Organ Harvesting in China: Professor Frustrated by Silence

French professor compelled to conduct his own investigation after he stumbled upon disturbing information.
Organ Harvesting in China: Professor Frustrated by Silence
Francis Navarro, head of the organ transplantation service in Montpellier University Hospital. (The Epoch Times)
Charlotte Cuthbertson
12/10/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/FrancisNavarro.jpg" alt="Francis Navarro, head of the organ transplantation service in Montpellier University Hospital. (The Epoch Times)" title="Francis Navarro, head of the organ transplantation service in Montpellier University Hospital. (The Epoch Times)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1824766"/></a>
Francis Navarro, head of the organ transplantation service in Montpellier University Hospital. (The Epoch Times)

PARIS—A French professor was compelled to conduct his own investigation after he stumbled upon disturbing information while training Chinese surgeons in organ transplantation techniques in China.

Professor Navarro, from France’s Montpellier University Hospital, heard that hospitals in China were conducting thousands of organ transplants for profit, and the organs were taken from unwilling and healthy Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned for their spiritual beliefs.

Navarro decided to pretend to be a patient looking for a fresh organ. His suspicions grew deeper when he heard the coordinator of a military hospital transplantation center say, “Hurry up, we have to proceed with all executions before the Chinese New Year.”

Navarro was one of the first to say that practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong were the main victims of organ harvesting in China. He told his story at a conference at the French Parliament House in Paris on Dec. 3.

It was the resistance of physicians, his colleagues, and Western institutions to his conclusions that gave Navarro the biggest surprise when he first shared them. “Our little voices as physicians are not listened to, because of other associated problems,” he said.

In January 2007, when Navarro prepared to answer an interview titled “Prof. Navarro will not transplant organs in China” by French magazine “Marianne,” he received an e-mail from a French Ministry official asking him to “control his statements.” Several colleagues also severely criticized him.

Navarro told the other investigators at the conference that he was glad of all the proof that had collected, because “we feel like we are not listened to.”

The main investigative reports were published by Canadians David Kilgour and David Matas, who have just released a book titled, “Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs.”

Kilgour, a former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, spoke at the conference. He said he and Matas have now compiled 52 elements of proof converging to the same conclusion: in China, army and military hospitals, perfectly organized under the leadership of the Communist Party, kill Falun Gong members to exploit and sell their organs.

“The allegations here are so shocking that they are almost impossible to believe,” the authors conclude in their July 2006 report. Using statistics from the regime, they found there were 41,500 organs “unaccounted for” during the years the persecution of Falun Gong was escalating. “The allegations, if true, would represent a grotesque form of evil which, despite all the deprivations humanity has seen, would be new to this planet,” they said.

The persecution against Falun Gong in China has been widely reported since its start in 1999. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has repeatedly demanded answers from the Chinese regime about torture, arbitrary detention, and organ harvesting against Falun Gong practitioners. Two-thirds of all reports of torture while in custody are Falun Gong practitioners, stated a U.S. State Department report in 2007.

Many transplantation organizations released statements after the first Kilgour-Matas report was released. Most condemned the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners, but stopped short on mentioning the possibility that the “prisoners” were Falun Gong practitioners.

Professor Yves Chapuis, one of the pioneers of transplantation in France, said at the conference that, for quite some time the community of transplant specialists—as well as the general population—has been skeptical about the allegations.

“Now, I think the truth is demonstrated in the most striking way,” Chapuis said. “This only makes our worries bigger.”

Chapuis, who chairs the Ethics and Law Commission in the French Medicine Academy, emphasized the political dimension of the situation: many French surgeons, as well as major research institutions, collaborate with Chinese transplantation centers.

“One of our presidents, the former one, went to participate in the opening of one such center,” he said. “You can therefore see in what kind of ambiguity we are residing.”

President of the French Falun Gong Association, M. Alain Tong, said that dissident Chinese media have recently revealed that two Chinese military officers were promoted for having actively participated in organ harvesting from Falun Gong members. Additional proof, according to Tong, that the murders not only remain unpunished, but receive encouragement, and that Falun Gong is indeed their main target.

Read more about Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong Practitioners