Report on forced organ harvesting in China

https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgement-report/

by Scotrix • 7 years ago

238 149 7 years ago

   While stopping short of concluding that the killing and 
   forced organ removal of these peoples constitutes genocide in 
   its legal definition (due to a lack of proof of actual intent 
   to commit genocide), the panel nonetheless condemned the forced 
   organ removals as a crime against humanity and an act of 
   "unmatched wickedness".

This article made me shiver.

How did China get away with this for so long?

lotsofpulp2• 7 years ago

How did China get away with this for so long?

Because no other nation(s) is willing and able to engage in military conflict with China to stop it.

FartyMcFarter6• 7 years ago

Other nations could do less drastic things though. Sanctions would be an example.

devoply2• 7 years ago

Usually human rights is used as a tool for prevailing economic and foreign policy goals. The fact that we're now concerned with all these various human rights issues as well as spying, etc, is about the politics of our times than it is about human rights. But hey I will take it whichever way I can get it. So yeah please stop human rights abuses. Thanks.

marcinzm• 7 years ago

How did China get away with this for so long?

In short, money. Voters and corporations tend to get upset when their supply of cheap material goods (and landfills) is cut off.

simion314• 7 years ago

How did China get away with this for so long?

You can't touch big countries, US, China, Russia can do whatever they want, who will dare to start something?

You can get away with shit as a small country to as long as a big country has no economic or military interest in your area, we all notice that all recent wars are fought in areas of strategic importance even if genocides happen in other areas too.

layoutIfNeeded• 7 years ago

They make stuff cheaply.

luckylion8• 7 years ago

How did China get away with this for so long?

There's a busy "organ transplant tourism" going on, from Japan, Korea and Western countries to China. You can be certain that's it's not the poor, powerless from these countries that profit from the murder-for-organ-harvesting schemes the Chinese run in their prisons.

Spooky23• 7 years ago

The fig leaf that we used to justify dismantling the American economy to make short term profit and bolster China was that Communism was the problem, and making money was the pixie dust that would fix everything.

carapace2• 7 years ago

How did China get away with this for so long?

Skepticism and complacency.

Also, they're still getting away with it.

This was formally condemned by Congress three years ago. Falun Gong do demonstrations at the Whole Foods store down the street.

Most people aren't monsters. (I would imagine that even most of the organ recipients don't connect the dots and don't know where their new organ came from. The medical staff that know what they're doing are another story, it's dismal that so many psychotic monsters could be found or made.)

Something as horrifying as this causes cognitive dissonance and, in order to return to a lower energy state, the mind rejects it. At least until there is enough incontrovertible proof.

It also doesn't help that any sane and healthy response to this maddening, sickening, horrifying crime must be massive, total, and sustained.

Massive because the evil is massive; total because there can be no compromise with this evil; and sustained because the temptation will remain until we have solved human tissue regeneration.

If you're a US citizen and you care about this please contact your representatives and let them know.

Don't be shy about bringing this up.

The United States House of Representatives unanimously passed an unprecedented resolution Monday [3 years ago], condemning forced organ removal from Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience in China. House Resolution 343 (full text) was co-sponsored by 185 Democrat and Republican members. Among other actions, it demands that the Chinese government immediately end the practice of forced organ removal and stop the persecution of Falun Gong, and calls on the U.S. State Department to provide more detailed analysis of the topic in its annual human rights report.

https://faluninfo.net/u-s-congress-condemns-forced-organ-har...

It's going to be hellish getting them to stop formally, let alone the black market. Niven called it:

Organlegging is the name of a fictional crime in the Known Space universe created by Larry Niven. It is the illicit trade of black market human organs for transplant. The term organlegging is a portmanteau combining the words "organ" and "bootlegging", literally the piracy[1][2] and smuggling of organs.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organlegging

everybodyknows3• 7 years ago

Shortcut link to officers of the organization: https://chinatribunal.com/who-we-are/

Merrill• 7 years ago

The China Tribunal has been initiated by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), an international not for profit organisation, with headquarters in Australia and National Committees in the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. ETAC is a coalition of lawyers, academics, ethicists, medical professionals, researchers and human rights advocates dedicated to ending forced organ harvesting (a form of organ trafficking) in China.

https://chinatribunal.com/about-etac/

Susie Hughes Executive Director, Co-Founder

https://www.linkedin.com/in/susie-hughes-904288119/?original...

optimalsolver2• 7 years ago

Has anyone here read Larry Niven's Gift From Earth?

