taken to be executed. He described what happened:

“We had been told to wait behind a hill, and come into the field as soon as we’d hear the gun shot. So we waited. A moment later there were gun shots. Not one, but many. We rushed into the field. An armed police officer approached us and told me where to go. He led us closer, then pointed to a corpse saying ‘this is the one’.”

A few prisoners had been executed. He continued:

“By then our chief surgeon appeared from nowhere and told me to remove the liver and two kidneys. He urged me to hurry up, so we took the body into the van and removed his liver and kidneys…our chief surgeons put those organs in a special box, and got into the car. They told me to take my team back to the hospital and left. I have no idea where they went… That was the end of that. Nobody has ever talked about what we did that day. It is something I wish hadn’t happened.”

Not only is the scale of the numbers a concern; the speed at which Chinese hospitals can obtain organs is also highly suspect. Doctors will tell us that the time they have to get an organ from a donor to a recipient varies but that it is very short for sensitive vital organs. A heart or a liver cannot simply be saved in a freezer until it is needed, which is why the NHS states that in this country the average wait for a suitable transplant for an adult is 145 days—of course, we are in a country with a tradition of donation. Compare that with the many statements in Chinese medical publications that they can find an emergency liver donor within 24 hours. I understand there is even a medical journal that boasts of taking only four hours to find a donor. I am informed that the Chinese Government claim that the organs come from death row prisoners who have been executed locally to the hospital that is providing the transplant, but the coincidence of that number of prisoners happening to have, say, a healthy liver, happening to match the blood type of the recipient and happening to have been executed locally is simply too much for credibility given the numbers involved. An alternative interpretation, and sadly the one that is more credible, is that people are being killed on demand to supply their organs.

In the other place, Lord Alton has been assured by the Government that the issue has been raised with the Chinese Government as part of the annual UK-China human rights dialogue and will be raised again, for which I thank the Government. However, evidence suggests that the Chinese Government have repeatedly committed themselves to denial, obfuscation and misdirection on this issue. It is therefore appropriate that we increase our activity in light of the new evidence I have highlighted. Indeed, there is growing international pressure on this matter.

The UN special rapporteurs on torture and on freedom of religion or belief have both requested that the Chinese Government explain the sources of these organs and that they allow them to investigate. There has been no response. The European Parliament adopted a written declaration in July 2016 on stopping organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China that, among other clauses, states:

“There have been persistent credible reports on systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, primarily from practitioners of Falun Gong peaceful meditation and exercises but also from Uighurs, Tibetans and Christians.

The international community has strongly condemned organ harvesting in China and actions should be taken to end it.

Owing to the severity of underlying abuse there is a clear need to organise without delay an independent investigation into ongoing organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China.”

Similarly, the United States Congress unanimously passed a resolution in June 2016 condemning the practice of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China. The resolution calls for visas to be denied to those involved in coerced organ or tissue transplantation. It expresses

“concern regarding persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, including from large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups.”

The concerns in America are coming from leading Congressmen and Senators. I was privileged to meet Congressman Chris Smith in Washington DC last week. He is the fourth longest-serving member of Congress and is a remarkable campaigner for human rights across the world. He spoke at a joint sub-committee of the US committee on foreign affairs on 21 June. I will quote him at more length at the end of my speech if I have time, but he told the House of Representatives:

“Twenty years ago, I chaired a human rights hearing in my subcommittee with a Chinese security official who testified that he and his other security agents were executing prisoners—with doctors…there and ambulances—in order to steal their organs for transplant. Since then, this horrific practice has skyrocketed.”

The US Congressional-Executive Commission on China published its annual report less than two weeks ago; I was privileged to meet the group of young people who work for the commission and who produced the report. The commission’s chairman said:

“The Chinese government’s human rights record is utterly deplorable, continuing a downward trend over the past three years.”

That, of course, includes organ harvesting.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and for setting the scene. Clearly the world is awakening to what is happening in China; she is as aware of that as I am. Will the awakening that we seem to see in Canada, in the States and now in the United Kingdom precipitate a need for our Government to contact the Chinese authorities to ensure that they can respond now to stop this practice? The weight of evidence is growing every day.

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The growing international concern about organ harvesting means it is vital that this country joins in and does not lag behind the international community in condemning these practices and challenging the Chinese Government accordingly.

I have two more things to say. First, as well as politicians acting, the international medical community must do detailed analysis of the claims made by these respected researchers. It is helpful to note that the president of the Transplantation Society, Dr Philip O’Connell, said at the society’s international conference in Hong Kong this year, addressing his comments to China, that

“there remains, in many sectors, a deep sense of mistrust of your transplant programs…It is important that you understand that the global community”—

I believe he was referring to the global medical community—

“is appalled by the practices”.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes several important points. Does she agree that it would be helpful if the Minister confirmed, first, whether there is a date for the next annual human rights dialogue, and if so when it is; secondly, when the next UK Government report on human rights to the UN in Geneva is due; and thirdly whether there has been any response to the request by the Foreign Office Minister in the Lords for more information from the Chinese authorities about their response to the various accusations?

