Czech Lawmakers Warn Against Medical Tourism to China for Organ Transplants

Ding Lebin at a hearing on the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong at the lower house of the Czech parliament in Prague, on April 23, 2024. Michal Kováč/The Epoch Times

The Czech Republic has warned against traveling to communist China for organ transplants because the organs may have been forcefully removed from living people.

Czech Deputy Minister of Health Vaclav Platenik issued the warning at a public hearing before the lower house of the Czech Parliament, where lawmakers and rights advocates discussed how to end the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in communist China.

Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that combines meditative exercise with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The group has faced relentless persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999, including mass arrests, detention, torture, and other abuses. Its tens of millions of jailed practitioners have been a prime target of the regime’s forced organ harvesting.

A petition in the Czech Republic demanding an end to the CCP’s persecutory campaign against Falun Gong has gathered more than 50,000 signatures, triggering the session of the Committee on Petitions in the lower house on April 23.

“We recommend that state authorities pay sustained attention to the fate of the oppressed Falun Gong followers in China,” the committee stated at the event.

The European Parliament also adopted a resolution in January condemning the ongoing persecution, urging its member states to denounce the CCP’s organ transplant abuses publicly and sanction its perpetrators.

The resolution raised the plight of a German citizen’s father, who is currently held in a Chinese jail for practicing Falun Gong. The father, Ding Yuande, has been detained since May 2023 after a dozen plainclothes Chinese police took him away from their tea plantation without a warrant. In December 2023, he was sentenced to three years in prison. The EU resolution called for the immediate release of the man and other persecuted Falun Gong practitioners.

Ding Lebin, whose father is held in a Chinese jail for practicing Falun Gong, spoke at a public hearing at the lower house of the Czech parliament in Prague, on April 23, 2024. Milan Kajínek/The Epoch Times

At the hearing in the Czech Republic, Ding Lebin expressed worry about the prospect that he may never see his father again, saying it’s possible that his father will be killed for his organs by China’s ruling party.

Under the CCP’s watch, the practice of forcibly harvesting vital organs from living individuals for profit has been industrialized to staggering proportions, according to extensive research, eyewitness accounts, and evidence that has emerged over the past decade and a half.

An independent tribunal held in London and headed by Sir Geoffrey Nice concluded in 2019 that forced organ harvesting had been committed for years in China “on a significant scale” and that the main source of organs was Falun Gong practitioners.

Czech officials condemned such abuses.

“The abuse of Falun Gong practitioners in the area of organ transplants is condemned not only in the Czech Republic, but in all parliamentary forums around the world. It is an unacceptable practice,” Eduard Hulicius, the deputy foreign minister, said at the hearing.

Mr. Platenik said the health ministry is aware that some European countries have adopted strict laws that aim to deter their citizens from traveling abroad to receive illicit organ transplants, especially those performed in countries such as China.

Israel’s Organ Transplant Law, which came into effect in 2008, essentially banned the purchase and sale of human organs. Several European countries, such as Spain and Belgium, have adopted similar measures, and the Czech government may follow suit.

Vaclav Platenik, deputy minister of health, speaks at a hearing on the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong at the lower house of the Czech Parliament in Prague on April 23, 2024. Milan Kajínek/The Epoch Times

Following the hearing, Mr. Platenik stated that the Czech health ministry “warns against transplant tourism to China.”

“In addition to the health risk, you can receive an organ forcibly removed from a prisoner,” Mr. Platenik said in a statement issued after the hearing. “In the Czech Republic, transplants are strictly monitored.”

In the United States, three states have enacted legislation prohibiting organ transplant tourism. The most recent was Idaho, whose governor signed the state’s End Organ Harvesting Act into law on April 10.

The U.S. House of Representatives also passed a resolution last year that would sanction people involved in the human rights atrocity.