The Kilgour–Matas report is a 2006/2007 investigative report into allegations of live organ harvesting in China conducted by Canadian MP David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas. The report was requested by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG), a US-based organisation founded by the Falun Dafa Association, after allegations emerged that Falun Gong practitioners were secretly having their organs removed against their will at Sujiatun Thrombosis Hospital. The report, based on limited evidence, concluded that "there has been, and continues today to be, large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." China has consistently denied the allegations. According to US Congressional Research Service (CRS), the Kilgour-Matas report did not introduce new or independently-obtained testimony and relied largely upon the making of logical inferences. CRS also noted that the conclusion of the report had heavily relied on the transcripts of telephone conversations allegedly made by CIFPG members from outside China to PRC detention centres, hospitals and police bureaus, in which call respondents had reportedly indicated that it was a common practice to harvest organs from live Falun Gong detainees. The initial 6 July 2006 report found that, "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and concluded that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners." U.N. special rapporteur Manfred Nowak said in March 2007 that the chain of evidence Kilgour and Matas were documenting showed a "coherent picture that causes concern", which the United Nations Committee Against Torture followed up in November 2008 with a request for "a full explanation of the source of organ transplants", to investigate the claims of organ harvesting, and to take measures to prosecute those committing abuses. Other investigators, such as Ethan Gutmann, followed the Kilgour–Matas report; Gutmann estimating that between 450,000 and 1 million Falun Gong members were detained at any given time, and estimated that tens of thousands may have been targeted for organ harvesting. Upon release of the initial report on 6 July 2006, Chinese officials declared that China abides by World Health Organization principles that prohibit the sale of human organs without written consent from donors. They denounced the report as smears "based on rumours and false allegations", and said the Chinese government had already investigated the claims and found them without any merit. The report is banned in Russia and China. Among international concerns, the US National Kidney Foundation expressed that it was "deeply concerned" about the allegations. In 2009, the authors published an updated version of the report as a book, titled Bloody Harvest, The killing of Falun Gong for their organs, and in the same year received an award from the International Society for Human Rights.
Background
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that combines meditation and exercises with a moral philosophy, emerged in China in the 1990s; by 1999 the number of practitioners was estimated in the tens of millions. In July 1999, following a large-scale demonstration to request official recognition, Chinese authorities initiated a nationwide campaign to suppress the group, and created the 610 Office to oversee and coordinate the elimination of Falun Gong. The suppression that followed was accompanied by what Amnesty International called a "massive propaganda campaign", as well as the detention and imprisonment of tens of thousands of Falun Gong adherents. Former detainees reported that in some labour camps, Falun Gong practitioners comprised the majority population, and were singled out for abuse. Under order from Beijing, practitioners are subject to coercive "reeducation" and torture, sometimes resulting in deaths. Due to limited access to victims and labour camp facilities, however, many specific reports of abuses are difficult to independently corroborate.
Organ transplantation in China
China has had an organ transplantation programme since the 1960s. It is one of the largest organ transplant programmes in the world, peaking at over 13,000 transplants a year in 2004. Involuntary organ harvesting is illegal under Chinese law, although under a 1984 regulation it became legal to remove organs from executed criminals with the prior consent of the criminal or permission of relatives. By the 1990s, growing concerns about possible ethical abuses arising from coerced consent and corruption led medical groups and human rights organizations to start condemning the practice. These concerns resurfaced in 2001, when The Washington Post reported claims by a Chinese asylum-seeking doctor that he had taken part in organ extraction operations. By 2005 the World Medical Association had specifically demanded that China cease using prisoners as organ donors. In December of that year, China's Deputy Health Minister acknowledged that the practice of removing organs from executed prisoners for transplant was widespread – as many as 95% of all organ transplants in China derived from executions, and he promised steps to prevent abuse.
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