HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.C.R. NO.

45

TWENTY-SEVENTH LEGISLATURE, 2014

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 

 

 

 

 

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

expressing concern over persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience, in the people's republic of china, including from large numbers of falun gong practitioners imprisoned for their religious beliefs and members of other religions and ethnic minority groups.

 

 


     WHEREAS, the People's Republic of China implemented regulations in l984 that permitted the harvesting of organs from executed prisoners; and

 

     WHEREAS, due in part to traditional views on the importance of preserving the body intact after death, China has very low rates of voluntary organ donations; and

 

     WHEREAS, the People's Republic of China performs more than ten thousand organ transplantations per year, yet as of May 2013, it did not have an organized or effective public system of organ donation or distribution; and

 

     WHEREAS, in June 2001, Chinese doctor Wang Guoqi testified before the United States House of Representatives' International Relations Subcommittee on International Organizations and Human Rights that hospitals worked in collusion with state security agencies to extract organs from executed prisoners without written consent of the organ donors, and that these transplants were a lucrative source of income; and

 

     WHEREAS, the United States Department of State's Country Report on Human Rights Practices for China for 2011 stated, "Overseas and domestic media and advocacy groups continued to report instances of organ harvesting, particularly from Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs"; and

 

     WHEREAS, in September 2012, experts testified before the United States House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee that United States patients continue to travel to China for organ transplants and that the medical community continues cooperation and training with Chinese colleagues, creating the risk that they may be indirectly aiding abusive practices; and

 

     WHEREAS, China's former Vice-Minister of Health Huang Jiefu admitted publicly that more than ninety per cent of transplant organs extracted from deceased donors stemmed from executed prisoners in China; and

 

     WHEREAS, voluntary and informed consent is the precondition for ethical organ donation and international medical organizations state that prisoners, deprived of their freedom, are not in a position to give free consent and that the practice of sourcing organs from prisoners is a violation of ethical guidelines in medicine; and

 

     WHEREAS, Falun Gong is an ancient spiritual discipline which emphasizes moral teachings of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, also includes meditation and exercises, and became immensely popular in the 1990s, reaching over seventy million practitioners in China; and

 

     WHEREAS, in July l999, the Chinese Communist Party launched an intensive, nationwide campaign of persecution designed to eradicate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, reflecting the party's long-standing intolerance of large and independent civil societal groups; and

 

     WHEREAS, since l999, hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained illegally in reeducation-through-labor camps, detention centers, and prisons, where torture and abuse are routine; and

 

     WHEREAS, the number of organ transplant operations in China increased significantly after 1999, corresponding with the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong; and

 

     WHEREAS, this increase does not appear to be attributable either to an overall increase in the number of death row inmates or to an increase in voluntary donations, and, in fact, human rights groups and legal experts believe there has been a decrease in the number of executions in China in recent years; and

 

     WHEREAS, Chinese hospitals have advertised waiting times of two to four weeks for kidney and liver transplants, and documented cases of scheduled heart transplantations with three weeks advance notice; and

 

     WHEREAS, because organs have a very limited survival period outside the body, such short wait times are best explained by the existence of a large pool of living donors whose organs can be harvested on demand; and

 

     WHEREAS, interviews conducted with previously imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners suggest that, while in custody, they were targeted for medical exams, including blood and urine tests, x-rays, ultra-sound tests, and selective physical exams; and

 

     WHEREAS, the targeted nature of these exams suggests they are intended to assess the health of the practitioners' vital organs and their potential candidacy for organ harvesting; and

 

     WHEREAS, other prisoner groups are generally not subjected to such medical tests; and

 

     WHEREAS, in 2006, doctors from seventeen Chinese hospitals admitted in phone calls with undercover investigators that they used or could obtain vital organs of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience for transplant, with some of the doctors implicating local courts and security agencies in the organ procurement process; and

 

     WHEREAS, the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the Special Rapporteur on Torture have expressed concern over the allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners, and have called on the Government of the People's Republic of China to increase accountability and transparency in the organ transplant system and punish those responsible for abuses; and

 

     WHEREAS, the killing of religious or political prisoners for the purpose of selling their organs for transplant is an egregious and intolerable violation of the fundamental right to life; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-seventh Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2014, the Senate concurring, that the Legislature calls on the Government of the People's Republic of China to immediately end the practice of organ harvesting from prisoners, and particularly from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience and members of other religious and ethnic minority groups; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the United States Department of State is urged to issue a travel warning for United States citizens traveling to China for organ transplants informing them that the organ source for their operation may be a prisoner of conscience; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Hawaii's congressional delegation, the United States Secretary of State, and the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the United States.

 

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title: 

China; Organ Harvesting; Falun Gong Practitioners; Legislature Opposes