Taiwan's Falun Gong society yesterday asked US President George W. Bush to raise the issue of China's harvesting organs from Falun Gong members in his talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
In a letter handed to the de facto US embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Chang Ching-hsi (張清溪), president of the Taiwan Falun Dafa Society, accused China of running a Nazi-style concentration camp facility to harvest organs from around 6,000 detained Falun Gong members and selling them to patients who need transplants.
Taiwan Falun Gong reported on March 20 that the operations were being performed at Shenyang Thrombosis Hospital in northeast China.
According to their source, an unnamed doctor that has since emigrated to the US, organ harvesting was carried out in the hospital's air raid shelters and the bodies of the Falun Gong members were cremated in a furnace.
China denied the accusations.
China banned the "cult" in 2001 and followers who refused to renounce their beliefs were detained for re-education. The movement has millions of followers worldwide.
The group is requesting that Bush bring up the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners with Hu during their meeting on Thursday in Washington.
"Every minute of delay will result in irremediable loss of innocent lives and will be a disgrace to the human race," the letter said.
According to Chang, organ transplant centers across China are working overtime to perform operations before new regulations take effect on July 1.
"Hospital staff members told undercover investigators that patients should come in quickly if they want a transplant, as the hospital can find matching organs in as short as one or two days and it will be difficult after this batch of organs is used up," he said.
Several Chinese hospitals advertise organ-transplant service on the Internet but do not reveal the source of human organs. It is alleged that the organs are harvested from executed prisoners to transplant into foreign and overseas Chinese patients.
According to local press reports, hundreds of Taiwanese patients fly to China each year for liver or kidney transplants.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all