Australian Doctor Urges Ban on Training Chinese Surgeons to Stop Real-Life ‘Squid Game’

Falun Gong practitioners in Vienna, Austria, stage a demonstration of organ harvesting of imprisoned practitioners in China during a protest against importing of human organs from China to Austria on Oct. 1, 2018. JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images

An Australian organ transplant expert has warned hospitals and universities around the world to stop training surgeons from China, concerned they may participate in illegal organ harvesting when they return to China.

Prof. Russell Strong AC said that Chinese surgeons who receive medical training in the west may use what they’ve learnt to harvest human organs when they return to China.

“Hospitals and universities should stop receiving and training any surgeons from China, not just for transplants, any surgeons because the Chinese doctors know what is happening and they in a way are covering up all of this,” Strong told Daily Mail Australia.

A waiter dressed in an outfit from the Netflix series Squid Game holds a card while playing a game to attract customers at a cafe in Jakarta on Oct. 19, 2021. Photo by Adek Berry/AFP via Getty Images

As a world-renowned surgeon who specialised in liver surgery, Strong successfully performed Australia’s first liver transplant in 1985.

He was honoured by Queen Elizabeth with a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1987 and received Australia’s highest honour, the AC, in 2001.

Professor Strong believes that the mainstream media has failed to cover the credible reports of forced organ harvesting in China.

“I think the mainstream media has really failed to report the atrocities that are going on and have failed to connect the people of the free world with the victims of forced organ harvesting in China,” he said.

“It’s all to do with money. It’s money over human rights and the human rights abuses in China are outlandish.”

“It’s time we woke up in this country and stop kowtowing to China,” he said.

In making his point, Strong drew a comparison to the subplot of the popular Korean Netflix drama, “Squid Game,” which saw characters competing in life or death games while living under extremely controlled circumstances in a facility cut off from the outside world. The characters who lost were killed and some secretly had their organs harvested for black market sale.

According to the findings by special rapporteurs to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in June, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been “targeting specific ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities held in detention” for forced organ harvesting.

“UN human rights experts said today they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged ‘organ harvesting’ targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians in detention in China,” the UN statement said.

“The results of the examinations are reportedly registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation. According to the allegations received, the most common organs removed from the prisoners are reportedly hearts, kidneys, livers, corneas and, less commonly, parts of livers.”

Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, chair of the China Tribunal into forced organ harvesting on the first day of public hearings, London, UK, Dec. 8, 2018. Justin Palmer

The London-based China Tribunal concluded in March 2020 that forced organ harvesting was still happening in China “on a significant scale.” Practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice from the Buddhist tradition that consists of meditation, exercises, and moral teachings centred on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, are the “principal source” of human organs.

The bloody industry of forced organ harvesting is worth around $1 billion annually. Human rights groups put the estimated victims at 60,000 to 100,000 people every year.

Despite the evidence, Beijing firmly denied any involvement in forced organ harvesting, and referred to the UN statement as “fabricated” and “defamatory.”

Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade marking the 22nd year of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 18, 2021. Chung I Ho/The Epoch Times

Dr. Torsten Trey,  the executive director of Doctor’s Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), notes that despite Beijing’s denials they don’t engage in forced organ harvesting, the practice of harvesting organs from prisoners has a long history under the communist Chinese regime.

Trey said from 1984 the practice was limited to executed prisoners in China which kept the number of organ transplants low in the country. However, this changed in 2000 when the number of transplants skyrocketed.

“Since there is only a certain amount of capital offences and death sentences, before 2000, the number of transplants stagnated at a certain level. After 2000, the numbers of transplants increased significantly despite a plausible organ source,” Trey said.

He argued this was also around the time when the numbers of prisoners of conscience also increased dramatically in China and this he argues had a direct correlation with the increase in the number of transplants.

“In a country of 1.4 billion people, human life is replaceable in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party,” Trey said. “A torture death won’t be investigated.”

Like Strong, Trey also sees the correlations with the Netflix drama Squid Game. But he doubts that the show will really demonstrate the true horror of forced organ harvesting.

“The show alone might not achieve the effect because it is seen as a fictional story of a movie, and because the actual practice, forced organ harvesting from living people is too outrageous to be seen as real,” he said.