This is literally the plot (but on another planet).

ralphstodomingo• 7 years ago

Truly jarring if this is true. The systematic persecution of and violence against political opposition is one thing, the oppressive surveillance another, but I think forced organ harvest (especially on living people!) crosses a line.

What can we do?

fwsgonzo• 7 years ago

Lines are crossed all the time. Makes me think of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Suddenly now the concentration camps are the lesser evil of stealing organs from political enemies.

bayesian_horse5• 7 years ago

I have read about the possibility of large-scale harvesting of organs from prisoners for a few months now. First thing to note about this particular article is that "The China Tribunal" has no formal or legal standing, it is basically a volunteer organization trying to collect evidence.

When they say "Worst Fears [...] Were Just confirmed" they are at best misleading.

There has been a notable dearth of reporting by traditional journalistic media about this topic, and so I am still somewhat skeptical. The evidence presented so far is not as conclusive as with the Uyghur suppression.

The practice described in the article would undoubtedly be a crime against Humanity, and among the biggest in history. But I can't tell right now if the process of its discovery is just slow-moving or if there is just nothing that big to discover. I'd appreciate any pointers to more information either way.

seanmcdirmid5• 7 years ago

The Chinese government itself has admitted that this was done in the past but they promised to no longer allow it to happen...on multiple occasions. That China did this isn’t really in doubt, the argument is only about whether they still do it.

The central government has a hard time getting rid of this practice because they aren’t as omnipotent as they appear, there is a lot of vested interests that localities continue the practice.

Given the very low percentage of organ donors in Chinese culture, you’ll know they’ve stopped harvesting organs when their turn around time for organ transplants goes up by a lot.

rdl3• 7 years ago

Also the "we can get you organs in a day, give us the specific requirements..." is a pretty serious red flag even if there's a high normal donation rate.

bayesian_horse5• 7 years ago

They admitted to having used organs from prisoners with relatively "valid" death sentence in so far that there is any such thing as a fair trial in China.

What is alleged here is much worse: Prisoners of Conscience (and not drug traffickers or murderers) are particularly selected for their histocompatibility and executed "on demand".

Therefor I think these allegations need further proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and that's why I suggest a cautious approach to this story.

jtdev2• 7 years ago

A hard line stance on China’s human rights abuses, currency and trade manipulation, and intellectual property theft will be a top requirement for my support of 2020 US presidential candidates.

AsyncAwait8• 7 years ago

While I'd imagine you'd ignore U.S. abuses and provocations, (Iran?), I imagine? Is China worse than Saudi Arabia for example? Because I can't imagine U.S. speaking strongly against KSA, can you?

The U.S. doesn't really care about human rights, or its own abuse of them, (was any top official prosecuted for Iraq?), so you'd be voting for posturing.

ilikehurdles4• 7 years ago

See, this is pretty typical of how the Chinese are told about their own government’s abuses in schools and media: “but what about the other guy?!”.

It’s just not a valid argument. It serves only to change the topic and justify nationalism.

sonnyblarney• 7 years ago

"U.S. abuses and provocations, (Iran?)," - this is a two sided coin.

scarmig2• 7 years ago

Yes, China is worse. It harvests tens of thousands of organs from political prisoners. It holds hundreds of thousands of minorities in concentration camps in Xinjiang. And that barely scratches the surface.

The KSA needs to face severe repercussions too, but repression, censorship, and extralegal assassinations are all in a day's work for the PRC.

lostmymind66• 7 years ago

"U.S. abuses and provocations, (Iran?)"

