(Minghui.org) There is a saying that a healthy society cannot afford to see three professions corrupted: teachers who guide their students, doctors who save their patient’s lives, and justice system employees (police, prosecutors, and judges) who uphold justice. All these professions require people to have integrity and a heart to help people. If the majority of them become unethical or even break the law, society as a whole may collapse.
Yet under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), especially during the tenure of its former and now deceased leader Jiang Zemin, all three professions mentioned above have become corrupt. More specifically, Jiang told people to just make money at all costs, even if it meant harming others. “Keeping quiet while making a fortune,” he said. As a result, he ruthlessly targeted traditional values and various faith systems including Falun Gong, a peaceful meditation system with the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, because they all teach people to be good.
Jiang’s money-driven policies caused endless problems. When government officials and average citizens alike ditch moral values, the Chinese society as a whole plunges into an abyss with astonishing tragedies: teachers rape students, the justice system arrests, prosecutes, and sentences law-abiding citizens (including Falun Gong practitioners), and doctors harvest organs from living people for profit. Below are some examples.
In China, some teachers raped and impregnated students, some turned their students into long-term mistresses, and some killed students when their attempted rape failed. Some of the victims were very young.
Tragedies Beyond Words
Chinese media reported that an elementary school teacher from Dazu County of Chongqing raped ten underage girls whom he taught between 2002 and 2003. A physical education teacher in Longxi County, Gansu Province, approached twelve ninth-grade girls in the name of helping them get into better schools through connections. He raped all of them, two of whom became pregnant.
Jiang, a 51-year-old teacher from Zhongyang Elementary School in Jinping County, Guizhou Province, raped 12 students a total of 42 times in 18 months. He also sexually harassed 16 other students a total of 35 times. Only three out of 19 female students in his class escaped his sexual harassment or rape.
Similarly, an elementary school teacher from Linxia County in Gansu Province, was found in 2004 to have raped and sexually harassed nine girls in the third grade. One victim was attacked ten times. Most of the girls were between 9 and 10 years old, and the oldest was 14.
The rapists also included school officials. Lin Dengping, an elementary school principal in Nanxing Town of Zhanjiang City in Guangdong Province, raped 11 female students on 7 occasions in less than 4 months. The youngest victim was only 10 years old.
Xibu Shangbao (Western Business Daily) reported on June 4, 2007, that a teacher surnamed Cheng in Changhe Town, Gansu Province raped 18 female students a total of over 70 times between autumn 2001 and March 2005. Among these 18 victims, 16 were under age 14. Cheng was later sentenced to death.
Li, a middle school teacher, raped 24 female students in 2004 after giving them sleeping pills and narcotics. He was later sentenced to death due to public anger.
The above are some of the rape cases reported by the Chinese media. There are many more that were not publicized.
What I Witnessed
I have also seen two cases myself. In the early 1990s, several years after Jiang became the top CCP leader, I went to the Department of Obstetrics in Lanzhou Hospital, Gansu Province to visit my friend, who was approaching labor. Next to her bed was a 15-year-old girl. Why was she there? My friend signaled me to keep quiet. She later told me the poor girl, who was still playing with toys, was here for induced labor after being raped by a teacher.
Another case also happened in Lanzhou Hospital, where a mother came from the countryside with her daughter, who was about 15 or 16 years old. The girl had pain in her abdomen and one doctor recommended imaging in the radiology department. It turned out she had a fetus inside her belly, but she did not know how she became pregnant. Upon learning of his daughter’s pregnancy after being raped by a teacher, her angry father took her home directly after the induced labor despite her pain.
Back in the early 1990s, there were stories about people having their organs stolen while they were still alive. One of my friends had a relative in her 40s. After conducting gallstone surgery at a hospital, she went to several other hospitals for further checkups. One hospital discovered that her left liver lobe was gone. At that time, people hardly knew about the crime of organ harvesting, so no one followed up on that.
China has a large number of organ transplants. The wait time is short and the organ quality is high. The organs are from young people and there are many to choose from. The problem is the source of the organs. Chinese people in general are reluctant to donate organs, due to cultural reasons. While one has to wait for several years overseas for a donor, there are many organs available in China, waiting for patients.
After forced organ harvesting in Sujiatun Labor Camp from Falun Gong practitioners was exposed, I wanted to explore further and made many phone calls to doctors in China. Below were what they said.
