Organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China
Allegations of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners in China have raised concern within the international community. According to a report by former lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas and journalist Ethan Gutmann of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, are being executed "on demand" in order to provide organs for transplant to recipients. Reports have said that organ harvesting has been used to advance the Chinese Communist Party's persecution of Falun Gong and because of the financial incentives available to the institutions and individuals involved in the trade. A report by The Washington Post has disputed some of the allegations, saying that China does not import sufficient quantities of immunosuppressant drugs, used by transplant recipients, to carry out such quantities of organ harvesting.
David Matas, senior legal counsel of B'nai Brith Canada, international human rights lawyer, coauthor of Bloody Harvest.
Ethan Gutmann with Edward McMillan-Scott (Vice-President of the European Parliament) at Foreign Press Association press conference, 2009
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who co-sponsored a Congressional resolution condemning organ harvesting from Falun Gong adherents, speaks at a rally in Washington D.C.
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) is a non-profit anti-communist organization in the United States, authorized by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1993 for the purpose of "educating Americans about the ideology, history and legacy of communism."
The Victims of Communism Memorial is a recreation of the Goddess of Democracy, which was destroyed by the government of China in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
Chairman emeritus Edwin Feulner