I don't consider getting our drone bombed out of the sky and backing down from a missile strike a 'provocation'. It's much better than our previous administration's idea, which is to give them money to go away and hope they don't use it on nuclear weapons against us.

"The U.S. doesn't really care about human rights, or its own abuse of them"

Sure it does. There are stories every month about people in our military getting prosecuted for abuses. I don't think I've heard one story about this happening in China or Saudi Arabia.

"so you'd be voting for posturing"

It's not all or nothing. Nothing the US is doing even compares to the horrors of China. It's good to have a candidate against this.

I seriously doubt this will ever happen. Trump is the only president that would even broach the idea of punishing China. If a Democrat gets into office in 2020, it will be business as usual and the problems will be kicked down the road, like they have been with Iran.

syntaxing• 7 years ago

Whataboutism is called a fallacy for a reason...Suggesting a wrong isn't wrong because of others actions of wrong is middle school age moral logic at best.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

illumin82• 7 years ago

This is a textbook case of whataboutism. The US is not perfect, but let's not get distracted when the topic at hand is the forced harvesting of organs and genocide of religious and ethnic minorities.

latchkey• 7 years ago

What was your requirements for the last few elections?

xenocyon• 7 years ago

It's weird to speak of literal organ harvesting and the legal fiction (admittedly, an arguably useful fiction) of intellectual "property" in the same sentence. One of these things is not like the other.

_lessthan0• 7 years ago

what about a hard line stance on Saudi (on Yemen) and Israel (on Palestine), China is obviously doing horrible acts but countries that US are supporting are doing equally horrible actions.

FartyMcFarter6• 7 years ago

While extracting the liver and kidneys from an executed victim who had been shot in the head and dumped by the side of a road, Tohti made a horrifying discovery.
"I started cutting down the middle and then he started struggling and I knew then that he was still alive, but he was too weak to resist me, " Tohti told The Telegraph.

What the actual fuck.

youareostriches4• 7 years ago

Harvested Alive (2017): https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/akbaxf/harve...

smoyer• 7 years ago

Sometimes the only correct response is to cry ... but when you stop, make what you do count. You may not have the power to change the original situation but you can always make someone's day at least a little bit better.

jdietrich3• 7 years ago

This is a textbook thought experiment in utilitarianism, carried to its logical conclusion. Kill one person, save eight. We might not like it, we might consider it abhorrent, it might contravene international human rights law, but we can't argue that it's senseless.

keymone• 7 years ago

Right, but is utilitarianism not senseless? Maximum happiness for majority of population is free heroin distributed and administered by state.

wsxcde• 7 years ago

What you're leaving out is that the one person being killed is not picked randomly from the citizen pool, they are all persecuted minorities. So, a more accurate statement would be that China is murdering one person from a group the communist party doesn't like to save eight from the ethnic group that constitutes the overwhelming majority of the ruling class.

That is not utilitarianism, it's just tribalism and xenophobia.

jdietrich3• 7 years ago

Is it completely implausible to believe that people from "a group the communist party doesn't like" are simply less useful to Chinese society than a randomly selected citizen?

I'm not trying to defend China here, but it's futile to condemn an action if you have not made a good-faith effort to understand the rationale. China is a collectivist society - the rights of the individual are always secondary to the rights of the whole. We believe that people have a fundamental right to cause trouble, even if that's detrimental to social order; the Chinese Communist Party don't and a substantial proportion of their population agree wholeheartedly.

Saying "the Chinese shouldn't do this because it contravenes human rights" is like them saying "the First Amendment is terrible because it undermines social cohesion". It's an argument that seems nonsensical or in bad faith, because it's grounded in a completely alien conceptualisation of the role of the state and the rights of the individual.

If you want to make a persuasive argument, you need to address that core ideological difference. Why is your right to freedom of religion more valuable than our collective right to freedom from religious conflict? Why is your right to free speech more valuable than our collective right to social cohesion and stable governance? Why is your right to life more valuable than the right to life of the eight people who your organs could save?