All “donors” under 30 years old
Affiliated with Central Military Commission, the 301 Military Hospital in Beijing treat patients which include high-ranking CCP officials. A transplant surgeon said that they were not allowed to share information about the donors, and that whichever hospital shared the information would be disqualified from organ transplantation. The doctor did confirm that all liver donors were under 30 years old. A female surgeon from 747 Air Force Urumqi Hospital in Xinjiang Province said that the organs were from local hospitals and that they had performed hundreds of transplants in the past ten years. Many organs are available and even Chinese medical hospitals have participated in kidney transplants.
Zhang Xuefeng, a surgeon from the 474th Military Hospital in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, said that his team had performed liver and kidney transplantation for over ten years. The donors are all young men, not women. “Many Russians also come here for transplants. Please come, and we are running promotions,” he said. “No need to worry about donors. As long as we get in touch with courts, batches and batches of donors would keep coming – all of them are healthy.” He said that they can meet any patient requests. If there is demand for a liver and kidney, the same donor would provide both.
These surgeons often avoided discussions about donors.
“Are these [organs] from Falun Gong [practitioners]?” I asked a surgeon from Wuwei Tumor Hospital in Gansu Province. He said my question was not something he could answer on the phone. But he assured me, “Drivers all know our place – the taxi fare is only three yuan [to get here].”
A director of Xinjiang Province Armed Police Hospital said, “We can talk about the donor when the time for surgery is near, not before that.”
A surgeon from Jilin Province Cardiopathy Hospital said they there were not allowed to share information on donors.
“Willing” Donors
A surgeon from Kunming Eye Hospital in Yunnan Province said that all their corneas were fresh. One doctor from You An Hospital in Beijing said that the organs were from “voluntary donors,” not prisoners. A kidney surgeon from Ningxia Province Armed Police General Hospital agreed, “Our kidneys are removed from willing donors, not from executed prisoners.”
Yue, from Lanzhou Second Hospital in Gansu Province, conducted a kidney transplant for a retired director from Lanzhou First Hospital. He told the patient, “The kidney is from a 24-year-old man, very healthy. I cannot tell you anything more about this and please don’t tell others.” The patient lived another four years and died. A kidney transplantation nurse from Shenyang Fourth Hospital in Liaoning Province said they only performed kidney transplants. “We can find you organs in a few days – all from living persons,” she added.
A urological doctor from the Guangxi Province Mizu Hospital said they had used organs from Falun Gong practitioners in the past but they later had difficulty obtaining more organs. But he said both kidneys and livers were easily available at the Third Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province. One doctor from the Third Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University confirmed this, “Yes, we can find living Falun Gong ‘donors’, and organs are available in one or two weeks.”
Other places are similar. Wang, head nurse at the Transplantation Center at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Henan Province, said they had access to the organs of young Falun Gong practitioners. Peng, Kidney Transplant Center Director from 460 Military Hospital in Zhengzhou City, said their organs came from donors who encountered unnatural deaths. A surgeon from Shanghai Ruijin Hospital Transplant Center said the donors were young and the wait time was only two weeks. “No need to ask more about donors. The organs are good and we will use them,” he added.
Dai, a surgeon from the Liver Transplant Center at the First Affiliated Hospital of Shanghai Jiaotong University, said they had conducted over 500 transplants. “You can just come since we have donors now and they are in their 20s,” he continued. “We can do the transplantation in as early as one week. It costs 200,000 yuan for a liver.” When asked if he had Falun Gong practitioners as “donors,” he said he would not talk about it until he saw the patient. Doctors from the Department of Urology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Qinghai Medical College said they had been offered organs from Falun Gong practitioners, but they declined the offer.
A surgeon from 181 Hospital of the Guangzhou Military Region said they had conducted about 1,000 kidney transplants, but they could not tell where the organs came from. Similarly, a surgeon from the First Affiliated Hospital of Shanxi Medical University said they had performed over 100 kidney transplants. “The donors are all between 18 and 30, very healthy,” he added. When asked what kind of people they were, he said he could not answer because he was afraid the conversation might be recorded.
One Transplant with Several Donors as Backup
A surgeon from Shandong Provincial Hospital Transplant Center said they had done many transplants with high-quality organs from young people. “For yesterday’s liver transplant, I opened up [the body] and found it was a fatty liver. So I opened up another [body] and found the liver was good. So I used the second one for the transplant,” he explained. The surgeon said several donors were often lined up for each transplant, in case the liver was not good and the surgery could not go as planned. One nurse from the same transplant center said the same thing, “We have many kidney transplants here and we’ve never been out of organs. There are so many kidneys, all from living people.” The surgeons had many ways to secure organs, but she could not say more. When asked if Falun Gong practitioners were donors, she replied, “As long as a patient shows up, we can have [Falun Gong practitioners] ready [as donors].”
