Mr. Cheng Pei Ming is the first known survivor of the ongoing state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting campaign carried out by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) against prisoners of conscience as reported by The Diplomat. His testimony comes at a pivotal time as new legislation has just been introduced to the U.S. Senate aiming to address the CCP’s forced organ harvesting and hold the CCP accountable for the crime.
Forced organ removal for political and genocidal reasons
The sale of organs is illegal in every country but Iran and organ harvesting can be human trafficking in disguise. Increasingly it occurs under a power imbalance in which the “donor” is in a position of extreme vulnerability. The CCP engages in extreme cases of organ trafficking in which there is no agency on the part of the victim-donor. As with Cheng, the forced removal of organs is for political or genocidal reasons. He is a practicing member of the Falun Gong, a religious minority China has branded a “dangerous cult”.
For decades there has been allegations that China is engaging in forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. And those prisoners are mostly members of Falun Gong, but also include Uyghurs and Tibetans. Due to his Falun Gong membership Cheng was imprisoned and tortured in China numerous times. It was during one of those detentions he unknowingly had parts of his organs harvested.
“They said that I had to undergo an operation, but I firmly refused. They held me down and gave me an injection, and I quickly lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was still in the hospital and felt terrible pain in my side.”
Cheng recounts he was shackled to his hospital bed with an IV tube taped to his foot, a drainage tube in his chest, oxygen tubes in his nose, and a 35 cm (about 1.15 ft) incision on the side of his chest. Included in the definition of “trafficking in persons” under Article 3, Section (a) of the UN Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) Protocol is “the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation”. Forced surgery while in prison clearly fits under this definition. But the horror didn’t stop there as Cheng didn’t discover the organ removal until much later.
Prison escape leads to grim discovery
Sometime after his first forced surgery the prison guards told Cheng he would be forced to undergo a second surgery. Doctors told him this surgery had an 80% mortality rate. The night before the surgery Cheng was unshackled to use the restroom. Luckily the guard forgot to re-shackle him to the bed. This provided an opportunity to escape via the hospital’s internal fire stairs. Once out of the hospital, Cheng was able to flee China as a refugee. He traveled to Thailand where he stayed in a United Nations camp until finally making it to the U.S. There he underwent some medical tests that confirmed what Chung had suspected. Segments of his liver and a portion of his left lung had been surgically removed.
“At that time, I didn’t realize that it was organ harvesting. After undergoing medical tests, I found out that my organs had been harvested. I didn’t even know about it until I was examined in the U.S.”
David Matas is an international human rights lawyer and co-founder of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China. As part of this work he has done extensive research into organ harvesting in China. Underscoring how severe the situation is in China, Matas estimates each year there are over 100,000 people killed through organ harvesting.
One of the lucky ones
Cheng got a lucky break and escaped with his life. He hopes hearing his lived account of this heinous crime will motivate the international community to act and hold the CCP accountable.
Cheng shared:
“I am one of the lucky ones – I survived. But there are countless others who did not. Their voices were silenced, but I will continue to speak for them. The world needs to know what is happening in China. This evil cannot be allowed to continue.”
Matas echoed this urgency, calling on the international community to recognize that forced organ harvesting “isn’t just a human rights violation – it’s a crime against humanity and it demands an appropriate response from the global community”.
Freedom United joins the voices of Cheng and Matas in the demand that the CCP be held accountable for this despicable crime. We call on China to immediately cease forced organ harvesting as well as other abuses inflicted by the government in the name of politics and genocide. If you haven’t already, add your voice to the call by signing our petition to tackle forced organ harvesting and trafficking.
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