Answering those questions is difficult and uncomfortable, but it's fundamentally necessary if you actually want to promote the values of liberal democracy rather than ineffectually condemning a different political culture.

luckylion8• 7 years ago

Falun Gong are primarily the same ethnic group as majority: han. They are oppressed because the Communist Party cannot accept any rival ideology, even if it's a non-violent, peaceful spiritual ideology, because that might loosen their grip on the population.

I'm sure there are utilitarian communists out there who would argue that, yes, terrible, terrible, but necessary for the greater good.

optimalsolver2• 7 years ago

Exactly. It's much easier for people to reason about utilitarian ethics when it involves ridiculously unrealistic scenarios like the trolley problem.

devoply2• 7 years ago

It's not really utilitarianism at all. There is nothing in utilitarianism that says round up some undesirable group and kill them so a few wealthy people might get organs so they can live. The greatest good for the greatest number of people. What is the consequence of these actions, well first murder. That leads to no happiness for the murdered, their families and loved ones. The people receiving the results of that murder, when aware that they are culpable in murder and should probably be imprisoned for it, would not be very happy with the consequences. So no this is not utilitarianism. It's completely immoral and shows the sort of moral turpitude of that situation.

charles_f• 7 years ago

But the assumption you're making is that they're being killed in order to be harvested. While this is certainly a perverse incentive that such a collection system is creating, I don't find where the article mentions that organ harvesting is the reason for their collection, but mention their execution for dissidence and ethnicity.

If those victims were to die anyway, it does become somewhat of an utilitarian problem.

And if it is, the gaming issue that would bias decisions towards executing the prisoners instead of "lighter" sentences due to the "gains", which creates a vicious feedback loop ; and the fact that overall the gains in that system are not just people surviving, but also captors getting rich ; should point clearly to the vice and undefiable corruption that make it undeniably unethical.

That and the fact that a regular human with any ounce of love or humanity in its blood should feel how wrong and disgusting this all is

StavrosK3• 7 years ago

Setting aside the persecutions, torture and possible genocide, which are undoubtedly heinous, something perplexes me:

Why do we consider it ethical for a state to execute prisoners, but consider harvesting their (now useless) organs to save more lives is ethically abhorrent?

I am much more outraged by the fact that they're killing people for political reasons, the fact that they're harvesting their organs afterwards seems comparatively tame to me.

I realize that harvesting organs from not-quite-dead prisoners, or killing prisoners just to harvest the organs is extremely unethical, but if someone was executed for a different reason, is it so bad to use their organs? They didn't consent to getting killed either, why are we drawing the line at organ harvesting?

ysleepy• 7 years ago

It creates an incentive to hand out death sentences instead of lesser more appropriate punishments.

therealjumbo• 7 years ago

Because it creates a conflict of interest in the state. Similarly we don't let the state employ prisoners in any sort of for profit endeavor.

Back in the day the British had prisoners move large rocks from one side of the prison yard to the other and then back again. That's brutish but there some logic behind it to keep the state from enjoying the activity.

IanCal• 7 years ago

Similarly we don't let the state employ prisoners in any sort of for profit endeavor.

Doesn't the US have prisoners working for well under a dollar an hour in places?

Nextgrid• 7 years ago

It corrupts the “justice” system even more by giving an incentive to sentence the suspect to death as opposed to just prison time.

Of course, the death penalty itself is IMO immoral and I do not support it, but these are separate issues. The death penalty being there is one thing but at least nobody is benefiting from it being used. Harvesting organs from its victims changes that.

StavrosK3• 7 years ago

That's true, thanks for the counterpoint.

rdl3• 7 years ago

They're holding people in camps for extended periods. It appears (at least from what I've read) that they're really only murdering them for the organs, not because they were going to kill them. Keeping people imprisoned for no-crime is wrong, but not as bad as killing them, and is fairly proportional to the length of confinement, too. Thus, it is reasonable to specifically protest the organ-harvesting.

brennebeck• 7 years ago

I don’t think the harvesting alone is the main issue. I think it’s the (perceived or real) systemic abuse, e.g. the quantity. Especially if you consider, according to the article, they also have an organ donation registry. You just can’t disconnect the two issues here, they’re inextricably linked.

hydrox242• 7 years ago

Why do we consider it ethical for a state to execute prisoners, but consider harvesting their (now useless) organs to save more lives is ethically abhorrent?

