UN human rights experts said that they have reliable evidence regarding "organ harvesting" targeting minorities in prison in China, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians.
According to a press release from the UN Human Rights' Office of the High Commissioner, detainees may be forced to submit to blood tests and organ exams like ultrasound and x-rays without their permission, whereas other inmates are not obliged to do so. The test findings are allegedly entered into a database of live organ sources.
"Forced organ harvesting in China appears to be targeting specific ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities held in detention, often without being explained the reasons for arrest or given arrest warrants, at different locations," said the experts. "We are deeply concerned by reports of discriminatory treatment of the prisoners or detainees based on their ethnicity and religion or belief.
"According to the allegations received, the most common organs removed from the prisoners are reportedly hearts, kidneys, livers, corneas and, less commonly, parts of livers. This form of trafficking with a medical nature allegedly involves health sector professionals, including surgeons, anaesthetists and other medical specialists," they added.
Also mentioned is the restriction on family members claiming the corpses of dead detainees and inmates.
The report noted that the experts have called on China to respond promptly to the accusations of "organ harvesting" and to enable independent monitoring by international human rights organizations.
ChinaAid, a non-profit Christian human rights group, endorses the United Nations' latest report on human rights abuses in China.
"While horrific, the human rights experts' findings are a crucial step in pushing back against the Chinese Communist Party's campaign against religious minorities," they affirmed in a post in their website.
"There is substantial, credible, and a growing body of unrefuted evidence that the Communist Party of China has authorized and sanctioned - and continues to carry out-a systematic program of organ harvesting with a horrific and cruel loss of human life," they added.
As much as ChinaAid welcomes the UN report as a step forward, they are still concerned because the world "remains idle" despite ongoing evidence of the horrific practice of forced organ harvesting from religious prisoners in China.
The Chinese Communist Party's crimes against humanity, it said, must be "outrightly condemned" in the strongest terms possible by the international community. They must also collaborate to put a stop to the barbaric organ trafficking system.
Having said that, they have a message to the United Nations which they hope will be heard.
"We urge the United Nations to move beyond dialogue with China and into a full scale investigation to include unrestricted visits by the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
In May 2019, during the Taiwan International Religious Freedom Forum, ChinaAid coordinated the signing of the #NoMoreOrganHarvesting Declaration by over 70 prominent activists, politicians, and religious leaders from across the globe. The declaration states: "On grounds of conscience and basic humanity, I solemnly pledge that I will not receive or accept, directly or indirectly, any organ transplant from China."