One man in Mishan Detention Center, Heilongjiang Province said that in the past they could easily find Falun Gong “donors.” “Right now I can easily find seven or eight males under 40 years old,” he said. “But [the supply] needs to go through the court and blood matching is needed.” A surgeon from the Department of Liver Transplantation in the Zhejiang First Affiliated Hospital said they had done hundreds of transplants in the past ten years. The donors included both living and dead ones, and some organs needed to go through the court first. Ye Benqian from the Department of Liver Transplantation at the Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University said a donor could be secured in one week or ten days. When asked if Falun Gong practitioners could be found as donors due to their good health, he said sure.
A renal surgery nurse at Shaanxi Province Hospital said they had done many cases since 2003 after surgeon Luo Yongkang joined them from the Shaanxi Armed Police General Hospital. Luo and chief surgeon Huang Qifu were experienced in securing organs, and the donors were all young and healthy. “After a batch of donors is identified, they call us to get ready. The transplants start as soon as they come back with the organs. We often do three or four transplants at the same time,” said the nurse. “Even some hospitals that did not do transplants can perform them now.”
One kidney transplant nurse from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Medical University in Shaanxi Province said they had done transplants for many years. After a transplant center was established within the hospital, it became even more convenient, and even the department of infectious diseases was doing liver transplants. Zhang Bo, a director from Xijing Hospital, had many connections to help secure organs in nearby regions such as Xianyang and Weinan. The surgeons would go there themselves and select those young, healthy ones for blood testing and matching.
“What if they [donors] refuse blood sampling?” I asked.
“It is not up to them,” the nurse replied. “Plus they don’t know anything. They have no idea what the blood sampling is for.”
Tao, head urology nurse from the General Hospital of Fuzhou Military Region in Fujian Province, said they had done over 1,000 kidney transplants. “Our kidneys are the best. Based on what patients need, the blood matching can be completed in several days or even on the same day – we take blood from the donor and the results are available in two and a half hours,” explained Tao. “Our surgeons go there themselves to make sure the donors are ideal.”
Liu Shuren, a liver transplant surgeon at Guangdong 458 Hospital of the Air Force, said they did 40 transplants in 2002 alone. “There are designated places that supply organs. We sometimes get organs from middlemen too,” Liu said.
40 Liver and Kidney Transplants, Each for Free
Several years ago Hunan Provincial Hospital ran an advertisement on Google, offering twenty liver transplants and twenty kidney transplants for free. Zhou Xueli, a hepatobiliary surgeon in the hospital, said it was to boost the facility’s reputation. “The organs are good quality and the donors are young. Some of them are prisoners and some are not,” he said. When asked if they were Falun Gong practitioners, Zhou refused to answer and hung up the call.
A hepatobiliary nurse from the Lanzhou First Hospital in Gansu Province said her department had four liver transplants in one month. Three of the patients died in a few days and the fourth died within a month. She said the liver came from the Fourth Military Medical University. “Once having a patient, we will give them a call and they would fly in with the organ in four hours,” she explained.
A surgeon from Yunnan Kidney Disease Hospital said the organs often arrived in the evening. “So we ended up doing the transplants at night, often seven or eight transplants at the same time. We did 150 last year,” he said. Another surgeon from Xiangya Hospital of Central South University said they had done hundreds of liver transplants in the past five or six years. “We guarantee the organ quality,” he said, but offered no information about the donors.
In a society with moral decay, anything can happen. Some things are beyond people’s wildest imagination, from teachers raping students to forced organ harvesting. When Jiang Zemin started to suppress Falun Gong in 1999, he issued an order to “defame their [Falun Gong practitioners’] reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.” As the state apparatus ran at full power to attack peaceful practitioners and incite hatred against them from the public, the forced organ harvesting from living practitioners became the darkest chapter in this catastrophe.
In ancient times, there were eras when people were honest and trustworthy, and did not even need to shut the door at night. But after the CCP took power in 1949, especially during Jiang’s tenure, his money-driven policies made society unsafe, with high crime rates.
