‘Heartbreaking’: Calgary Audience Moved by Documentary on China’s State-Sanctioned Forced Organ Harvesting

International Rotarians and local residents take part in a screening of the documentary “State Organs” at the Calgary Central Library on June 23, 2025. Carolina Avendano/The Epoch Times

CALGARY–International rotarians and local residents took part in the screening of the documentary “State Organs” in Calgary this week, with attendees and former MPs calling for action in stopping the state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience in China.

The movie screening was one of several events at the Rotary International convention, an annual gathering that draws thousands of participants from around the world focused on community and global initiatives. The documentary was screened in two sessions on June 23 at the city’s central library, and was presented by the End Forced Organ Harvesting Rotary Satellite Club, a volunteer group dedicated to raising awareness of the issue.

Amelia Stansell, vice chair of the Rotary Action Group Against Slavery, said after the viewing that she had heard about forced organ harvesting before, but that the documentary “really opened my eyes even more.”

“I was one of those that was teared up and had to share a Kleenex with everybody in our row–that was just a heartbreaking movie to watch,” she told NTD News, The Epoch Times’ sister media.

“This is not something [people] just see on TV, portrayed in some crime show, but [this] is really, really happening, and it’s really happening to real humans,” she said.

Amelia Stansell, vice chair of the Rotary Action Group Against Slavery, at a screening of the documentary “State Organs” at the Calgary Central Library on June 23, 2025. NTD News

“State Organs,” directed by Raymond Zhang, depicts the story of two families in search of their young relatives, who were taken into police custody for practising Falun Gong, a meditative practice that has been heavily persecuted in China since 1999.

In their two-decade search for their relatives within China’s prison system, the families uncover evidence of a systematic, government-run organ harvesting operation involving the removal of organs from living prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, for profit and as a form of torture.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline combining meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Introduced in China on May 13, 1992, it is currently practiced in more than 100 countries worldwide.

The persecution of Falun Gong in China was launched in 1999 by then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin, who saw the practice’s widespread popularity and spiritual tenets as being at odds with the party’s officially atheist stance and a threat to the CCP’s authority. Since 1999, practitioners who refuse to give up the practice have been subjected to severe persecution, with reports of torture, forced labour, physical and sexual abuse, and forced organ harvesting.

Former MP Rob Anders, who attended the screening, said that while some people may find it hard to believe that forced organ harvesting is taking place in China, the extensive evidence leaves little room for doubt.

“I just hope that more and more people realize what is going on in China. I think the atrocities that are being perpetrated against Falun Gong are comparable to, if not in excess of, what happened under Nazi Germany,” he said.

“I think more people just need to be aware that if they are getting organs from Falun Gong practitioners in China, Falun Gong practitioners are dying to provide those organs, and the government has tremendous blood on its hands.”

Former MP Rob Anders at a screening of the documentary “State Organs” at the Calgary Central Library on June 23, 2025. NTD News

Forced Organ Harvesting

The issue of forced organ harvesting in China was first revealed in 2006, when whistleblowers began to come forward.

One of them was Annie (alias), who told a 2006 press conference in Washington, D.C., that her ex-husband, a Chinese neurosurgeon, had removed corneas from living Falun Gong practitioners at a hospital in Sujiatun in Northeast China, and that the victims’ bodies were thrown into incinerators, sometimes while they were still alive.

The organ procurement practice was confirmed in 2019 by the China Tribunal in London, an independent panel of lawyers and experts. It concluded that “forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and Falun Gong practitioners have been one–and probably the main–source of organ supply.”

The tribunal also said it “had no evidence that the significant infrastructure associated with China’s transplantation industry has been dismantled and absent a satisfactory explanation as to the source of readily available organs concludes that forced organ harvesting continues till today.”

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

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Falun Gong Protection Act, which includes provisions to sanction individuals implicated in forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. The bill is currently before the Senate.

Canadian lawmakers passed related legislation in 2022, introducing amendments to the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to combat forced organ harvesting, organ transplant tourism, and organ trafficking. The act made it a criminal offence for a Canadian citizen or permanent resident to travel abroad to receive an organ from a non-consenting donor.