CCP Pushes Organ Donation Program, Increasing Concerns of Forced Organ Harvesting

China’s top human organ donation watchdog has again been campaigning to have Chinese nationals register in its “voluntary human organ donation” database since July this year.

China Organ Donation Administrative Center (CODAC) issued a notice on its website on July 24, launching a series of “nationwide propaganda season” activities to promote organ donation among Chinese people.

The CODAC’s notice, titled “Notice on Launching the 2023 National Voluntary Human Organ Donation Registration and Promotion Season Activity,” is unavailable on its website. However, it lists the promotion as a “major event” in July on its website, with the event themed “commitment of life, spreading of great love,” together with a three-month-long “organ donation life relay” event conducted nationwide simultaneously.

This is one of the most recent attempts of the communist regime to coerce Chinese citizens into “voluntary human organ donations.”

The CODAC was established as an affiliation of China’s Red Cross Society by the Chinese regime’s central government on July 6, 2012.

The Epoch Times found in China’s online news platforms that schools, medical institutions, government organizations, and businesses across the country have published reports, touting their participation in the campaign. Middle school students are reportedly registered in the organ donation system.

The Epoch Times’ multiple efforts to reach out to the CODAC and China’s National Health Commission were not replied to as of publication time.

China observers fear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using the campaign to cover up forced organ harvesting and to turn ordinary Chinese people into potential victims of organ harvesting.

Netizens’ Fears

Chinese netizens claim that they were coerced into donating on Chinese social media platforms such as Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and Weibo, accusing the authorities of forcing them to register as voluntary donors, entering their bio-data into the voluntary donation database without their consent or even without their knowledge.

In a recent video clip, a netizen said that all members of Linshu County Maternity and Child Health Hospital were recently required to register for voluntary organ donation by the county health administration.

“Our director and deputies have all registered as voluntary donors. As a small potato, do I dare not to register? I’d like to ask for your opinion,” the netizen said in the video.

She added that, if a donor changes his or her mind, the donor must wait until after 2024 to make any change or withdraw from the voluntary donation registration as is written in the notice.

“All the departments of the hospital must actively promote and launch the donation campaign and complete the registration within the week. Then the donation list should be submitted to the scientific educational department,” the county health administration wrote in its notice, according to the netizen.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Maternity and Child Health Hospital of Linshu County on Nov. 22 and hasn’t received a reply by publication.

Multiple netizens on Douyin claimed that they were registered as a “voluntary donor of organs” without their knowledge.

“I was having a class, and I didn’t know that my organs had been donated,” a college student posted on Douyin.

The anonymous netizen said that he received a message from “China Human Organ Donation [Center],” telling him that he had registered as a voluntary donor and asked him to enter a verification code. The netizen replied that he didn’t know his organs had been donated and that he refused to donate his organs.

“If you refuse, you should log in to our website and fill in a refusal form,” the center told him in a message, “Once you have signed the commitment, you cannot change it. Otherwise, your personal credit will be impacted.”

Earlier in January, a woman surnamed Fan was seen crying in a video clip, saying that she was terrified to find her bio-data registered in the human organ donation system. “I lost my ID certificate, and I woke up to find that my information is now in the organ donation system. I am really scared,” Ms. Fan said.

Another netizen by the name “Mountains are high and the road is far” blasted the communist regime for keeping his information in the donation system.

“It’s useless withdrawing from the system because all your information remains there,” he wrote on Weibo.

‘Fake’ Data

Wang Zhiyuan, president of the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), said the CCP “has been fabricating false data about the Chinese people’s ‘voluntary organ donation’ to conceal the CCP’s long-standing crimes of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.”

Annie (alias), ex-wife of a brain surgeon who removed organs from thousands of Falun Dafa prisoners of conscience in China in the early 2000s, speaks at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on April 20, 2006. The Epoch Times

“At the same time, it paves the way and lays the groundwork for the CCP’s plundering of the organs of the Chinese people by setting up the so-called donation system,” Dr. Wang told The Epoch Times in a recent interview.

Dr. Wang said that the CCP continues to “fabricate lies to cover up its crime of forced organ harvesting.

“Initially, the CCP simply denied using organs from executed prisoners. It had to admit it later as organ transplants increased exponentially. However, the published data reveals that the number of people sentenced to death in China averaged around 1,600 per year in the decade around 1999,” said Dr. Wang, adding that the official organ transplant figures released by the CCP were over 10,000 per year.

According to Lancet, China performed 11,000 organ transplants in 2006, ranking second in terms of number of transplants per country.

Dr. Wang accused CCP’s data as “fake.”

“By early 2006, more than 90,000 organ transplants of various kinds had been performed in China,” according to an investigative report of WOIPFG published in 2012.

The data may be fewer than the actual figure due to the CCP’s censorship of information and covering up, Dr. Wang added.

“I am a doctor, and I spent 30 years helping and saving patients,” Dr. Wang said in a documentary, “Harvested Alive - 10 Years’ Investigations of Live Organ Harvesting.” “I never thought I would spend 10 years investigating how doctors killed innocent human beings.”

Dr. Wang began his medical career in 1972 and was enrolled in the Fourth Military Medical University in China in 1975, majoring in aerospace medicine. He held various positions such as aviation military doctor and director of aviation military medicine.

