Surgeons operate on a patient for organ transplant. (Photo : Getty Images)
The debate on the organ harvesting issue in China is heating up as The Transplantation Society (TTS) holds its biennial convention of transplant surgeons in Hong Kong.
The issue of organ harvesting among convicts particularly those lined up the death row continues to plague China as several human rights advocates reveal that forced organ extraction remains rampant in the Middle Kingdom.
Falun Gong
According to the New Glasgow News, Falun Gong practitioners are holding demonstrations in Hong Kong to call for a stop in the forced organ extraction among political prisoners in China.
Falun Gong is a special self-cultivation practice in the Buddhist system that is more intense in the sense that it requires cultivators to "have extremely high character and a great underlying base."
According to the New York Times, this Buddhist practice has been outlawed in China in 1999, resulting to its practitioners being banned or imprisoned in the country.
In the report, NY Times correspondent Didi Kirsten Tatlow shared her experience in Hong Kong after interviewing a woman from Falun Gong.
According to Tatlow, she was shooed by a middle-aged woman from an opposite demonstration conducted by a group who call themselves the Anti-Cult Association.
"Go away! You're no good!" the woman from the group shouted after finding out that the journalist interviewed a member of the Falun Gong.
The Falun Gong adherent told Tatlow that after their practice was dubbed as a cult, many of those imprisoned were blood typed and kept behind bars to serve as secret sources for organs.
Their Mistake
While the Falun Gong may be onto something when they protested the forced organ extractions, a human rights lawyer believe that they cannot do much even if they hold public demonstrations since they have already lost their credibility as a Buddhist group.
"The Falun Gong community, they don't read the reports. They don't talk the human rights language, and they're disorganized. Everybody does what they want," said David Matas who wrote a book about the issue titled "Bloody Harvest."
Reports revealed that there are about 100,000 transplants conducted every year from executed prisoners in China.
However, former deputy health minister Huang Jiefu who is now tasked to overhaul the organ donation system in the country strongly denies this, calling it a "wild speculation."
Even so, Falun Gong adherents continue to make their position known on the issue as they call onto Canadians to help stop the "bloody harvest" in China.
