8.17.1. Does Ciro Santilli believe in the allegations of organ harvesting made by Falun Gong believers?
In short: Ciro believes that it has happened to many people.
Long version follows.
It is obviously very hard to prove and quantify it definitely, much like it was hard to prove the Holocaust: bodies were cremated, and bribes were paid.
Even if we had a video showing the whole process, showing the whole money flow from the donor to the prison guard, it would still be hard to quantify it, so I do have some room for doubt in this opinion.
But consider the following, which is based on what Ciro has heard.
Even Chinese officials have admitted that in the past, if the body of the executed person is not claimed by family, then the organs can be extracted even without the consent of the prisoner:
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2014-12-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-30324440 "China to stop harvesting executed prisoners' organs"
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Perhaps now that they claim that there is a large voluntary organ donor database, then this has stopped or been reduced, but let’s focus on that period when the extractions were widely done.
From this, even though China does not publish execution statistics, we can imagine that a large part of the organs come from prisoners sentenced to death.
Then, consider that a 70 million person religion was banned, leading to a huge influx of prisoners from that religion.
FLG followers are just de-facto criminals like any other, and so extracting their organs is also de-facto legal.
Also, people from that religion don’t drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs, and their organs are of good quality.
Furthermore, FLG prisoners continue to not bow down to the government even in prison, e.g. by doing their Falun Gong meditation, which makes them clearly identifiable and dangerous to the system.
Finally, add to that mix the huge level of corruption found in dictatorships.
Don’t you think, then, that it is extremely likely that it has happened many times that such people have been selected to be executed earlier than others on average, due to the monetary value of their organs?
Bibliography:
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https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6 (archive) "Analysis of official deceased organ donation data casts doubt on the credibility of China’s organ transplant reform" by Matthew P. Robertson, Raymond L. Hinde and Jacob Lavee published at "BMC Medical Ethics" which is part of Springer Nature in 14 November 2019
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The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem, by Ethan Gutmann, 2014
Related:
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2020-11-29 (not of prisoners) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55097424 "Chinese doctors jailed for illegal organ harvesting"
https://youtu.be/0Jorm1di7uA?t=700 Asian boss street inverview with several South Korean people asking how they see China. The only positive view is an old man who received an organ transplant from someone sentenced to death. On Reddit at: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/pve1lr/koreans_interviewed_about_their_views_on_china/.
In short: Ciro believes that it has happened to many people.
Long version follows.
It is obviously very hard to prove and quantify it definitely, much like it was hard to prove the Holocaust: bodies were cremated, and bribes were paid.
Even if we had a video showing the whole process, showing the whole money flow from the donor to the prison guard, it would still be hard to quantify it, so I do have some room for doubt in this opinion.
But consider the following, which is based on what Ciro has heard.
Even Chinese officials have admitted that in the past, if the body of the executed person is not claimed by family, then the organs can be extracted even without the consent of the prisoner:
-
2014-12-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-30324440 "China to stop harvesting executed prisoners' organs"
Perhaps now that they claim that there is a large voluntary organ donor database, then this has stopped or been reduced, but let’s focus on that period when the extractions were widely done.
From this, even though China does not publish execution statistics, we can imagine that a large part of the organs come from prisoners sentenced to death.
Then, consider that a 70 million person religion was banned, leading to a huge influx of prisoners from that religion.
FLG followers are just de-facto criminals like any other, and so extracting their organs is also de-facto legal.
Also, people from that religion don’t drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs, and their organs are of good quality.
Furthermore, FLG prisoners continue to not bow down to the government even in prison, e.g. by doing their Falun Gong meditation, which makes them clearly identifiable and dangerous to the system.
Finally, add to that mix the huge level of corruption found in dictatorships.
Don’t you think, then, that it is extremely likely that it has happened many times that such people have been selected to be executed earlier than others on average, due to the monetary value of their organs?
Bibliography:
-
https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6 (archive) "Analysis of official deceased organ donation data casts doubt on the credibility of China’s organ transplant reform" by Matthew P. Robertson, Raymond L. Hinde and Jacob Lavee published at "BMC Medical Ethics" which is part of Springer Nature in 14 November 2019
-
The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem, by Ethan Gutmann, 2014
Related:
-
2020-11-29 (not of prisoners) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55097424 "Chinese doctors jailed for illegal organ harvesting"