Evidence of meeting #66 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transplant.
A video is available from Parliament.
February 5th, 2013 / 2 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
In recent years, the European Parliament, United States congressional subcommittees, the UN Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Religion or Belief and on the Question of Torture, have raised concerns regarding allegations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
How would you characterize the impact of international efforts to raise awareness regarding organ harvesting in China?
2 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you very much for your question.
There are problems; I am just as convinced as David that that is the case.
We learned French in Paris, and unfortunately that was 40 years ago.
As you know well, the position of Director General of the World Health Organization is occupied by Ms. Chan, who is from Hong Kong, I believe. David may have a different opinion, but I think that the WHO has not shown much cooperation. I do believe nevertheless that some progress has been made by all of the organizations that you and we have referred to. We remain optimistic, but time is passing and every day, people are dying.
2 p.m.
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
I would like to add something. I am going to do so in English, I am sorry.
First of all, Manfred Nowak raised this issue a couple of times in his report, asking for China to explain the discrepancy between volume of transplants and volume of identified sources. That was picked up by the UN rapporteur on religious intolerance; Asma Jahangir repeated that. The committee against torture, because China is a signatory to the convention against torture, asked China to appoint an independent investigation into sources of organs for transplants. The matter was raised in the universal periodic review.
There was a petition within Europe with 166,000 signatures from 36 countries. I presented it in December to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. I met with them a couple of weeks ago. The petition was asking the UN to do an independent investigation. The official I met said that he would canvass the rapporteurs on health, torture, and religious intolerance in doing this.
Obviously the international community could do more, but they're doing something. The European Union parliament has held a couple of hearings on this issue, one of which I participated in during December, so there is some engagement. My view is that the universal periodic review is another opportunity to remind the international community of this issue.
2 p.m.
NDP
Pierre Jacob NDP Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you.
In your opinion, what should Canada and other like-minded governments do to increase transparency with respect to China's organ transplantation system?
My question is addressed to both of you.
2 p.m.
As an Individual
I have a very simple suggestion. We could indicate on the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs that if you go to China as a tourist for an organ transplant, it is possible that you will be receiving an organ that came from a Falun Gong member who is a slave in a labour camp. I am certain that the Chinese Embassy would not appreciate that type of measure. However, up till now, I do not believe that any government has posted such a notice on its website.
2:05 p.m.
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
I have a couple of suggestions to make.
One is to continue to press for China to release death penalty statistics. Second, China runs four transplant registries whose statistics are reasonably reliable, because the hospitals report directly to the registries. They are in four different cities in China. One is in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong liver transplant registry used to be public; then I started quoting their figures, and they shut it down.
I would just say to China, make all data--obviously, not the individual data, but the aggregate--available from these four transplant registries. If you have that, and the death penalty statistics, I think you'd have a lot more transparency.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Merci.
Okay, we're basically at the end here.
I did have one general thematic...I guess it's a question. It's a statement, but I suppose there's a question attached to the end of it.
One of you, and I can't remember if it was Mr. Kilgour or Mr. Matas, made a comparison briefly to Dr. Mengele, and when I look at what happened with the Nazis and what separated out the monstrous regime they had from run-of-the-mill persecutions that have occurred elsewhere through history, what strikes me is not that the people who perpetrated it were more evil but that the apparatus of persecution became self-financing and was no longer a drain on the state. Persecution is an economically inefficient activity. Taking productive citizens and persecuting them is economically inefficient, but when you can make it self-financing, as it then was, there's no limit on what it can do.
The worry I have is that we have a self-financing apparatus for the persecution of a part of society. That's not its objective, but that is where it gets its raw material from, and it now has an incentive to keep itself going. Am I out on a limb here, or does that seem like a genuine problem?
2:05 p.m.
As an Individual
We'll both want to comment on that, but there's just one thing. The human body, last time I looked, under this system with the prices they have for the different organs, is worth about half a million dollars in China. Every Falun Gong practitioner or convicted prisoner is worth half a million dollars, because they take all the organs—they don't just take one—and then they burn the body. I think there's a huge waste, because you have to find people within a couple of days for the heart and so on. I'm sure there's enormous waste, but—in theory, at least—every human being who's killed under this terrible crime against humanity is worth half a million dollars.
As you said, that's a particularly distressing factor about this.
2:05 p.m.
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
Yes, it's half a million per body. If you look at it in terms of totals, the government of China occasionally coughs up totals of 10,000 a year, and that's like a billion dollars a year. That's an awful lot of money for them to say, “No, we're going to give that up.”
It isn't just the money. The primary concern of the party in power is power, not money. If you can create enough concern internationally so that their political legitimacy becomes questioned because of what they're doing, they will back away from this, in spite of all the money.
Obviously the money keeps it going, but the problem of money can be overcome if enough concerns are expressed about the human rights violations.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
I thank both our witnesses very much. You've been fantastically helpful to us. Every time you come back, you are better informed than you were before, and we are all very appreciative. Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.