Dorian Breh
Veteran
China is harvesting thousands of human organs from its Uighur Muslim minority, UN human-rights body hears
China is harvesting thousands of human organs from its Uighur Muslim minority, UN human-rights body hears
- Will Martin
- Sep 25, 2019, 7:33 AM
A protester wears a mask painted with Xinjiang's flag and tears of blood in Brussels in April 2018.
Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty
China was accused on Tuesday of harvesting human organs from persecuted groups in the country.
- The UN Human Rights Council heard on Tuesday that China is engaged in widespread harvesting of human organs from persecuted religious and ethnic minorities.
- The China Tribunal made the accusation at the council's meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It said Uighur Muslims and the Falun Gong religious group were affected.
- The China Tribunal is a group backed by an Australian human rights charity that's investigating the issue.
- A lawyer for the group said China was "cutting out the hearts and other organs from living, blameless, harmless, peaceable people," describing the situation as an atrocity.
- China has denied large-scale harvesting of organs. It has acknowledged using executed prisoners' organs in the past but says it stopped in 2015, according to Reuters.
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The China Tribunal, a group that's investigating the organ harvesting, said at a tense meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council that the Chinese government was taking hearts, kidneys, lungs, and skin from groups including Uighur Muslims and members of the Falun Gong religious group.
The China Tribunal describes itself as an "independent, international people's tribunal, and was backed by the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China, an Australian human rights charity made up of lawyers, academics, and medical professionals.
China has denied carrying out mass harvesting of organs in any circumstance.
Addressing UN representatives, a lawyer for the China Tribunal, Hamid Sabi, said the group had proof of the organ harvesting.
Sabi said the group had found that China was committing "crimes against humanity" by harvesting organs from religious minorities like the Uighurs and members of Falun Gong, which has been banned and widely persecuted by the Chinese government.
