New testimony given before Congress has indicated that the allegations of forced organ harvesting in China have taken an even more disturbing turn.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) held a hearing last month, with Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) — the chair and co-chair of the commission — present. During the hearing, titled, “Stopping the Crime of Organ Harvesting: What More Must Be Done?” the commission heard from witnesses detailing how China has continued forcibly harvesting organs from Uyghurs, other Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Falun Gong practitioners, political prisoners, and more — but with an added twist.
Maya Mitalipova, the director of the Human Stem Cell Laboratory at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, explained that the Chinese government has become extremely interested in DNA sequencing, and how it can aid them in their goal of obtaining organs on demand. She explained that “the main reason why the Chinese government invested billions of dollars into DNA sequencing of the entire population of Xinjiang and Tibet [is] because it will make exponentially many more billions of dollars per year in return [in organ transplantation.]”
How does DNA sequencing help with organ transplants? As Mitalipova explained:
When a patient requests an organ in China, his/her DNA sequenced data will be “blasted” against millions in the DNA database stored in computers. Within a few minutes, a perfect match will be found. If a potential donor of the organs is not in prison or a camp, then Chinese authorities can easily find a reason to detain a match to be killed for their organs on demand.
READ: Leaked files show thousands of Uyghurs in concentration camps in China
She noted that witness reports have indicated that authorities in Xinjiang have made blood draws for DNA mandatory — as well as ultrasound checks of all internal organs, including iris scans. These results are not given to the “patients” in question. While finding an organ in places like the United States or Europe can take years, in China, organs can be procured within just weeks. And they come at a price, too; Mitalipova testified that the least expensive is a kidney transplant, which costs around $70,000, while other organs can cost up to half a million dollars.
Ethan Gutmann, the China Studies Research Fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who also testified at the hearing, said a minimum of 25,000 Uyghurs are subjected to forced organ harvests each year.
It is believed that at least one million, and as many as three million, Uyghurs are currently imprisoned in concentration camps in China. These people are subjected to unspeakable human rights abuses, including food deprivation, torture, overcrowding, solitary confinement, forced labor, torture, rape, forced sterilization, forced separation of children from their parents, destruction of cultural and religious heritage, and forced organ harvesting by Chinese authorities against Uyghurs.
Other prisoners include Falun Gong practitioners, political prisoners, and religious minorities. It has been reported that the victims of the forced organ harvesting scheme are still alive when their organs are removed — and that the surgeries occur without anesthesia, leading to an excruciating death.