The WOIPFG has been conducting investigations to collect evidence on Chinese medical personnel and institutions involved in the forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Since the first public release of investigation reports on Dec. 9, 2004, the WOIPFG has published a total of 16 lists of medical personnel and institutions, police, legal, and other law enforcement entities involved in organ harvesting.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient self-improvement practice with five meditation exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Due to its significant health benefits, Falun Gong became very popular in China since its introduction to the public in 1992. According to estimates, 70 million to 100 million Chinese people were practicing Falun Dafa throughout the country by 1999.

The CCP started to suppress the peaceful practice in July 1999 due to the popularity of Falun Gong. The communist regime randomly harassed, stalked, detained, arrested, tortured Falun Gong practitioners, and even harvested their organs alive.

As of June 28, 2023, the WOIPGF’s reports include 27,672 entities, 891 medical institutions, and 96,343 individuals, who have been allegedly involved in forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners.

According to China’s National Health Commission, as of November 2023, it has granted approval to a total of 188 medical institutions in China to perform human organ transplants.

Forced Organ Harvesting Is a ‘Dark Industry of Huge Profit’

Dr. Wang emphasized that the CCP has established a complete system of live organ harvesting in China now, turning it into a “dark industry of huge profit.”

Sign at Xinjiang airport saying special visitors and human organ transplant channel. Organ harvesting witness Enver Tohti told an inquiry that such a sign in a Xinjiang airport was an indication of the volume of organ transplants happening in Xinjiang, China. Enver Tohti

“This system not only provides organs to extend the lifespan of high-ranking CCP officials but also involves selling organs worldwide due to substantial profits,” said Dr. Wang.

It is difficult to know the exact number of people killed for their organs by the communist regime, as “there actually aren’t any survivors” of the operations, according to Nina Shea, a human rights lawyer and former commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

According to the “Report Into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China“ coauthored by two Canadian rights activists David Kilgour and David Matas in July 2006, the size of the profits for transplants, as of April 2006, was suggested in the following price list:

• Kidney - $62,000
• Liver - $98,000-130,000
• Liver-kidney - $160,000-180,000
• Kidney-pancreas - $150,000
• Lung - $150,000-170,000
• Heart - $130,000-160,000
• Cornea - $30,000

In July 2021, China’s top health watchdog—the National Health Commission (NHC)—issued a notice, instructing each province in China to set up its own prices related to different human organs, or “procurement costs of organs,” as written in the notice.

According to a report in China’s state-run Medical and Health newspaper on Oct. 30, 2021, six provincial governmental departments of China’s central Henan Province, including the health department, the finance department, and the Red Cross Society, jointly issued a notice, setting the local “fee items and fee standards for obtaining donated organs” in Henan Province.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Henan Health Department for comment but hasn’t received a reply as of press time.

Asian patients are the major group of patients having organ transplant surgeries in China due to the short waiting time. The number of patients is so large that it is known as “organ transplant tourism.”

Japan released its latest numbers for transplant travelers, showing one-third of them had their organs transplanted in China, according to a report in June by The Epoch Times.

Ushio Sugawara, a former Japanese criminal gang member, says he witnessed that an anesthetized Falun Gong adherent was placed on an operating table to have his liver carved out. His tendons were cut shortly before the operation to prevent his flight. Mr. Sugawar left the gang in 2015 and is now an economic commentator in Japan.

South Korea is “known as a major consumer of transplant tourism to China,” according to the Korea Association for Ethical Organ Transplants (KAEOT) and Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH). The two nongovernmental groups called on the United Nations to urge the South Korean government to end its complicity in forced organ harvesting in China.

Dr. Wang said that the CCP’s forced organ transplant system, driven by insatiable greed, is unlikely to stop on its own. “The targets for organ harvesting are expanding beyond prisoners to include ordinary citizens, making anyone in mainland China a potential target for the CCP’s live organ harvesting.”

The CCP’s cabinet passed “Regulations on Human Organ Donation and Transplantation (Draft Revision)” on Oct. 20, 2023.

Tang Jingyuan, a senior commentator on China’s current affairs, said that the passing of the regulations is “an effective means to formally and completely legitimize the CCP’s state-sanctioned on-demand organ harvesting.”

Mr. Tang noted that there has been reportedly an alarming number of young people, including teenagers, disappearing in China.

“The CCP’s abhorrent killing through on-demand organ harvesting has expanded from Falun Gong practitioners to ordinary Chinese people, and the revised regulations [on human organ donation and transplantation] are equivalent to using the law to systematically cover up its crimes and patch up certain legal loopholes, making it more difficult for the outside world to investigate the dark secrets of its state-sanctioned massive murder,” said Mr. Tang in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

Ways to Stop Forced Organ Harvesting

Dr. Wang said forced organ harvesting is “anti-humanity.” He called on the whole world to stop the brutal practice in China and to “punish the CCP for its genocidal crime.” He said that organ harvesting targeting children and youngsters is “unacceptable.”

In a 2016 forum hosted by the WOIPFG, German lawmakers and leading international researchers on forced organ harvesting in China proposed a series of measures that the world could adopt to end the CCP’s crime: public condemnation, stop training Chinese surgeons, deny entry to doctors involved in killing for organs, put pressure on Western pharmaceutical firms, pass laws preventing “transplant tourism,” and raise awareness about organ harvesting.

On March 27, 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023“  which Dr. Wang hailed as ”a good step forward” in an effort to stop the CCP’s crime.

However, it is still “far from” ending the CCP’s atrocities, said Dr. Wang, “The whole world should step forward to stop the CCP.”

Mary Hong, Eva Fu, Joan Delaney, Luo Qiong,  Matthew Robertson, and Li Li contributed to this report.