Leading Human Rights Advocate to Attend Organ Harvesting Film Screenings in Bay Area

David Kilgour, co-author of "Bloody Harvest" and "The Update," has helped arouse opposition worldwide to atrocities in China

Former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour presents a revised report about organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China, as report co-author and human rights lawyer David Matas listens in the background, on Jan. 31, 2007. The Epoch Times

SAN FRANCISCO—David Kilgour, a former Canadian MP, former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, will visit the San Francisco Bay Area May 23–25.

Kilgour and international human rights lawyer David Matas are the key human rights advocates who have been involved in the investigation of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China.

In July 2006, their groundbreaking report, “Bloody Harvest,” provided evidence that mass, forced organ harvesting was taking place in China, and the victims were primarily adherents of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong. This was followed in 2009 by a book by the same name. In 2016, Kilgour and Matas, with the journalist Ethan Gutmann, published online a new report, “Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: an Update,” based on an examination of the transplant programs of hundreds of hospitals in China.

After the publication of the 2006 report, Kilgour and Matas have each traveled the world to raise awareness of the atrocities in China, testifying before the U.S. Congress and other national legislatures and parliaments, and speaking at academic seminars, human rights forums, and rallies.

Kilgour’s work with Matas led the U.S. Congress to unanimously pass H.Res.343 in June 2016 condemning China’s “practice of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting.” Several Bay Area members of Congress are co-sponsors for this resolution.

Independently of Kilgour and Matas’ investigation, Israeli heart surgeon Dr. Jacob Lavee discovered something was amiss with transplantation in China.

“In 2005, when I was approached by a patient of mine … he was told by his medical insurance company to travel to China in two weeks’ time, as he was scheduled to undergo heart transplantation on a specific date,” said Lavee in an interview with Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), of which Lavee is also a member. “The patient had indeed gone to China and underwent the operation on the exact date as promised ahead of time ... and the fact that one can get it on a specific pre-scheduled date was a total surprise to me and got me researching.”