First known survivor of China’s secret organ harvesting trade speaks of horrors
Cheng Pei Ming is a ‘typical victim’ of China’s secret organ harvesting trade from living prisoners.
What sets him apart from most other victims is that he survived to tell the tale of the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Harvesting organs from executed inmates is legal in the country. But the Chinese regime has been killing prisoners of conscience – on demand – to supply paying patients, human rights groups have alleged.
Cheng, who is from the Guozhuang Village in Shandong Province, was detained in 1999 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual practice, which China considers ‘an evil cult’, but is practiced in the West.
In 2002, he received a sentence of eight years in jail for advocating for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong, and was imprisoned at Harbin Prison.
There, he was subjected to forced blood tests three times in a year – a practice used to test the health of transplantable organs.
Two years later, Cheng was transferred to a different prison, where he says that he underwent hours of torture on ‘the big stretch’, a torture method during which his limbs were tied up and pulled in all directions.
During that time, China’s infamous ‘Gestapo’, the 610 Office, tried to coerce himinto consenting to an operation.
Cheng refused but was injected with a sedative and lost consciousness, he says.
In November 2004, he awoke shackled to a hospital bed with an IV tube taped to his foot, a drainage tube in the left chest, oxygen tubes in his nose, and a 35 cm long incision on the left side of his chest.
Transplant experts have since confirmed from present-day CT scans that parts of his left liver lobe are missing, and half of the left lower lobe of his lung is also missing.
Ahead of a speech at a forum in Washington DC today, he opened up about the abuse: ‘After they took me to the hospital against my will, they tried to force me to sign consent forms for an operation.
‘When I refused, six guards grabbed me and held me down and I was injected with something.
‘The next thing I remember is being in a hospital bed with tubes in my nose and I was going in and out of consciousness.
‘There was a tube with bloody liquid coming from under the bandaging that was on my side.
‘I was also shackled to the hospital bed. When they took me to the hospital again and said I had to have another operation, I thought for sure they were going to kill me.’
What we know about China's organ harvesting industry
China’s organ trade is estimated to have a market value of $1billion per year.
The transplant industry has been developed on a big scale with significant investment into hospitals, medical personnel and other infrastructure.
In 2000, coinciding with the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong, the industry exploded.
Vital organs became readily available within a matter of days, while reports of ‘emergency’ livers being sourced within four hours began to emerge.
State-run hospitals and hundreds of independent websites began advertising incredibly short wait times for transplant operations involving hearts, livers, kidneys and corneas.
The waiting time for transplants ranged from a matter of hours to a number of days – a timeframe which no other national transplantation system in the world has ever been able to achieve.
From this time, global accusations began to emerge that China’s organ supply for transplant operations could not possibly have been sourced purely from a legal, voluntary donation process.
Some experts believe Chinese surgeons harvested hepatic tissue for paediatric liver transplantation. Others say unethical medical experiments were performed on him.
Cheng continued to suffer torture under the hand of prison guards, and two years later he began a hunger strike.
He was again transferred to a hospital and was shackled to a bed and told that a surgery was planned.
At the time, the victim believed that officials were planning to kill him to use the rest of his organs.
That night – before the operation was performed – guards forgot to chain him to the bed and he managed to escape, he says.
After 14 years of evading Chinese authorities, including five years in Thailand where he was granted UN refugee status, Cheng reached the US in July 2020.
David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, said about the case: ‘Cheng is, in one sense, a typical victim of China’s forced organ harvesting practices – a Falun Gong practitioner who had their organs stolen by the CCP.
‘In another sense, he is unusual because he survived organ extraction, his vital organs – liver and lung – have been extracted, only in part, and because he escaped both the Chinese authorities and China itself.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.