CHINA: ORGANS FROM PRISONERS STILL HARVESTED AT A MASSIVE SCALE (REPORT)

June 20, 2016: A new report claimed that thousands of people are being executed in China in secret and their organs harvested for use in transplant operations.
The report – by former Canadian lawmaker David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas, and journalist Ethan Gutmann – estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year in Chinese hospitals.
The report's findings stand in stark contrast to official figures which put the number of transplant operations at around 10,000 a year. Official figures show that 2,766 volunteers donated organs in 2015, with 7,785 large organs acquired.
According to the report, that gap is made up of executed prisoners, many of them prisoners of conscience locked up for their religious or political beliefs, and members of religious and ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, underground Christians, and practitioners of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
According to official statistics, there are more than 100 hospitals in China approved to carry out organ transplant operations. But the report states the authors have "verified and confirmed 712 hospitals which carry out liver and kidney transplants," and claims the number of actual transplants could be hundreds of thousands larger than China reports. (Sources: CNN, 23/06/2016)