09 August 2024
Cheng Pei Ming is a ‘typical victim’ of China’s clandestine organ harvesting from living prisoners, but he stands out because he survived to share his harrowing experiences with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
While organ harvesting from executed prisoners is legally sanctioned in China, human rights groups accuse the Chinese regime of deliberately killing prisoners of conscience to meet the demands of paying patients.
Cheng, a resident of Guozhuang Village in Shandong Province, was arrested in 1999 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that China deems an ‘evil cult,’ although it is accepted in the West. In 2002, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for campaigning against the persecution of Falun Gong and was held at Harbin Prison.
During his incarceration, Cheng was subjected to forced blood tests three times within a year, a procedure used to assess the condition of organs suitable for transplantation. Current CT scans reveal that parts of Cheng’s left liver lobe and half of his left lung lobe are missing.
Two years later, Cheng was transferred to another prison, where he endured hours of torture known as ‘the big stretch,’ a method involving the stretching of limbs in various directions. During this period, the notorious 610 Office attempted to coerce him into consenting to surgery.
Cheng refused but was sedated and lost consciousness. By November 2004, he awoke shackled to a hospital bed with an IV tube in his foot, a drainage tube in his left chest, oxygen tubes in his nose, and a 35 cm incision on his left side. Experts have since confirmed that parts of his liver and lung were removed.
In a speech at a forum in Washington D.C., Cheng recounted his ordeal: “After being taken to the hospital against my will, they tried to force me to sign consent forms for surgery. When I refused, six guards restrained me and injected me with something. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed with tubes in my nose and drifting in and out of consciousness. I saw a tube draining bloody liquid from my side and was shackled to the bed. When they told me I needed another operation, I feared they were going to kill me.”
China’s organ trade is estimated to be worth $1 billion annually, and significant investment has been made in medical infrastructure. Since 2000, coinciding with the escalation of Falun Gong persecution, the organ transplant industry has rapidly expanded. Reports of organs becoming available within days, or even within hours, for emergencies have raised suspicions about the sources of these organs, suggesting they may not come from voluntary donations.
Some experts suspect that Chinese surgeons may have harvested liver tissue for pediatric transplants or conducted unethical experiments. Cheng continued to suffer under harsh conditions and, after starting a hunger strike, was once again transferred to a hospital. Believing he was to be killed for his remaining organs, Cheng managed to escape when guards forgot to chain him to the bed before his scheduled operation.
After evading Chinese authorities for 14 years, including five years in Thailand with UN refugee status, Cheng arrived in the U.S. in July 2020. International human rights lawyer David Matas commented on the case: “Cheng is a typical victim of China’s forced organ harvesting practices— a Falun Gong practitioner who had their organs taken by the CCP. However, he is exceptional in that he survived the organ extraction, with his vital organs removed only partially, and successfully escaped both Chinese authorities and China itself.”
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