I experienced several incidents myself while I was still in China. I once rode my bike to a farmers’ market. I didn’t lock it after I parked it to buy groceries. The bike was gone in a few minutes. Another time, I was ready to pay for my groceries when I realized my wallet had been stolen. On a different occasion, I put a new piece of clothing on the bike’s backseat and found it gone upon returning with my groceries. There was one other time when I caught a young man dressed in a suit rummaging through my handbag while I was shopping.
“Stop!” I called out. “What are you doing?”
“You know what I am doing,” the young man smirked at me and said. “Be quiet or I will beat you up!” So I covered my mouth and did not say anything.
One of my friends was a police officer at the Lanzhou Railway Station in Gansu Province. I told him about the young man and said he was pitiful, since they would not steal much but may be beaten up should they get arrested.
My friend said, “We don’t beat up thieves because we work hand in glove with them, and they share with us what they steal.” But occasionally they did discipline the thieves for not splitting what they had stolen. On the train cabs, for example, police officers would assign which thief would work in which cabs. “Whenever passengers report something missing, we would know who did it,” he explained.
Working with thieves is one way of making money. But it is nothing compared to the lucrative organ harvesting supply chain. After Jiang gave the order of forced organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners, military hospitals were heavily involved as seen by the examples mentioned above. Since it is illegal from any angle, the doctors could not talk about where the organs came from.
“Between 2000 and 2005 [before organ harvesting was exposed in 2006], we did over 100 kidney transplants a year. We even had patients from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau,” said a surgeon from Shaanxi Armed Police General Hospital. “We cannot talk about donors because it is against the law – we could only do it secretly. The entire country is like that. When no family member followed up, we just cremated the body. When there were family members asking about the person, we would still cremate the body and give them an urn, saying the person had died of an acute illness. Many families did not even get ashes.”
“Did the donors themselves know?” I asked.
“No, they don’t,” the surgeon replied. “We just tell them blood sampling is needed due to ongoing infectious disease. Officials from the court would lead us to see the donors.”
“What if they refuse the blood sampling?” I continued.
“We have armed police officers who will beat them up. The blood sample will be forcibly taken,” he replied.
He also said, “The city-level intermediate courts are handling this and they are part of the organ supply chain. It would not work if hospitals contacted detention centers, labor camps, or prisons directly. Right now, the military and local officials are bribing the courts – whoever pays more money will get the donors. From court presidents to criminal court officials, we need to bribe every one of them. In the past, they can provide us with a large number of donors each time. Now they can only provide several each time.”
When I urged him to stop doing organ transplants, he said it was not up to him. “The hospital would blame us for not making profits because hospitals charge us an organ sourcing fee, and it needs money to bribe the courts too,” he said. “Sometimes the court would tell us one batch [of donors] was available and if we turned down the offer, it wouldn’t consider us for the next batch – we need to maintain credibility when doing this business.”
After I told him about the organ harvesting exposed at Sujiatun Labor Camp, he said the CCP has always been ruthless. “I know it is a risky business since the Party may turn back on us someday and kill us,” he said. “Courts know there are Falun Gong cases. We [doctors] pretend to know nothing. It is like this nationwide. If the Party does come to me someday, countless doctors in this country would be executed too.”
Likewise, a urologist from Urumqi Friendship Hospital also admitted that kidneys are easier to get when hospitals maintain a “good” relationship with courts. Besides courts, police are also closely involved.
Wang Lijun, former Jinzhou Police Department director in Liaoning Province, had a special “On-Site Psychological Research Center.” One of his products was called the “Primary Brain Stem Injury Impact Apparatus,” which could knock out a person instantly during organ harvesting. After winning an award for this and giving a speech in September 2006, he said, “When we see a person go to the place of execution and in a matter of minutes this person’s life is transformed and extended into the lives of other people, it is soul-stirring. This is a momentous undertaking.”
Wang’s “invention” was based on many tragic forced organ harvesting cases and was intended to make the nightmare even longer. “Our scientific and technological achievements in the field are the crystallization of the thousands of intensive on-site tests and the efforts of many of our people,” he explained.
I once asked a surgeon who was one of the subjects of Wang’s on-site “experiments.”
“Were all those Falun Gong practitioners?”
“Yes,” he replied.
As we enter 2023, we are facing many uncertainties in this world, including the atypical surging COVID cases unfolding in China recently. But first and foremost, we have to stop the crimes committed under the rule of the CCP against innocent citizens, from the helpless crying girls to the “missing” Falun Gong practitioners for their faith in being better citizens. The CCP has written a hideous, dark chapter in history, and it is up to us to end the nightmare before the next generation can live in a world of peace and safety.