NEW YORK—A petition that has garnered nearly 6,000 signatures in just 2 days calls for President Donald Trump to help end the practice of forced organ harvesting in China.
Trump had his first meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping on Thursday, but they are expected to get into more deeper discussions on Friday at the summit.
The White House petition created on April. 5, urges Trump to ask Xi Jinping to end the forced organ harvesting against Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience in China.
The forced organ harvesting is part of a wider persecution which began in 1999 by then Communist leader Jiang Zemin and is still happening today against Falun Gong, a peaceful, spiritual practice.
Hundreds of thousands practitioners in detention are vulnerable to becoming victims of forced, live organ harvesting, one of the most atrocious and inhumane practices today, according to researchers.
The Chinese Regime is estimated to have performed between 60,000 and 100,000 transplants each year from 2000 to 2015, the bulk from Falun Gong practitioners, according to a nearly 700-page report published in June last year.
The report authors—David Kilgour, a former Canadian Secretary of State and member of Parliament; human rights lawyer David Matas; and investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann—explain that this is how transplant patients can go to China and get a organ within days or even hours, if they can pay for it. By contrast, patients can be on wait lists for years in other countries.
The ultimate conclusion of the report, said Matas at the National Press Club in Washington on June 22, “is that China has engaged in the mass killing of innocents.”
If the petition on the White House-sponsored site collects 100,000 signatures by May 5, then the White House is obliged to furnish a response. The text of the petition reads:
“Irrefutable evidence shows that former Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, not only started a brutal persecution against Falun Gong in 1999, but also initiated the abominable and deadly forced organ harvesting practice against this peaceful group—a practice that is intolerable in the 21st century. The civilized world must stand up against these atrocities and demand an end to one of the greatest human rights violations of our time.
“Mr. President, AMERICA FIRST signifies core American values. The defense of human rights is one of our greatest virtues and the foundation of our nation. You have a chance to show the world that the United States remains the leader in defending human rights and will not remain silent in the face of these crimes against humanity.”
