Another look into LRF's Archive:

On June 18, 1996, Dr. Qian Xiaojiang testified in front of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, detailing his participation in organ extraction from prisoners in China.  During the 80s, Dr. Qian worked as a physician at the Bangpu Medical Institute in Bangpu, Anhui Province. At the time, organ transplantation was in its infancy in China: the surgery itself was extremely risky, and because of traditional Chinese conceptions of the body, virtually no Chinese willingly donated organs.  Qian found out about the hospital's first successful kidney transplant surgery from his medical school roommate, who happened to be the son of the hospital's director of the Urological Department.

The kidney, of course, belonged to an executed prisoner.

Dr. Qian moved to Shanghai and worked in clinical immunology at the Shanghai No. 2 Medical University, where he studied transplant rejection and organ failure.  Dr. Qian testified that approximately 20 kidney transplant procedures took place every year, and nearly all organs came from executed prisoners. And in China, doctors are not required to test if prisoners are brain-dead before beginning organ extraction: in one case in the spring of 1987, doctors "could feel tremblings and pulses in [the prisoner's] limbs.  Everything from that prisoner, kidneys, spleen, heart, and corneas were extracted. [A colleague, Dr. Shao Ming] used the word, 'Empty.'"

Dr. Qian concluded that in China, kidney transplant surgeries using prisoners' organs are an "open secret." "In China," he said, "whenever a patient needs a kidney, the first reaction, no matter whether it is the surgeon, the nurse, or the patient himself, is: 'wait for the guy to be shot.'"

Dr. Qian's full testimony will be available in the LRF digital archive when it launches this fall.

Over the last 18 years, Laogai Research Foundation has amassed an immense amount of historical and present day documents, photographs, video, and other artifacts related to Chinese human rights issues, with a particular emphasis on the Laogai. In order to preserve these resources and make them available to the public, LRF is building a digital archive to house our collection. While a limited amount of material will be made available in the fall of this year (and the online collection will grow as our resources permit), we wanted to give you a sneak peak at one item that will be available: video from a BBC investigation into the profitable harvesting of Chinese prisoners' organs for sale.

In a BBC broadcast from November 15, 1994 a news team traveled to China to investigate claims that prisoners who were executed in China were then harvested for their organs  for transplants to both Chinese and foreigners. In China, sentencing prisoners to death is often publicly televised (though this is less so today given international criticism) and quite often the crimes that people could be put to death for were ones that one wouldn’t normally think would be severe enough to warrant execution (i.e. robbery). According to reports, criminals under the age of 25 were those most “sought after” for organs, since they would likely be the most healthy. Chinese officials were reported as saying that the harvesting of prisoner organs allowed condemned men to repay a “debt” to society since they would be used for a “greater purpose.”

Today, Laogai Research Foundation released its latest action report “Bodies on Display: The Risks in Trading in Human Remains from China.” You can download the report here. This current report details the controversy surrounding Premier Exhibition, Inc., the use of “unclaimed” Chinese bodies in its traveling exhibitions and provides ideas for future action. Key topics discussed in the report include:

• China’s prolific execution of prisoners and the sale of their organs and bodies for profit
• A case study detailing the risks run by foreign corporations who trade in human remains from China
• Government action taken on these suspicions to date
• Possible courses of future action to raise awareness of the bourgeoning black market trade in bodies from China

For more information on China's death penalty and organ harvesting, see our fact sheet: "China's Death Penalty: Profiting from Execution."
 

LRF is releasing a new fact sheet: "China's Death Penalty: Profiting from Execution."  This fact sheet explores China's use of the death penalty, the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners, and the sale of the plastinated bodies of former prisoners.

If you still have questions about the death penalty in China after reading the fact sheet, please leave your questions in the comments section of this post.  We'll be sure to address your questions in the future.

Also, make sure you check out LRF's Laogai fact sheet:  "The Laogai: Exercising Dictatorship Over Dissent."

Prolific Twitterer and Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao continues to follow the story of three men who staged a hunger strike to protest their death sentences in a murder case. According to Teng, the situation is "growing desperate!" LRF has translated his latest tweets and posted them below.  To see Teng's earlier tweets about the case, as translated by LRF, click here.

#lpya Tweets from Teng Biao in Chronological Order (Oldest to Newest) Part II

江西乐平无辜公民被以故意杀人罪判死缓，多年申诉无果，方春平、黄志强和陈发根自2月23日早在景德镇监狱3绝食，现已100小时。采访电话：13155771226；13241918519；13910576638 #lpya #deathpenalty
Leping, Jiangxi Province-Innocent citizens were wrongfully sentenced to deferred death sentence for intentional homicide, Fang Chunping, Huang Zhijiang, and Cheng Fagen have been on a hunger strike since February 23rd, totaling 3 days! Interview phone numbers: 13155771226；13241918519；13910576638 #lpya #deathpenalty

死刑冤案： 3名公民正在景德镇监狱绝食 #lpya #sixing http://tengbiao.blog.sohu.com/144911410.html
Wrongful Death Sentence: 3 citizens in Jingdezhen prison are on a hunger strike #lpya #sixinghttp://tengbiao.blog.sohu.com/144911410.html

江西乐平无辜公民被以故意杀人罪判死缓，方春平、黄志强和程发根自2月23日早在景德镇监狱绝食，现已4天，生命危急！！！家长13155771226；监狱07982662967；13979865126 律师13241918519 #lpya
Leping, Jiangxi Province-Innocent citizens were wrongfully sentenced to deferred death sentence for intentional homicide, Fang Chunping, Huang Zhijiang, and Cheng Fagen have been on a hunger strike since February 23rd, totaling 4 days and the situation is growing desperate! Lawyer  13241918519 Prosecutor’s office 0791-8312947 Family  13155771226 Prison 07982662967#lpya

Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao has been closely following the case of three men in China who, Teng tweets, have been wrongly accussed of murder and sentenced to death. While the men started a hunger strike to protest their sentence, Teng took to Twitter to let the world know about their plight. 

