The details of the trial of former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun is being kept very secret, even the date has not been disclosed. NTD television has been following the story, because much more remains to be revealed. Today we take an indepth look at China's use of death row prisoners as a source of organs.
In 1984, the CCP's supreme people's court established laws allowing hospitals to use the organs of prisoners on death row for transplant. Until now, China is the only country in the world allowing the organs of death row prisoners to be taken for transplant. By comparison, the law in the U.S. stipulates that after execution, prisoners' organs are not allowed to be removed. Corpses must be turned over to the family immediately.
The Dragon Design Foundation gave Wang Lijun a "China design and contribution award" for the "special achievements" he had made in the field of transplant technology. Ren Jinyang, the Secretary-General said during an award ceremony on Sep 19, 2006 that Professor Wang Lijun and his Research Center through basic research and clinical trials had developed an injection that improved organ transplantation.
Dr. Torsten Trey, the co-editor of a recently published book on the abuse of organ transplantation in China, "State Organs", was reported in the Epoch Times to say that Wang Lijun's injection potentially involved human experimentation “in which Falun Gong practitioners were subject to ‘drug injections’ and that after the drug injections, organs were possibly removed while the victims were still alive.”
[Wang Wenyi, U.S. PhD Medicine]:
"When [Wang Lijun] did this, it was reported as an achievement in China, but raised strong condemnation in the international community. Amnesty International headquarter in the U.K., and the association of the British Royal College of Physicians simultaneously published a statement expressing their concern and condemnation, because they know China is the only country in the world allowing usage of death row prisoners' organs."
Dr Wang said that in other countries the death penalty is considered a punishment for the prisoner already. Their organs are not harvested for transplantation or for experimentation.
What Wang Lijun's research centre did was no different than the gas experiments German Nazis conducted on Jews and the cruel experiments the Japanese Unit 731 did on Chinese people during WWII. If his research lab was involved in transplantation and illegal sale of organs, it is an evil far greater than what was done by the Nazis and Japanese.
[Wang Wenyi, U.S. PhD Medicine]:
"Some doctors who participated in the transplants in China swore an oath in the U.S. congress that there was no process for signatures in some cases. And sometimes they started the organ harvest before the prisoner was beaten to death, while they were still breathing. It's in fact harvesting organs from living people."
It is made worse by the fact that death row prisoners in China are not what death row prisoners are considered in western nations.
[Bioethics Professor Arthur Caplan, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia]:
"In China, prisoners are there sometimes for crimes, sometimes for political reasons, sometimes for spiritual reasons, like Falun Gong, sometimes because they are Tibetans, or other groups that are looking to secede. The list of reasons why you get on a capital crimes list in China is pretty long, and it wouldn't pass muster with too many human rights groups."
In the U.S., death row prisoners' bodies can't be used for organ transplantation or human body experiments. In addition, they are not pronounced dead for 25 minutes or even several hours after the execution has been carried out in order to ensure complete brain death. The bodies are then immediately given to the families.
Wen Zan and Song Shenghua, NTD news.