I don't know if the following moral argument would pursuade most people, but I think it does work if you accept it is ethical for the state to execute people in the first place.

It is wrong because the state now derives a material benefit from harvesting the prisoner's organs. This treats the prisoner as an means rather than an end in themselves. This is a bad thing in itself for someone who subscribes to Immanuel Kant's view of morality (or something like it). But it is, in addition, something of a hazard in providing the government with an incentive beyond justice itself to kill people.

The death penalty is still moral in this framework because it is meted out to people who have themselves murdered others, and thus decided that the law to which they hold themselves permits killing, and it is therefore appropriate for the state to treat them as reasonable beings, which means treating them according to their own moral law. (this is a terrible explanation, but I hope it is a good first step. I can try and reply more later if you ask questions.).

The death penalty is not permissible for whatever crime however, only specific ones.

StavrosK3• 7 years ago

Hmm, no, that is convincing. Especially since the state now has an incentive to kill someone, I guess that would open up a whole can of worms.

zachrose• 7 years ago

For starters, we don’t all consider it ethical for a state to execute prisoners.

One thing the U.S. could do would be to end capital punishment in our own country. Bluntly, it would have all the moral leadership of sanctions and none of the economic impact.

ilikehurdles4• 7 years ago

Your premise is false, we don’t consider it ethical for the state to execute prisoners.

I’m glad you’re lucky enough to be born in the right place, with the right ethnicity, family name, and religious beliefs. Imagine if you were unlucky enough to get one of those things wrong, and be born to be imprisoned, tortured, and taken apart to be sold for scraps by China.

everybodyknows3• 7 years ago

For a start, how about the observation that ponying up cash for an organ apparently triggers scheduling of the state murder?

"...man in need of a kidney..." "...organs are still readily available in China for transplant tourists with very short waiting times."

https://chinatribunal.com/reading-material/

Matching of donor kidneys to immune system of specific recipients is critical to avoiding rejection.

devteambravo• 7 years ago

I was on an operation table, as surgeons cut deep and worked fast, and I cannot imagine what it's like to be one one such surgeon's table when they goal isn't wellbeing. Nightmarish

everybodyknows3• 7 years ago

A friend who traveled widely in China back in the '80s described a busy cornea transplant trade around the prisons in outlying areas. Wait times were typically one day. One day.

brainless• 7 years ago

1984 is being played out inside this country if this is true. The horror is beyond imagination since this seems state directed/aided.

My only hope is this news spreads like wildfire within its boundaries and citizens of China wake up.

aembleton• 7 years ago

What has this got to do with 1984? I don't remember anything about forced organ transplants in there.

samschooler• 7 years ago

Honestly it takes 1984 a step further. We can’t say because they are harvesting organs it doesn’t have the same themes as 1984. This is terrifying.

youareostriches4• 7 years ago

And this wasn’t enough already?

Tiananmen Square protest death toll was 10,000:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-42465516

"Students linked arms but were mown down including soldiers. APCs then ran over bodies time and time again to make 'pie' and remains collected by bulldozer. Remains incinerated and then hosed down drains. "Four wounded girl students begged for their lives but were bayoneted."

hydrox242• 7 years ago

The report this is referencing is available here[0]

The tribunal was setup, for what it is worth, by a campaign group called: "International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China"[1]

[0] https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgement-report/

[1] https://endtransplantabuse.org/

dang3• 7 years ago

We changed the URL to that from https://www.sciencealert.com/our-worst-fears-about-where-chi....

FartyMcFarter6• 7 years ago

Could you please answer the question in this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20250367

Thanks!