Teng asked for help this morning translating his tweets into English and LRF wanted to help out.  See his tweets and our translation below:

#lpya Tweets from Teng Biao in Chronological Order (Oldest to Newest)

1. 景德镇监狱3名公民绝食仍在继续。江西乐平4名无辜公民被以故意杀人罪判死缓，多年申诉无果，方春平、黄志强和陈发根三人自23日早晨起开始绝食。要求还其清白。滕彪、许志永、李和平、张赞宁等多名学者律师长期关注此案。 #lpya

In Jingdezhen prison, 3 innocent men started a hunger strike yesterday morning to protest the death sentences they received from a murder case they have been appealing for years with no success. The case of Fang Chunping, Huang Zhijiang and Chen Fagen has been closely followed by Teng Biao, Xu Zhiyong, Li Heping, Zhang Zanning and other legal scholars for a long time.

2. 从1999年9月9日和2000年5月24日，江西乐平市连续发生了两次杀人、抢劫、强奸大案，乐平市公安局无法找到真凶，为了破案，对方春平等四人采取了残酷的刑讯逼供，生不如死，不得已违心承认。但被打出来的口供与其他物证之间没有任何关联。 #lpya

From September 9, 1999 to May 24, 2000, there were two consecutive incidences of rape, homicide and robbery in Leping city, Jiangxi Province.  When the Leping Public Security Bureau was unable to find a legitimate suspect, they decided to detain Fang Chunping and 3 others, all of whom are unrelated to the case, and cruelly tortured them for days to withdraw a false confession.

(Read more after the jump)

The Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche received a dubious honor today, making the short list for the Public Eye Award 2010, an award that is handed out each year to the multinational corporation with the worst ethics. The award is cosponsored by the Berne Declaration and Greenpeace, and will be announced in late January, just before the opening of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos. Despite tough competition, La Roche seems set to "win" in the category of inhumane global business practices.

According to data reviewed by Public Eye Award sponsors, Hoffman-La Roche conducted clinical trials last year on a new drug, Cellept, that suppresses the immune system of recipients of organ transplants in order to lower the risks of organ rejection. To be sure, this has the potential to be a life-saving drug. The problem is these test were conducted on 300 organ transplant recipients inside China. Since even the Chinese government admits that the vast majority of organs for transplants in China come from executed prisoners, to conduct a clinical trial on organ transplants of this scale inside China is morally reprehensible. You can learn more about the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners in China here.The clinical trial could have easily been conducted in Europe, the US, or some other region with a better-regulated organ donation system, but it appears that Hoffman-La Roche chose instead to compromise their integrity in order to save money. This certainly justifies their status on the shortlist for the Public Eye Award 2010, and may very well be enough for Hoffmann-La Roche to take home the prize.

Click here to read the original German article announcing this news.

Earlier today China executed a British citizen for the first time in 50 years. Akmal Shaikh, reported to suffer from "severe mental illness", was arrested in 2007 for attempting to smuggle heroin into China from Tajikistan. 

In response to the execution, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a statement strongly condemning China's refusal to grant clemency, especially given the uncertainty surrounding Shaikh's mental health status. China responded simply, "We express strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British reaction.  We hope the British side will face this case squarely and not put new obstacles in the way of relations between Britain and China."

Furthermore, the extensive international criticism prompted China's "legal experts" to defend the execution as "legitimate" and in accordance with "China's Criminal Law".  Wang Mingliang, a professor of criminal law at Fudan University in Shanghai, even went as far as to say that Shaikh's execution had "nothing to do with human rights concerns." (Read more after the jump)

According to Xinhua (via Reuters and BBC), earlier today the Chinese government pressed forward in the campaign against the Uyghur’s arrested after the July riots in East Turkestan (Xinjiang) that left approximately 200 people dead and wounded an additional 1,600 people, according to government statistics.  In a court in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, five more people were sentenced to death.

Previously, nine were executed last month and three others were given the death penalty with a two year reprieve. 

Along with the five sentenced to death, eight other individuals received prison time, with two receiving life in prison.  This new batch of sentences brings the total number of July uprising convictions to 34, with five more cases to be heard in court tomorrow.

For more on the struggle of the Uyghur people and the occupation of East Turkestan, please see Harry Wu's interview with Rebiya Kadeer and the Uyghur American Association.
 

In a joint report issued Tuesday the United Nations and the Council of Europe declared a new international pact is needed to ban trafficking in human organs, tissues and cells, with the object of protecting victims and punishing offenders.

This announcement came almost 6 weeks after Chinese Minister of Health Huang Jiefu announced the launch of an organ donation system to, “eliminate illegal organ trading and encourage people to become donors.”

According to the United Nations’ World Health Organization, 90 percent of the organs transplanted in China each year come from executed prisoners, and the process of organ extraction from executed prisoners has become even easier in recent years with the utilization of lethal injections and mobile execution vans.