[Fiona Bruce]

I am grateful for that intervention, particularly as it comes from the chair of the all-party group on China, whose views are very much respected in this House. His questions to the Minister today are very well placed.

Yesterday evening I tabled early-day motion 502, “Forced organ harvesting in China”. I ask colleagues to be good enough to sign and support the motion. I shall read it out in full for the record, because it contains my request to the Minister today:

“That this House notes with grave concern allegations of forced organ harvesting in China; further notes that victims said to be targeted for forced organ extraction are prisoners of conscience; acknowledges evidence detailed in Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update, by former Canadian Member of Parliament David Kilgour, lawyer David Matas and researcher Ethan Gutmann, along with other reports; notes the recent United States House of Representatives resolution 343 on forced organ harvesting in China and European Parliament written declaration 2016/WD48; calls on China to immediately end any forced organ harvesting; urges the Government to condemn forced organ harvesting and to seek a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate this practice, or conduct an inquiry through other international mechanisms, to ensure accountability and to assess whether this practice could amount to a crime against humanity; further urges the Government to release statistics on the numbers of UK citizens travelling to China for organ transplants and prohibit British citizens from travelling to China for the purpose of receiving organ transplants; urges the Government to introduce a travel ban prohibiting medical personnel and officials who may be engaged in forced organ harvesting from travelling to the UK; and calls on the Government to give urgent consideration to other measures it could take to hold China to account for this practice and demand an end to it.”

I will finish by quoting the senior US Congressman Chris Smith:

“What adjectives do we use to describe what Chinese doctors and hospitals have been doing these past decades? Ordinary words like concerned, disturbed or shocking just seem inadequate. We tend to reserve words like ‘barbaric’ for truly horrible crimes—and…we must call organ harvesting…barbaric.”

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[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this important debate. He is right to say that this is an increasingly worrying international issue, so well done to him for bringing it to our attention.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that this matter is not new to the House of Commons. A number of parliamentary questions have been asked about it. I read through the questions that Ministers have answered over the years, and there appears to be a contradiction: although the Chinese Government sometimes give assurances that organs from executed prisoners will be used for transplantation only with their consent, on other occasions there is a complete, flat denial that any of this is going on. There seem to be two levels of dialogue, which are curious when read all at once as a sort of transcript from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. When the Minister responds, will he clarify whether he believes that that is an issue? If so, what are the Government doing about it?

I want to highlight some of the excellent points that have been made in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) commented, correctly, on the demand side of the problem and on the fact that many foreign people are travelling to China for what is called in the literature “transplant tourism”. She was right to ask what the Government are doing to educate people who may wish to travel from this country to China to receive medical treatment. I would be grateful if the Minister could let me know whether, for example, the NHS has any background information about patients who may be particularly tempted to consider having this kind of operation. Also, can he say what cross-referencing there is between the NHS and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in that regard?

The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) is well known for her concern about human rights across the globe. She made some important points today. She was right to say that the United Nations should be carrying out a full investigation and that our Government should play a crucial role in that. She was also correct to say that Mr Speaker held an excellent event, the screening of “The Bleeding Edge” film, to highlight the issue of the forced removal of organs in China. Sadly, owing to pressures on my diary in the summer, I was not able to attend, but I believe that the film is compelling and I will certainly put it on my list to watch at Christmas.

[Fiona Bruce]

I just inform the hon. Lady and other Members that so much interest has been expressed in that film that our commission is proposing to put on a further screening in this place shortly. I hope that she will be able to attend that.

[Catherine West]

I thank the hon. Lady for that information. I will indeed try to attend the second screening of “The Bleeding Edge”.

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[Sir Alan Duncan]

My understanding of the congressional report is that although it is broadly very critical of human rights in China, the report mentions organ harvesting only once. However, I will undertake to ask officials to write to the hon. Gentleman and expand further on the exact details of that point, in the hope that such comments will satisfy him about what I am saying.

[Fiona Bruce]

By necessity, there are no witnesses to the removal of the organs—the people involved are dead—but does the Minister not agree that, although we have talked about huge numbers, even one transgression of human rights caused by the involuntary removal of an organ is grossly wrong? Despite the fact that the authors of the report have challenged—indeed asked—the Chinese Government to reject their assertions, to come out and say that they are incorrect, there has been complete silence. There has been no rejection of the research or the information, or indeed of the authors’ conclusions.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

At the outset, I stated the principles by which we ought to look at the entire issue, and in that sense I totally agree with my hon. Friend. She is right to say that the difficulty of the issue is that, by its very nature, if it goes on it is hidden. Therefore, to establish the evidence is a very difficult exercise, but in respect of engagement with the Chinese Government I hope that in a moment I will be able to offer my hon. Friend a bit of reassurance about some progress we have been making.

