A letter from the Chinese Embassy in Canada to the Citizen criticizes our finding that there exists large-scale organ harvesting of unwilling Falun Gong practitioners in China for transplants, killing them in the process. Our report is available at organharvestinvestigation.net.

The letter attributes our conclusions to rumours. Yet the bulk of our information came from verifiable government of China sources -- transplant waiting times and profits, the policy of persecution and incitement to hatred against the Falun Gong, and so on.

We obtained telephone admissions throughout China from hospitals about the use of organs for transplants from Falun Gong practitioners. We have tapes, transcripts, translations and phone bills for these calls, which independent researchers can check.

The letter states that China abides by World Health Organization standards on transplants. Yet Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have decried the harvesting of organs in China from prisoners without consent in violation of international standards, harvesting Chinese officials have themselves admitted.

The only live issue about organ harvesting in China -- the issue that our report addresses -- is what sort of prisoners are being killed for their organs, whether all or only some of the unwilling organ donors in China are prisoners sentenced to death.

Again, it is numbers emanating from the government of China that show that there are simply not enough prisoners sentenced to death for the huge number of transplants that take place in China. The organs of other prisoners, Falun Gong practitioners, sentenced to nothing, fill the void.

The letter attempts to mobilize those who care about China to oppose our efforts.

But surely those who care about China should oppose the murder of innocent Chinese for their organs.

David Matas,

Winnipeg

David Kilgour,

Ottawa

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007