Plum Blossom Centre

Panel discussion at the Toronto General Hospital

“The Slaughter” author Ethan Gutmann spoke at a panel on forced organ harvesting in China at the Toronto General Hospital on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014. (Courtesy Ethan Gutmann)

Award-winning China analyst Ethan Gutmann shed light on the crime of forced organ harvesting in China at a forum held on Thurs., October 23 at the Toronto General Hospital. Over 100 people were in attendance, with many of the attendees members of the medical transplant community.

The event was hosted by the Plum Blossom Centre, in collaboration with the University of Toronto Transplantation Institute and other University of Toronto health units.

Gutmann was in Toronto as part of his international tour that featured talks in eight Canadian cities, including Ottawa, Montreal, and Edmonton, as well as a testimony before Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights.

The book has since garnered international interest and has become a top selling book on Amazon.com.

The Oct. 23 forum in Toronto was moderated by University of Toronto professor Frank Markel, and featured a panel composed of noteworthy members of the medical and academic community: Dr. Jeff Zaltzmann, Director of Renal Transplants at St. Michael’s Hospital; Linda Wright, Director of Bioethics at the University Health Network (UHN); and Bernard Dickens, Professor Emeritus of Health Law and Policy.

In his introduction, Markel challenged those seated in the audience to focus on what Canada and the world should do to address forced organ harvesting in China.

Lecture by Ethan Gutmann

Author Ethan Gutmann showing a photo of a Chinese execution ground at his lecture on the crime of forced organ harvesting in China, Oct. 23, 2014 at the Toronto General Hospital. (Courtesy Allen Zhou/Epoch Times)

Gutmann opened his lecture by juxtaposing two photos: the first of a Chinese execution ground where several Chinese officers are standing over the bodies of executed prisoners. The picture was dated to approximately 1995.

In the second picture, three Chinese surgeons were pictured carrying freshly extracted organs for transplant. The image was recently released by the Chinese regime as part of a campaign to encourage organ donation.

According to Gutmann, both pictures illustrate execution sites. The picture of the surgeons represents China’s new execution sites, in which surgeons forcibly remove organs from prisoners of conscience, killing them in the process.

Gutmann’s research led him to interview many witnesses, both victims and perpetrators. Among these was Uyghur doctor, Dr. Enver Tohti.

In 1995, Dr. Tohti was asked by his chief to gather a surgical team and go to an execution ground that housed political prisoners.

The doctor was told to remove the kidney and liver of a prisoner who had been shot, while the man’s heart was still beating. According to Gutmann, this was the beginning of an ethical breakdown in the Chinese medical community.

The author said that forced organ harvesting started with Uyghur political prisoners for the benefit of certain high ranking Chinese officials. However, it was following the launch of the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999 that the numbers dramatically increased.

By the mid-1990s, weekend Falun Gong exercise sites with thousands of participants, like this one in Guangzhou, were a common site throughout China. (Courtesy faluninfo.net)

A peaceful meditation practice, Falun Gong gathered between 70-100 million followers by 1999. Its practitioners were from different ranks of society, of different ages and backgrounds, and were following Falun Gong’s main principles of self-improvement: Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.

At the time, significant numbers of personnel from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Security Bureau, the Xinhua News Agency, as well as members of the People’s Liberation Army were practicing Falun Gong.

Those familiar with the CCP know these organizations are the arteries through which the atheist regime exerts its propaganda and power.

Seeing the large numbers, the CCP became terrified its power would be jeopardized and thus started a violent campaign to eradicate Falun Gong.

However, the resistance the CCP encountered was unprecedented. Instead of responding as victims, the practitioners stood up to the persecution, refusing to give up their beliefs and implicate their friends.

They also started to raise awareness of their plight. The resistance started in prisons and spread throughout China. One prominent instance was the highjacking of a state television station by six practitioners in 2002. The group took over the programming for nearly one hour, transmitting the truth about Falun Gong and its persecution.

According to Gutmann, practitioners became “toxic” to the CCP since they couldn’t be controlled. He believes this to be one of the factors that led to mass forced organ harvesting.

In his research, Gutmann noted direct parallels between the escalation of the persecution and increasing numbers of organ transplants in China. He has concluded that between 2000-2008, 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for their organs, and believes that by today, the number is up to 100,000.

Of these victims, the majority were those practitioners who did not provide their names to the authorities when captured in order to avoid endangering their friends and families.
Gutmann also estimated that there are approximately half a million Falun Gong practitioners currently being imprisoned in China.

While Falun Gong practitioners constitute the primary targets of organ harvesting, Uyghurs have also been targeted for organ transplants since 1998, and Tibetans since 2003. Increasing numbers of Uyghur disappearances may also be linked to forced organ harvesting, the author said.

Guttman emphasized however that while organ harvesting is a lucrative business for the Chinese regime, in actuality it’s not much more than a billion dollar industry, a relatively insignificant number when viewed in light of China’s immense economy. Thus, in his view, the primary purpose of forced organ harvesting is to eliminate dissidents.

Gutmann said he is certain the practice continues today, noting that Chinese hospitals were still advertising organs this year.

In concluding his lecture, Gutmann stated he didn’t write the book to be prescriptive and tell people what to think, but rather to further inform their perception of China. He asked the audience the question, “Do you think it’s appropriate for Canadians to go to China to get organs knowing they are from a prisoner of conscience?”

For the panel discussion please follow this link.