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Trafficking in human organs
Harvested from convicted criminals
A New York transplant doctor has become the first American physician to discuss a practice that he believes is becoming more common: US patients are traveling to Asia and paying $10,000 or more to receive a transplanted organ harvested from executed prisoners in China. Dr. Thomas Diflo revealed his concerns in an interview with the Village Voice.
Diflo, director of the renal transplant program at the New York University Medical Center, told the newspaper he has seen half a dozen patients in his clinic who admitted to receiving transplants from Chinese executed prisoners—some of whom were convicted for minor offenses. He said he has taken his concerns to the medical center’s ethics committee.
“To tell you the truth, the original rationale for bringing this situation to the ethics committee was my own discomfort in taking care of these patients. I was outraged at the way in which they obtained their organs, and I had a great deal of difficulty separating that fact from the care of the patient,” Diflo told the Village Voice.
“Several patients were very up-front and candid about it, that they bought an organ taken from an executed convict for about $10,000,” Diflo recalled. “Most of the patients are ecstatic to be off of dialysis, and none has seemed particularly perturbed regarding the source of the organs.”
The sale of organs is a felony in the US under a 1984 law and is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. Prisoners in the US—whether or not they face execution—are forbidden from even donating organs, except to family members and under tightly defined circumstances. The Village Voice quoted human-rights organizations as saying that the FBI is working to find and prosecute illegal organ brokers.
Bishop, priests, laymen arrested
Raids during Holy Week
A Chinese bishop, five priests, and at least a dozen laymen were arrested by the Communist authorities during Holy Week this year, according to the US-based Cardinal Kung Foundation.
The foundation said Bishop Shi Enxiang of Yixian, in Hebei province, was arrested in Beijing on Good Friday, and is being kept in an unknown location. Bishop Shi has spent about 30 years in total in jail for refusing to acknowledge government controls on the practice of religion, with his last three-year jail term ending in 1993. Authorities tried to arrest him in 1996, but failed when the bishop escaped into hiding. He remained free, living underground, until his arrest on April 13.
Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, said: “A Holy Mass, a prayer service, and even praying over the dying by Roman Catholics are all considered illegal and subversive activities by the Chinese government. While Christians around the world were observing the holiest week of the year, the underground Roman Catholic Church in China suffered another assault from the Chinese government.” He added, “These incidents, along with Beijing’s recent behavior toward the American crew and its plane that made an emergency landing in China, should awaken the United States and its allies of China’s flagrantly abusive policies toward other nations as well as its own people.”
Action urged
US effort to curb human-right abuses
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended that the Bush administration should put greater pressure on the government of China to ease the country’s official repression of religious freedom.
“The situation in China has grown worse in the past year,” said Elliott Abrams, chairman of the commission, as it issued its second annual report. The commission also named India, Indonesia, Russia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, Sudan, Vietnam, and North Korea as either directly repressing religious freedom or allowing elements within the country to oppress others.
The commission report, presented to President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and congressional leaders, had a list of nonbinding recommendations, including censuring China over human rights and opposing its bid to host the Olympics.
In China, the report said, the government has expanded its crackdown on unregistered religious groups, tightened control on official religious organizations, intensified its campaign against the Falun Gong spiritual movement, and increased control over official Protestant and Catholic groups as well as Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims.