June 3
CHINA:
The 'living dead': prisoners executed for their organs then sold to foreigners
for transplants
An organ transplant can be the difference between life and death for many
people.
For those in need of one, the wait for a call from hospital to say a match is
available is an excruciating one.
Sometimes life outruns them before the call comes.
And so a booming black market for human organs has emerged in several countries
including India and Pakistan.
Researchers say China is home to the most rampant illegal organ trade in the
world and is the number one destination for 'transplant tourism'.
The practice sees desperate people - from countries where waiting lists are
longer than their life expectancy or costs are exorbitant - travel overseas to
buy an organ and have lifesaving surgery.
But there's a major catch: Researchers say the donor organs are often sourced
illegally from prisoners executed for their religious, political or cultural
beliefs, who have not consented to any of it. Many of China's prisoners have
testified to having been subjected to medical testing consistent with organ
transplant screening but without explanation while behind bars.
'They called these people the living dead. You just haven't died yet, but
you're gone," one organ transplant recipient said.
The man, who didn't want to be identified, told PBS News Hour he had end-stage
kidney disease 11 years ago until he travelled to China and paid $10,000 for a
transplant.
Within 1 week, he received a new kidney.
He said he would have died before he reached the top of the waiting list for a
new kidney in Canada, where he lives with his family.
"I went there dead. I came back alive."
CHINA CONDEMNS PRACTICE BUT STILL HAPPENING
In 2005, Chinese officials admitted they harvested organs from prisoners and
promised to reform the practice.
In the years that followed, several doctors were arrested for allegedly
carrying out illegal organ transplants at private clinics, according to local
authorities and state media.
Acting on a tip-off, police in Bazhou city in the northern province of Hebei
arrested 3 doctors as they prepared to remove a kidney from a man, a local
Communist Party official and police told AFP in 2011.
In 2013, director of the China Organ Donation Committee, Dr Huang Jiefu, told
medical journal The Lancet that more than 90 % of transplant organs were still
sourced from executed prisoners.
China announced the following year that it would end the harvesting of organs
from executed prisoners and move to a voluntary donation-based system.
But according to several reports, the controversial practice is far from
abolished, and there is evidence it still continues.
Former political prisoners told news.com.au the severe human rights atrocities,
including the torture and abuse of Falun Gong practitioners, was still taking
place in China. They also claim the prisoners are subjected to medical testing,
with some killed for their organs.
THOUSANDS OF MYSTERIOUS HUMAN ORGANS ON OFFER
Recently published research by author Ethan Gutmann, former Canadian politician
David Kilgour and lawyer David Matas claims China is performing 60,000 to
100,000 organ transplants a year. They say this dwarfs the Communist regime's
estimates of about 10,000 and that it cannot be explained by China's fledgling
program for voluntary organ donors.
"The (Communist Party) says the total number of legal transplants is about
10,000 per year. But we can easily surpass the official Chinese figure just by
looking at the 2 or 3 biggest hospitals," Mr Matas said.
"That increased discrepancy leads us to conclude that there has been a far
larger slaughter of practitioners of Falun Gong for their organs than we had
originally estimated."
The investigators claim many of the organs are taken from prisoners of
conscience, mainly the persecuted Falun Gong religious minority, but also
Uyghurs, Tibetans and "House Christians" who congregate secretly in
worshippers' homes.
The damning report accuses the Chinese government of continuing to carry out
mass killings of innocent people in order to obtain their organs for
transplants.
"We interviewed Falun Gong who got out of prison, got out of China,
systematically blood-tested, organ-examined, not for their health - they were
being tortured - and only the types of examinations relevant to
transplantation," Mr Matas said.
News.com.au last year interviewed about half a dozen Chinese refugees who had
been imprisoned in China for their spiritual beliefs. They all reported having
been subjected to torture and medical testing while in prison.
AUSTRALIANS 'COMING BACK WITH LIVERS FROM PRISONERS'
Demand for transplants far exceeds supply in China, a country of more than 1.3
billion, which has opened the door to the illegal sale of human organs.
Researchers estimate that as many as 1.5 million victims have had their organs
harvested for China's transplant industry.
Patients reportedly pay about $15,000 for an illegal organ transplant operation
in China, according to previous state media reports.
In the US, the average hospital charge for a kidney transplant is $150,000.
In Canada and Australia it's free, because the government pays for health care.
But wait lists can be long. For some, too long.
China allegedly performs thousands of illegal kidney transplants every year.
According to the Australia & New Zealand Dialysis & Transplant Registry
(ANZDATA), at least 55 Australians travelled overseas to receive a kidney
transplant between 2006-2015.
The data isn't broken down by countries and doesn't include figures of
Australians who have travelled overseas for transplants of organs other than
kidneys, such as livers.
"It is possible that these numbers are an underestimate of the true number,
since some patients may not return to Australia/New Zealand and hence be
reported to ANZDATA as lost to follow-up," ANZDATA's 2016 annual report read.
In December 2013, Professor Jeremy Chapman expressed grave doubts about China's
transplant program in the Medical Journal of Australia, stating that "China
cannot enter the global community of civil societies while current practice
continues in its prisons and hospitals".
Prof Chapman also quoted a physician in Australia who was allegedly told by a
patient of Chinese origin: "I cannot come in for dialysis tomorrow. I have to
fly tonight because they are shooting my donor tomorrow."
In an open letter published on The Transplantation Society's website, Prof
Chapman said the organisation "supports those in China who are agents for
change" and is committed to the development of "an ethically based,
transparent, deceased organ donor program, which must be free of corruption and
financial incentives".
Researcher Ethan Gutmann told news.com.au that transplant tourism needs to
stop.
"There needs to be an end to the normalisation of mass murder," he said.
"Israel, Spain and Taiwan have banned it. That took guts. So how about this: No
more Australians going to China on the QT, and coming back with a liver taken
from a political or religious prisoner?"
DERRYN HINCH ENCOURAGED TO HAVE ILLEGAL TRANSPLANT
Senator Derryn Hinch said he was encouraged to travel to China for an organ
transplant after he was told he had only 12 months to live.
"As the months ticked by and there did not seem to be any chance, other than a
couple of false alarms, of getting a new liver, I was told by a senior
businessman in Melbourne that I could go to Shanghai and for $150,000 get a new
liver next week," Mr Hinch told parliament in November last year.
"I presume from that they would almost execute on order. How you could morally
extend your life by doing that I cannot believe, but I was also told I could go
to India and do the same thing.
"Some well-known people have bought organs for transplant over the years. But I
condemn those practices in China."
Senator Derryn Hinch said he was encouraged to travel to China for an illegal
liver transplant but refused.
'IN CHINA THEY MAKE YOU DEAD'
Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) performs systematic research
into the reports of the state-sanctioned practice in China from prisoners of
conscience.
DAFOH Australia spokeswoman Sophia Bryskine said the organisation was
"particularly focused on China because, unlike anywhere else in the world, it
is the only place where systematic forced organ harvesting continues to occur
on a mass, state-sanctioned level".
"There are no formal laws prohibiting the practice," Dr Bryskine said.
"In fact, a '1984 Provision' still remains in place, which allows for executed
prisoners to be used as donors - in direct violation of all international
guidelines."
Dr Bryskine said a lot of prisoners "don't even go through a legal sitting".
"The Chinese legal system is corrupt," she said. "It has to stop."
Arthur Caplan, leading US ethicist and founding director of the Division of
Medical Ethics at NYU, offered his observations on organ harvesting in China.
"In the US or Europe, you have to be dead first in order to be an organ donor.
In China, they make you dead," he said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China has "strict laws
and regulations on this issue."
"As for the testimony and the published report, I want to say that such stories
about forced organ harvesting in China are imaginary and baseless - they don't
have any factual foundation," she said at a press conference.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission, which oversees organ
donations in China, could not be contacted for comment.
The Dui Hua Foundation, which monitors executions in China, estimates that
approximately 2,400 people were put to death in 2013. Official figures on
executions remain a state secret.
CHINA: THE WORLD'S BIGGEST EXECUTIONER
The Chinese Government has repeatedly refused to reveal how many people it
executes each year.
China was named the world's biggest executioner in Amnesty International's
Death Sentences and Executions 2015 report.
The human rights group said it was impossible to obtain an exact figure on the
number of people China has executed, but it is believed the figure is in the
thousands, and is more than all the other countries in the world combined.
China was also named as the world's top executioner in 2014, with Amnesty
estimating it was at least 1000 - a conservative figure, and one it believes is
much higher.
However the 2016 report did note, there are indications that the number of
executions has decreased since the Supreme People's Court began reviewing the
implementation of the death penalty in 2007.
According to Amnesty International, "tens of thousands of Falun Gong
practitioners have been arbitrarily detained" since the government launched a
crackdown on the practice in 1999.
(source: news.com.au)
MALAYSIA:
7 nabbed for drug trafficking in Beaufort; face death penalty if convicted
7 people, including teenagers, were detained on Wednesday for drug trafficking
here.
The 3 men and 4 women, aged 14 to 43, were arrested following police
surveillance of a drug exchange in the city.
5 of the 7 also tested positive for illicit drugs.
"Police mounted surveillance near the Lumat Chinese temple and spotted a taxi
with 5 people on board, including the driver.
"Several minutes later, 2 men approached the taxi and the driver was seen
handing over a plastic packet to 1 of them," District police chief Deputy
Superintendent Azmir Abd Razak said.
Police immediately approached the group and arrested them.
It was discovered that the plastic packet contained 50.38gm of methamphetamine,
or 'syabu', worth around RM5,500.
The case will be investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952
which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
(source: nst.com.my)
IRELAND:
The long road from the Bloody Code
'No person shall suffer death for any offence' - no, it is not a medieval
monarchical decree, it is in fact the first order of the Criminal Justice Act
1990. The Act prohibited capital punishment under all circumstances within the
Republic for the 1st time. The death penalty had remained on the Irish statute
books exclusively for the offences of treason and murder, but from 1990 onward
those crimes would carry a sentence of life imprisonment. To say the 1990 Act
ended centuries of capital punishment in Ireland would be telling only half the
story.
Early Irish, pre-Norman, law actually discouraged the death penalty. It was not
until the laws of the Old English and later New (plantation ) English took hold
that capital punishment became a frequent feature of the punitive Irish justice
system, and neither prince nor pauper was safe. Even the venerated Padraig O
hEil???, Catholic bishop of Mayo, was hanged for treason in 1579. The number of
offences which carried the punishment of death grew steadily through numerous
Acts of Parliament, a development later labelled the 'Bloody Code'. During the
era of the Bloody Code, offences for which a person could hang rose from 50 in
1688 to 220 by the end of the 1700s. The number of offences warranting death
rose in response to fears of foreign invasion and the rise of unlawful, native,
secret societies. Reports in the 1770s of 2 such societies, the Hearts of Steel
and White Boys, committing violent crimes in Mayo made the authorities very
nervous.
When the feared invasion did occur and sparked rebellion in 1798, the law was
enthusiastically applied. It was during this period of zero tolerance that
Westport's Denis Browne MP, High Sheriff of Mayo, acquired the nickname 'Denis
the Rope' for his fervour in hanging rebels. Courts martial in Mayo took place
after the rebellion and the convicted were executed with disregard for their
social status. 2 men, a Doctor Barret and a Mr O'Brien, described as 'persons
of the better rank of life, and leaders in the rebellion' were executed in May
1799. A number of years earlier in 1786, Browne would no doubt have been
pleased to see his old duelling opponent George Robert Fitzgerald of Turlough
hanged on The Green in Castlebar for complicity in a murder. Another notorious
Mayo case was that of Captain Gallagher, a highwayman operating in the east of
the county. A Robin Hood figure, Gallagher attacked those with property and
threatened landlords who forced evictions. Alas, the popular bandit was
captured, tried, and convicted in Foxford and executed in Castlebar in 1818.
The Bloody Code was swept away by the Offences Against the Person Act 1861,
which reduced the number of capital crimes to just three; murder, treason, and
piracy with violence. For some decades prior to the 1861 Act, death was often
commuted to transportation to the colonies but that decision was at the judge's
discretion which meant no regularity. In 1826, Pat Malley of Westport was
convicted of sheep stealing and sentenced to death. Just 5 years later, Michael
McGreevy was indicted for the murder of Matthew Kirby in Mayo. McGreevy was
found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to only 5 years imprisonment.
The execution of Irish nationalists and republicans for crimes against the
Crown continued into the 20th century, most famously in 1916 when Mayo man John
MacBride was among those shot by firing squad. The independent Irish state
executed 35 people in the 30 years up to 1954 but as many death sentences were
commuted to life imprisonment during the same period. In 1954, Michael Manning
became the last person executed in the state. Capital punishment remained on
the books however, for certain murders, despite national and international
condemnation of the punishment.
Debate heated up in the 1980s when Noel Browne introduced a bill to the Dail to
abolish the death penalty. Amnesty International, the Prisoners' Rights
Organisation, and the Irish National Council for Civil Liberties requested that
Mayo's local authorities support their call for the outright abolition of the
death penalty. Castlebar Urban District Council voted down the request, 5 votes
to 2. Politicians across Mayo were split on abolition. Claremorris Fianna Fail
members reportedly held mixed views. Westport councillor Sean Staunton believed
capital punishment should be removed, but citing republican killings, his
fellow townsman Michael Ring disagreed. Ballyhaunis based Senator Jim Higgins
stated that capital punishment was an anathema to him and the Fine Gael party.
After the 1989 general election, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats'
programme for government included abolishing the death penalty and the Criminal
Justice Act 1990 was passed.
(source: Mayo Advertiser)
SOUTH AFRICA:
"Bring back the death penalty" - Fiery National Assembly debates gender
violence----Emotions ran high as MP's and Police exchange views
Following pressure from the DA and recent high-profile cases of violence
against women, the National Assembly gathered to discuss ways of eradicating
this barbarity from our society.
It was feisty, to say the least, as you would expect with a subject that been
too close to the bone for every South African with a moral compass.
First to come under fire was the ANC Women's League, who faced accusations of
failing their gender through ineffective government policies and programs. DA
MP Denise Robinson slammed the organisation - who she branded as the "Jacob
Zuma Defence League" - and referred to the case of Fezekile Kuzwayo, who had
once accused JZ of rape. Robinson said:
"When Kuzwayo, the daughter of his friend had to give in to [Zuma's] sexual
demands, instead of standing up for the rights of women the ANCWL mocked and
derided other who supported her and eventually drove her out of the country.
The once proud women's league has been reduced to the Jacob Zuma defence
league."
Police minister Fikile Mbalula also came out on the offensive, directly
targeting the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes and speaking about them
with the utter contempt they deserve:
"IF YOU BEAT YOUR GIRLFRIEND, WIFE OR PARTNER, YOU ARE A TSOTSI, I WILL JUST
SAY WE ARE COMING FOR YOU, YOU COWARDS, WEAK, WEAK MEN. FEMICIDE, INFANTICIDE
AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE ARE HENCEFORTH REGARDED AS A FUNDAMENTAL THREAT TO
NATIONAL SECURITY."
The issue of criminal punishment was raised by IFP member Mkhuleko Hlengwa, who
spoke about an issue that divides South Africa: the death penalty.
Hlengwa was relatively sensitive about the issue, suggesting that it is a
discussion that needs to be had, and that any decision on implementing death
sentences would be put to a public referendum.
The debate proved to be an echo-chamber of blame over anything else. Violence
against women has become an epidemic and there are swathes of anger coming from
both the public and those elected to represent us.
The anger is there for a reason. Our girls are not safe, and our children are
under threat. We need our MP's to let that rage fuel them to find proper
solutions and appropriate deterrents for the very worst crimes.
(source: thesouthafrican.com)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