RenRav3• 7 years ago

Can't we restrict the flights to China of people that are on organ transplant waiting lists?

ilikehurdles4• 7 years ago

HIPAA

RenRav3• 7 years ago

Then I guess there is no real way to stop people from going to China for organ transplants.

rdl3• 7 years ago

There is something brilliant about using a group of people who intentionally keep their organs in the best possible condition (Falun Gong does exercise, avoids alcohol, smoking, and some foods, etc.) as your oppressed-minority-live-organ-banks.

OTOH, I think the only reason they were hated was due to being popular and somehow offending or scaring someone in power. They were tolerated or even supported for a long time and then suddenly The Enemy.

The Falun Gong repression is probably one of the greatest examples of evil in the world today.

krn• 7 years ago

I think the only reason they were hated was due to being popular and somehow offending or scaring someone in power.

The idea of not being the highest authority to the people is the scariest thing to any authoritarian power.

That's why they are closing churches, jailing pastors, and rewriting scripture in China as Christianity’s popularity grows[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christia...

thedudeabides5• 7 years ago

This doesn’t help either as cultural context

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Heavenly_Kingdom

throwaway2019B• 7 years ago

It's incredible the mysticism that outsiders assign to Falun Gong. If Falun Gong were in the West, you'd look at them the same way you look at Scientologists and anti-vaxxers. The entire premise behind Falun Gong is that it cleanses your body of diseases such that you won't need medication.

So you had people literally dying from abandoning their medication in favor of Falun Gong exercises while the leader collected fees from giving seminars/selling books on his system.

Remove the context of this taking place in the evil country that is China, and all you have left is just another cult leader selling snake oil.

HeWhoLurksLate2• 7 years ago

There is a fundamental difference between anti-vaxxers and the Falun Dafa (Falun Gong is the same thing, I'm referring to it as Falun Dafa because that't their preferred name). The Falun Dafa take active steps to avoid needing Western medicine (you aren't as likely to go into depression if you exercise and do stuff every day, and thus not need anti-depressants) whilst most anti-vaxxers are only united in not giving their children Western medicine. It's one thing to say "I don't like that option, so I won't take it", and another to say "I don't like that option, so I'll do something else".

Do I agree with all of Falun Dafa's beliefs? No, I do not.

Should they be chopped up and their organs harvested? NO.

youareostriches4• 7 years ago

Shamefully, my HN account was shadowbanned for posting ethical objections to chinese nationalism on the basis of these atrocities committed by the government merely several months ago.

whamlastxmas• 7 years ago

Hoping for unbiased moderation here is a waste of time.

dang3• 7 years ago

I call this class of comment the "linkless martyr".

People make grand, self-flattering claims about why they were supposedly banned. Strangely, what they never do is supply links so readers can make up their own minds. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be that we don't ban accounts for "posting ethical objections"?

youareostriches4• 7 years ago

That’s a rather passive aggressive way to ask for a link, isn’t it?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19507288

Oh and what do you know, now that comment appears to have been flagged, too!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20249650

throwaway6192• 7 years ago

This is a controversial subject. It is important to get information from sources that have rigorous fact-checking and a reputation to defend.

FartyMcFarter6• 7 years ago

How about the BBC, is that good enough?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-china-45474277/uigh...

portobello• 7 years ago

I don't see anything about this topic at that link.

throwaway6192• 7 years ago

BBC is absolutely good enough. They have a legally binding corporate governance structure, a team of editors fact-checking the reporters and sources, annual audits from an external team, and a reputation for honest journalism to defend for continued readership. https://www.bbc.com/news/help-41670342

I recommend getting information from sources like the BBC over sources like the "China Tribunal".

abricot• 7 years ago

So, lets err on the side of genocide?

alexbresler• 7 years ago

This is an interesting interview with a well known CCP critic that discusses the history of this program and a bunch of other minimally discussed things.

I would encourage people to take the time to watch this.

https://youtu.be/nxyVZh_fVVw

hirundo• 7 years ago

It's important to realize that this isn't what the Chinese government is capable of, it's what governments are capable of. It can't happen here overnight, but it can happen here. Just look at the otherization and dehumanization increasingly embraced by people across the political spectrum, and dial it up to eleven.

