Organ harvesting in China

Organ harvesting in China
Involuntary organ donation is illegal under Chinese law, but critics say Beijing does not enforce the policy.

Under the 1984 draft regulation, it became legal to harvest organs from convicted criminals: such operations can take place only with the consent of the family or if the body goes unclaimed. Official execution figures are considered state secrets.

The World Medical Association made declarations condemning these practices on various grounds in 1985, in 1987, and in 1994. In 1992, the Laogai Foundation, set up by Chinese dissident Harry Wu, was instrumental in proving, using court files, medical records and eyewitness testimony that organs were harvested from executed criminals were used for transplants. .

Before the advent of the lethal injection which did not damage internal organs in the late 1990s, China administered executions with a single bullet to the head or the heart to preserve the organs. Human rights organisations have questioned the way in which organs are obtained.

In Beijing, in 1998, the Secretary and Chairman of the World Medical Association and the Korean Medical Association reached an agreement with the Chinese Medical Association that these practices were undesirable and that they would investigate them jointly, with a view to stopping them. In 2000, the Chinese reneged and withdrew their cooperation. Amnesty International claims to have strong evidence that the police, courts and hospitals are complicit in the organ trade, which would be facilitated by the use of mobile execution chambers, or "death vans". Amnesty speculates that this hugely profitable trade might explain China's refusal to consider abolishing the death penalty, which is used on between 1,770 and 8,000 prisoners annually. Corpses are typically cremated before relatives or independent witnesses can view them, fuelling suspicions about the fate of internal organs.

In 2001, a Chinese doctor applying for political asylum revealed that he had removed organs from executed prisoners for the transplant market under the auspices of the People's Liberation Army. He claimed that he had operated to remove skin and corneas from executed criminals, and that other doctors sometimes took organs from bodies while their hearts were still beating.

In December 2005, after many years of denial, China's Deputy Health Minister acknowledged that the practice of removing organs from executed prisoners for transplant was widespread, and promised steps would be taken to prevent abuse. In March 2006, the Chinese government announced that a new law banning the sale of human organs and requiring that donors' written consent for their organs to be removed would take effect July 1.

In 2006, the World Medical Association once again condemned the practice of using prisoners as organ donors, and called upon China to stop the practice. "Prisoners and others in custody were not in a position to give consent freely and that therefore their organs must not be used for transplantation".

In October 2007, bowing to huge international pressure, and from a campaign to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games for China's human rights abuses, the Chinese Medical Association agreed on a moratorium of commercial organ harvesting from condemned prisoners, but did not specify a deadline. China agreed to restrict transplantations from donors to their immediate relatives.

Executed prisoners in the United States cannot have their organs harvested, as the preferred execution methods of lethal injection and the electric chair generally make organs unviable.