This article is reprinted from Vision Times.
(TOP PHOTO: Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Chairman of the China Tribunal which found that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for their organs in China. Credit: Justin Palmer)
It has been proven beyond doubt that the Chinese state is killing large numbers of prisoners of conscience for their organs and the world must act to end it were part of a final judgment made by an independent tribunal.
These statements were part of a final conclusion from the China Tribunal’s final judgement delivered by former international war crimes prosecutor Sir Geoffrey Nice QC in London on June 17.
“Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners have been one — and probably the main — source of organ supply,” the judgement said.
“The concerted persecution and medical testing of the Uyghurs is more recent, and it may be that evidence of forced organ harvesting of this group may emerge in due course,” it said.
The tribunal concluded that forced organ harvesting continues today.
Based on a year-long investigation, the judgment’s findings prompted worldwide media attention over an atrocity that first came to light in 2006 following claims that imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners were being killed for their organs in northeastern China.
In its conclusion, the tribunal called on governments and international bodies to do their duty and step up to address this atrocity.
“Governments and any who interact in any substantial way with [China] … should now recognize that they are, to the extent revealed above, interacting with a criminal state,” said the tribunal.
The conclusion provided examples of who interacts with China, which included doctors and medical institutions; industry, and businesses, most specifically airlines, travel companies, and educational establishments.
Genocide
The tribunal said organ harvesting is part of what has been described as a genocidal campaign against Falun Gong, which has been targeted by the communist state since 1999.
“The tribunal notes that forced organ harvesting is of unmatched wickedness even compared — on a death for death basis — with the killings by mass crimes committed in the last century,” the tribunal said.
“There is justifiable belief in the minds of some or many — rising to probability or high probability — that genocide has been committed,” the tribunal said.
“In line with this, and by considering the evidence and the law, there can be no doubt that there is a duty on those who have the power to institute investigations for, and proceedings at, international courts or at the UN to test whether genocide has been committed.
“They should act immediately to determine accountability for any acts contrary to the provisions of the Genocide Convention.”
The tribunal was established by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC), an association of lawyers, academics, ethicists, medical professionals, researchers, and human rights advocates. Among ETAC’s International Advisory Committee is Benedict Rogers from the international human rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
After the tribunal’s judgment, Rogers said governments, especially those that profess to care about human rights, must take its conclusions seriously.
“If they disagree with the findings, they must provide clear evidence and analysis as to why. If they can’t, and they won’t speak out, silence must be taken as complicity,” Rogers wrote for Catholic media ucanews.com.
“The populace in democratic societies must press their elected representatives on this — apathy in the face of such crimes is not an option,” he stated.
“Those who deny this barbaric crime should — unless other evidence arrives to the contrary — ought to be presented as akin to Holocaust deniers.”
