Atrocity: Behind the Headlines in China

WASHINGTON—The Falun Gong Association of Washington, D.C. held a news conference Aug. 17 to ask the media, governments, and the public to be skeptical of the media’s explanations of the recent shakeup in China. The conference stated that unspeakable crimes of horror lie behind the headlines, which the current communist leadership is unwilling to admit to, and which Western news media is covering superficially.

The trial of Gu Kailai, wife of ousted Bo Xilai, the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood last Nov., former police chief Wang Lijun taking refuge in the American Consulate in Chengdu in February, and the fall from grace of Bo Xilai in March, stripped of his powers and investigated for disciplinary violations—all seem opaque. The motives of the main players are murky.

“The real reason Heywood was murdered was because of his involvement in organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners and the export of their bodies to be used in body exhibitions,” said Terri Wu, representing the Falun Dafa Association of Washington, D.C.

Wu based her conclusion on information from an Epoch Times’ source reported on August 8 in the article, The Real Reason Gu Kailai Murdered UK Businessman Neil Heywood. The source said that Heywood was involved with Bo and Gu in the business of organ harvesting in Liaoning, and had begun to tell people about their involvement.

Wu said that the official explanation for why Gu murdered her business associate and friend was because of business disagreements and Gu’s fear that Heywood would harm her son. For people who know the power and the mafia nature of the Bo family, this account doesn’t pass muster. No one, certainly not a British man in China, would dare to threaten the safety of Bo and Gu’s son, Wu told The Epoch Times.

The information from The Epoch Times’ source is consistent with the known facts about the rise of Bo’s career in 2000 as mayor of Dalian and then governor of the Liaoning Province, where the torture and deaths of Falun Gong practitioners were particularly severe.

During this period, two factories opened up in Dalian in Liaoning Province that preserved human bodies. The Epoch Times reported that “one of the companies was the largest human body mummification factory in the world.”

The Epoch Times source said the bodies were mostly murdered Falun Gong practitioners. The information obtained by The Epoch Times reported that it not have any knowledge that the companies were aware of the origin of the bodies. Public security bureaus and courts were involved in collecting the bodies and selling them to the mummification factories. Family members of slain practitioners could not claim the bodies due to a loophole in Chinese law.

Bo’s official position enabled the business to succeed. Gu handled the international trade side of the business assisted by Heywood. They all made a lot of money in organ and human body trafficking.

Wu urged the international community, governments, and the media to investigate the crimes of live organ harvesting and the sale of victim’s bodies.

Chunmei Ma provided some personal evidence at this news conference of the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners. Ma, 43, originally from Liaoyuan City (Jilin Province) in Northeast China, was arrested on Nov. 16, 1999 in Tiananmen Square and taken to Heihuizi Women Forced Labor Camp in Changchun (Jilin Province) for appealing to the Beijing government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong.

The Epoch Times reported on the torture of Ma in July 2011. Ma repeated her ordeals of torture, including the frequent use of electric batons that shocked and burned her skin, and the beatings she endured. Once she was cuffed for three days to the “Death Bed,” a metal bed which pulls the four limbs in four directions. She was not given any water during these three days.

Ma said at the press conference that she was taken from the labor camp to a state hospital to have a bone marrow biopsy. She refused to sign the consent papers, which was required at this hospital. They brought her back to the hospital two days later and again she refused to sign the consent form. She learned later from other practitioners that the bone marrow biopsy is used for tissue matching.

Dr. Crystal Fang, a physician from Philadelphia, alluded at the news conference to the Hippocratic Oath, saying we do not harm our patients. Dr. Fang was appalled at the “transplantation abuse in China.” She said doctors like her “are committed to the sacredness of medicine.”