Hong Kong Epoch Times Host Threatened by Chinese Police After Organ Harvesting Report

Epoch Times host Rachel Wong (L) on a Cantonese-language talk show “Shi Shan’s Outlook” on March 12, 2021. Screenshot from YouTube

A current affairs host at the Hong Kong edition of The Epoch Times was recently threatened by police in mainland China, who sent her a message: Stop broadcasting programs, or face arrest under the new national security law.

Rachel Wong, host of the Hong Kong Epoch Times’ Cantonese-language talk shows “Shi Shan’s Outlook” and “What’s Wrong,” said she believed she was targeted by the Chinese regime for exposing its crime of forced organ harvesting in a recent program.

Wong, who hosts daily shows on YouTube covering topics related to the regime in Beijing, reported evidence of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China on a program on March 12. Four days later, a family friend based in mainland China was contacted by local authorities.

Wong told Epoch Times affiliate NTD TV that she received a message from a relative on March 16, telling her that a family friend had been called in for questioning by public security officers in her hometown in mainland China.

The police used threats to try to coerce the friend into pressuring Wong “not to do [Epoch Times] programs anymore” under the current political climate.

They asked the friend, “If the national security law is used against [Epoch Times staff] and targets them in the future” and, as a result, Wong’s parents no longer “have a daughter, it would be very sad, right?” according to Wong.

Last year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong that punishes what Beijing deems to be acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, or collusion with foreign forces, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Since the legislation took effect in July 2020, the CCP has used the law to drastically curtail freedoms in the city, arresting and charging dozens of pro-democracy figures for alleged violations of the legislation.

Many fear the national security law will further restrict press freedom in the city. With much of Hong Kong’s media adopting pro-Beijing stances, The Epoch Times is one of the few local media outlets that cover the CCP’s abuses in China, Hong Kong, and abroad.

Organ Harvesting

Wong suspects the recent harassment is the result of a program she hosted two weeks ago, exposing the CCP’s practice of killing imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners for their organs.

“It is the most in-depth episode exposing the CCP since I have begun working in the media,” she said.

During the program, Wong played two audio recordings, including a recording of testimony from a police officer who was on duty at the scene of an organ harvesting operation in Liaoning Province.

Transcript of the recording of an armed police’s testimony, who was on duty at the scene of an organ harvesting operation in Liaoning Province. Screenshot from YouTube

Transcript of the recording of an armed police’s testimony, who was on duty at the scene of an organ harvesting operation in Liaoning Province. Screenshot from YouTube

The other was of former Commerce Minister Bo Xilai acknowledging that former CCP leader Jiang Zemin had issued commands to kill Falun Gong adherents and sell their organs for profit.

The latter was recorded from a phone call in September 2006 to the Hotel Atlantic Kempinski Hamburg, where Bo stayed during a visit to Hamburg, Germany, accompanying then-Premier Wen Jiabao.

The transcripts were published online by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, a U.S.-based advocacy group, in 2016.

In 2019, an independent people’s tribunal found, after a year-long investigation, that the CCP was harvesting the organs of prisoners of conscience—mainly Falun Gong practitioners—on a “significant scale.” Practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, have been brutally persecuted by the Chinese regime for more than two decades. Millions of adherents have been imprisoned, and hundreds of thousands have been tortured, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

While this is the third time Wong has received a threatening message from Chinese public security officials, she asserted that she wouldn’t be cowed.

“[The CCP] fears the most when it comes to its scandals, such as genocide, mass extermination, and live organ harvesting,” she said. “If you hide it away, or if you shut the voice down or take a step back, it’s actually more dangerous.”

Wong had a message for the CCP:  "Any threat or any action they make to me in the future, I will make it public. I do live shows every day, and I can say it every day.”