This should give people at least sympathy, if not agreement, with gun rights advocates. While private guns can't stop a powerful government from having their way with us, they can at least make it more expensive. Would China be able to do this as quietly and without civil war if the Chinese people had the same number of private guns per capita as the US?

Many of us quite reasonably believe that gun rights aren't worth the huge number of gun crimes in this country. Others of us fear state actors even more than individual criminals and feel that the high cost of gun crimes is worth the price. Even if you disagree, stories like this should give you empathy for their argument.

If you think it can't happen here, did you think that this country would move in the political direction that it has in the last few years? I didn't. Uncertainty about the social future should translate into humility about the quality of our prognostications ... and fear about how bad it could get, and how fast.

nightwing• 7 years ago

Unfortunately guns alone are not enough, china didn't get this way quietly but after a civil war where socialists won. So the future will not be decided by guns but by the portion of people who value freedom, and understand the importance of keeping the government small. Paradoxically this also requires a government providing some social services, because the people who decide that they do not have anything to lose are very dangerous for the society as a whole.

(Note this is not an argument against gun ownership, just an argument for better education and having more children.)

QuickToBan4• 7 years ago

It's simply the absence of an opt-out system that leads to either organ shortages or forced donations. An opt-out system fixes all of this immediately.

hereiskkb4• 7 years ago

Opt-out system fixes the forced extraction of organs from dissidents and prisoners? Please, do explain how?

RenRav3• 7 years ago

Maybe he meant it fixes shortages and reduces waiting lists, which reduces demand for China's prisoner organs.

QuickToBan4• 7 years ago

An opt-out system means that anyone (not limited to Falun Gong and other cults) who is already dead will potentially have their organs harvested except if they registered in a national opt-out registry while they were alive. Organs will then be in such abundance that no one will have to be killed for them as they are now. This will be at no cost to the living. It requires a cultural shift.

seanmcdirmid5• 7 years ago

Many Chinese are actually against organ donation culturally, China would be one of the last places an opt out would be introduced.

QuickToBan4• 7 years ago

And therein lies the problem. It needs cultural change, perhaps forcibly, and it really has no cost to anyone alive. At least then people won't ever be killed to extract their organs.

yzlnew• 7 years ago

What worried me is that actually someone out there believe in this shit.

hereiskkb4• 7 years ago

Provide contradicting evidence for your assertion.

Ambele• 7 years ago

We can only ask for the UN or another entity to investigate this and draw a rightful conclusion. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty and not the reverse. We won't know until after an investigation occurs. This post may draw up enough of a report to request that an investigation takes place.

yretresw• 7 years ago

Because the russian boogeyman is so last year, let's invent a new one.

hereiskkb4• 7 years ago

You lack a basic understanding of what the term 'invent' is. There are evidential documents to support the findings.

apo• 7 years ago

In its "unavoidable" final conclusion, the China Tribunal found forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale, primarily sourcing body parts from detained Falun Gong practitioners, and possibly also an ethnic minority called the Uyghurs (although other groups are also targeted).

Oddly enough Falun Gong enjoyed approval from the Chinese Government in the early 90s:

According to David Ownby, Professor of History and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Université de Montréal, Li became an "instant star of the qigong movement",[119] and Falun Gong was embraced by the government as an effective means of lowering health care costs, promoting Chinese culture, and improving public morality. In December 1992, for instance, Li and several Falun Gong students participated in the Asian Health Expo in Beijing, where he reportedly "received the most praise [of any qigong school] at the fair, and achieved very good therapeutic results", according to the fair's organizer.[15] The event helped cement Li's popularity, and journalistic reports of Falun Gong's healing powers spread.[15][20] In 1993, a publication of the Ministry of Public Security praised Li for "promoting the traditional crime-fighting virtues of the Chinese people, in safeguarding social order and security, and in promoting rectitude in society."

