The Falun Gong in China: A Sociological Perspective

This content is available through online browsing (free) program dependent on page scan. Screen readers can not currently scan, so please contact JSTOR user support for access. We will provide PDF copy of your screen reader

Falun Gong practitioners objected to persecution of the Chinese Communist Party on Falun Gong. In April 1999, after the incident in Tianjin, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners quietly gathered at the Communist Party headquarters (Nakanumi) for protest. Two months later, the Communist Party canceled this practice, started crackdown on security, and started a campaign against it. Since 1999, Chinese Falun Gong practitioners have been subject to torture, arbitrary imprisonment, beatings, forced labor, organ removal and mental abuse. In response to his own media campaign, Falun Gong became the Epoch Times and the New Tang Dynasty TV station criticized the Communist Party's founding organization against an obvious spokesperson of the Communist Party.

Reports that China's Falun Gong practitioners and other political prisoners are harvesting organs are attracting increasing attention from some groups in the international community. According to reports, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, are executed "on demand" to provide recipients with organs. It is said that persecution by the Chinese Communist Party for Falun Gong and an economic reward that can be used by institutions and individuals involved in trade will lead to the collection of organs.

David Kilgour and David Matas announced their preliminary findings in a report on July 20, 2006, "China Falun Gong practitioner's report on organ donation". The couple has been denied visas to China but has compiled more than 30 different evidences consistent with the claim that Falun Gong practitioners are harvesting organs. These include analysis of China's organ transplant statistics, previous interviews with Falun Gong practitioners, and records of the usefulness of Falun Gong practitioners in Chinese hospitals and law enforcement agencies.