The Government have serious concerns about restrictions on the freedom of religion or belief in China, including for Falun Gong practitioners. The freedom to practise, change or share one’s faith or belief without discrimination or violent opposition is a fundamental right that all people should enjoy, yet we have solid evidence, from multiple sources, of the persecution of religious minorities. Christians, Muslims and Buddhists, as well as Falun Gong practitioners, are persecuted through different means, with reports of their being detained incommunicado, being tortured and receiving inhuman treatment, and also being subjected to interference in their places of worship and in their religious teaching and customs. Everyone should be free to practise their religion according to their beliefs, in accordance with the international frameworks to which both the UK and China are party.

I assure the House that the Government pay close attention to the human rights situation in China. Indeed, no fewer than three British Ministers have raised individual cases with their Chinese counterparts in the past few months. As the former Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), stated to the House on 12 July, we have raised concerns about reports of organ harvesting, as well as of the torture and mistreatment of detainees, during our annual human rights dialogue with China, and I can let my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) know that the next such exchange will be on 27 and 28 October, here in London. At that exchange, we will raise our human rights concerns, including the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and the lack of transparency in China’s organ transplant system. So the debate is timely, and I will ensure that hon. Members’ concerns are raised at that dialogue.

The use of the death penalty in China is also a subject of great concern, with the number of prisoners being executed a closely guarded secret and, therefore, difficult to estimate. We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and campaign actively worldwide for its abolition. In the past, organs were taken from executed prisoners without prior consent. China committed to end the practice of involuntary organ removal from January 2015. Although that was an important and positive step, the degree to which it has been implemented is not clear. There are also complex ethical questions about the ability of condemned prisoners to give free and valid consent.

Following representations to the Chinese authorities, we received information on their organ donation policy yesterday. Although we have only just received the information—officials are scrutinising it—I would like to share it with the House. The information states that all organ donations in China are handled within a clear legal framework that meets international standards, including those of the World Health Organisation. There is a registration centre for managing information about the origins of organs used for donations, and statistics are shared with the WHO. The Chinese authorities provided statistics for 2015, which stated that 7,785 organs were donated from 2,766 donors. We intend to contact the WHO to try to validate that information. We have, however, received no detailed information about the treatment of prisoners’ organs. We therefore believe that, based on the evidence we have, it is likely that executed prisoners remain a key source of organs for transplant in China.

The hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who is no longer in her seat, and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), raised the issue of people travelling to China for medical treatment, including what might be described as organ tourism. We do not collect data on that, but we believe that few people in the UK choose to travel to China for that purpose. The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green asked if we would ban such travel, but the British Government cannot prevent individuals from travelling. We can, however, flag the risks and ensure that individuals are aware that other countries might have poorer medical and ethical safeguards than the UK does. Travelling abroad for any treatment, including organ transplant, carries risks. Medical staff have a responsibility to inform patients who are considering that route of the risks and of the fact that organs might not have been donated freely.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned the Conservative party human rights commission report. Although the Government were not asked to give evidence to the commission, and as such the report does not entirely reflect Government policy, there is much in it with which we agree. We are already pursuing an approach that is consistent with many of the report’s recommendations but parts of the report require further investigation to substantiate some of the claims made. Officials have offered to meet the authors, and as there is—I think—a plan to produce a separate report on organ harvesting, they have tried, but so far without success, to engage with the process of compiling that report.

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[Fiona Bruce]

With respect, I believe that the Minister is referring to the wider report on human rights in China, which was produced by the commission some three months ago. Indeed, the commission said that it would produce a supplementary report on organ harvesting, and it is that report, published today, to which I referred and at which I hope officials will look. The commissioners, Members of Parliament and Members of the House of Lords would, I know, welcome the opportunity to meet Foreign Office officials to discuss both reports further.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

In the spirit in which my hon. Friend is entering into this, I can confirm that we would be pleased for her to come and speak to officials to discuss all the details and the evidence to see whether we can share information in order to understand exactly what the facts are, and therefore what the policy should be.

There was also a reference to a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in September. We vigorously raise all human rights concerns on such occasions, although on this occasion not specifically organ harvesting.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

It is probably true to say that there has not been much discussion with other countries on this particular issue. The hon. Gentleman, of course, has a point: when countries work together they can be more effective. Again, I will ask officials to write to him about such an initiative.

[Fiona Bruce]

May I intervene one final time?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Of course.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the officials ascertain which countries have already banned travel for organ tourism? I believe that Israel and possibly others have done so.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

It may not be practical to police it, but I can assure the House that the UK works with like-minded partners to strengthen the rules surrounding organ transplantation worldwide. This includes the development of the World Health Organisation guiding principles to ensure that organ removal for transplant takes place only according to agreed guidelines. We also support the declaration of Istanbul, which encourages all countries to draw up legal and professional frameworks to govern organ donation and transplantation activities. In the past eight years, more than 100 countries, including China, have endorsed the principles of the declaration and subsequently strengthened their laws against the commercial organ trade.

Contrary to some reports, our trading relationship with China does not prevent us from having frank discussions with the Chinese authorities on issues of concern such as this. We will continue to engage with them on the full range of issues, including organ transplants and the wider human rights agenda. We will continue to promote the universal values of freedom and respect for human rights and the importance of international co-operation.