That changed when the organization refused to become more closely aligned with the regime:

In 1995, Chinese authorities began looking to Falun Gong to solidify its organizational structure and ties to the party-state.[53] Li was approached by the Chinese National Sports Committee, Ministry of Public Health, and China Qigong Science Research Association (CQRS) to jointly establish a Falun Gong association. Li declined the offer. The same year, the CQRS issued a new regulation mandating that all qigong denominations establish a Communist Party branch. Li again refused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

_lancen• 7 years ago

I have no way of knowing if this particularly is true. I am Chinese myself and lived overseas for most of my life, a year or so ago I backpacked around Xinjiang so I can certainly attest to the police state over there.

When I returned from Xinjiang, I thought about it a lot and the only conclusion I could come to in the end is that human beings in aggregate are for the most part scum and cowards. It's conclusion that gives me no hope in the future but I cannot avoid it.

Taking into account the scale but not the novelty (genocide/ethnic cleansing as a form of statecraft, in fact I am reminded of Japanese experiments on Chinese in WW2, the irony of the oppressed eventually becoming the oppressor). I have to conclude that given the right circumstances, anyone can do just about anything. It takes constant vigilance and self-courage to be a consistently good person, most of us in the developed west have just never been put into a situation where we are compelled to do something real shitty.

arcticbull• 7 years ago

When I returned from Xinjiang, I thought about it a lot and the only conclusion I could come to in the end is that human beings in aggregate are for the most part scum and cowards. It's conclusion that gives me no hope in the future but I cannot avoid it.

I also spent time there, and I don’t think that’s a fair conclusion at all. Most people aren’t cowards and scum, most people follow and focus their energies on their survival and that of their kin. The less they have in terms of wealth the less time and head space they can devote to anything else. We’ve seen here on HN studies that show poverty changes the way you think.

Of the few that lead, there are good and there are bad. However I think the leaders and followers tend to be disjoint sets and it’s unfair to project the morality of one onto the other. It neglects the realities of human behavior. I think you’re inferring some broader mission or value statement that doesn’t exist from largely self serving small scale actions.

baybal2• 7 years ago

I have to conclude that given the right circumstances, anyone can do just about anything. It takes constant vigilance and self-courage to be a consistently good person, most of us in the developed west have just never been put into a situation where we are compelled to do something real shitty.

I can't do anything but to strongly agree with you on this point.

A lot of discourse for which I run into trouble on HN (and in real life as well...) is me tryint to correct somebody's wrongs, just to see somebody popup with "calm down man", "do not disturb peace", "do not make it a problem", " there is nobody right or wrong"

I can say the West has this problem, and it comes from attitudes of people higher up on social ladder. This unreadiness to be forceful in confronting wrongs is: 1. totally disgusting; 2. errodes things that make society a society; 3. will eventually cost dearly to the West

carapace2• 7 years ago

"I owe you my life."

Since time out of mind, the ultimate, unpayable, debt.

"I owe you my life."

Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people who have received life-saving organs owe their lives, their very lives, to their donors.

"I owe you my life."

FartyMcFarter6• 7 years ago

Why did this article disappear so quickly from the front-page?

It got 206 points in 2 hours, which is a lot better than most front page articles...

appleflaxen• 7 years ago

chinese doctors and scientists should be banned from international meetings until this stops.

echaozh2• 7 years ago

The page itself and both of the "short form"/"summary" reports downloadable are vacant claims and introduction of the organization and of Falun Gong.

After years of propaganda, I don't believe there still are so many Falun Gong followers in Mainland, let alone to have their organs harvested. Yes, most of us Chinese Mainlanders are fucking Atheists. And even if most of us more or less believe in karma and reincarnation and other forms of buddaism, Falun Gong is vastly different, especially as I know it, it's not compatible with going to buddist temples.

echaozh2• 7 years ago

Basically, if your search Google for 法轮大法/Falun Dafa and 寺庙/buddist temple, you will see entries posted and reposted with title "寺庙修行半辈子，不如念念法轮大法好"[1][2]/"Reading Falun Dafa for a while is better than practicing buddism in a temple for half of your life". I don't think it's fair or honest to make such claims to convert buddists. And I think it may lead to backfire from the buddist religious circle.

[1]https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... [2]https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

Report on forced organ harvesting in China

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