The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem

by Ethan Gutmann

The inside story of China's organ transplant business and its macabre connection with internment camps and killing fields for arrested dissidents, especially the adherents of Falun Gong.

Mass murder is alive and well. That is the stark conclusion of this comprehensive investigation into the Chinese state's secret program to get rid of political dissidents while profiting from the sale of their organs--in many cases to Western recipients. Based on interviews with top-ranking police officials and Chinese doctors who have killed prisoners on the operating table, veteran China analyst Ethan Gutmann has produced a riveting insider's account--culminating in a death toll that will shock the world.  

Why would the Chinese leadership encourage such a dangerous perversion of their medical system? To solve the puzzle, Gutmann journeyed deep into the dissident archipelago of Falun Gong, Tibetans, Uighurs and House Christians, uncovering an ageless drama of resistance, eliciting confessions of deep betrayal and moments of ecstatic redemption.

In an age of compassion fatigue, Gutmann relies on one simple truth: those who have made it back from the gates of hell have stories to tell. And no matter what baggage the reader may bring along, their preconceptions of China will not survive the trip.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Politics, History, Medical, Crime, True Crime

325 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Petra X]

I don't think I am going to be able to read this book. It was hard enough reading about the mobile operating theatres 'ambulances' lined up ready to take the organs of the mass execution of prisoners as they were shot. But reading about prisoners condemned to death and given an injection of anti-coagulant and then strapped down in these 'ambulances' so that their organs could be taken whilst they were still alive and without anaesthetic, has me having clenching my hands and feeling hot and weird every time I see the book.

I read a book The Chief Witness: escape from China’s modern-day concentration camps written by a Uyghurs woman and her German co-author. There were two issues with the book. The first was that there was no background to why the Chinese had started such terrible Nazi-like actions against them - the Uyghurs were a good, peaceful people going about their business and the Chinese hated Muslims. Not quite. Uyghurs make up under half the Muslims in China and the rest are not perscuted.

The second was that there was no mention of the Nazis persecution and murder of the Jews when a comparison to the Holocaust was obvious.

Then I read In the Camps: China's High-Tech Penal Colony, giving a little more background. The Uyghurs had been influenced by radical preachers they could access on their phones that they spread around in Whatsapp groups and mosques. Then the Taliban and Al Qaeda encouraged them as well into a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam and a hope for a separate Islamic state. It was much as we see in the UK. Women in hijab and men with beards some leaving to join the Taliban and Al Qaeda and various terrorist incidents against the Chinese. I don't mean to suggest that the persecution of the majority for the dissidence of the minority is any way justified. A third book, whose title I can't recall, offered more information.

But this one puts the Uyghur persecution into much more context. The Uyghurs who are a Turkic people and not related to the Han Chinese had their country, Eastern Turkestan, taken over in 1949 as was Tibet. That explains a lot from both the Uyghurs and Chinese.

Ironic how the Israel Palestine situation, 1948, is the subject of much activism, BDS and hatred of Israelis - anti-Israeli sentiment having taken over by the more politically astute from anti-Semitism. Palestine was divided into Israel and Jordan (then Transjordania) by the UN and British Mandate. China just moved in with the military. Yet there are no demonstrations against China or for Eastern Turkestan and Tibet. When adding an author and putting in their country, Goodreads includes Palestine and Occupied Territories but not Tibet or Eastern Turkestan. I queried Support on Tibet and was told it was China. Interesting where people's political sympathies lie. And why.

I hope to get over my horror of the early chapters of this book, but I don't know if the author wrote the hard bits to shock to start with or it's going to be like that the whole book.

[Athan Tolis · Rating 4 out of 5]

My father is one of the pioneers of open heart surgery. For a twenty five year period, during which he set up three different hospitals' practices, he was the preeminent cardiac surgeon in Greece. For example, my father did the first coronary bypass operation in Greece in 1971, a short 4 years after Rene Favaloro's trailblazing work at the Cleveland Clinic.

Transplants had to wait, for two reasons. First, for lack of donors. Second because the human body rejects hearts that come from other people. To solve the first problem science went a number of ways, including the artificial heart and grafts from animals. My father was reluctant to consider either, not out of principle (he was full of admiration for both Jarvik and Bailey, indeed he taught Len Bailey) but because Greece does not have the infrastructure to support either. As soon as Ciclosporin (the first good-enough immunosuppressant) was approved by the FDA, he sought help from world-class transplant specialists in Salt Lake City, Utah and set up the necessary infrastructure to perform heart transplants in Greece.

It was a long wait. In June of 1990, the heart of Koralia Argeith, a registered organ donor, stopped beating after she'd been involved in a car crash. Her husband confirmed that he was comfortable with her decision to be a donor and within hours her heart was giving the gift of life to another human being. That was a full 23 years after Christiaan Barnard's similar operation in Johannesburg. This graft was rejected, sadly, but my father's second transplant patient was much luckier. The two of them had their picture taken together on the 20th anniversary of the operation!

"So daddy, how come this took so much longer?"

"The drugs have only now become good enough, son. Up until now you were only doing your reputation a favor by doing these transplants, not the recipient. The operation is no different, who cares if you're stitching back in the same heart's pipework or another's? But the drugs weren't there to give the heart a chance to bed in."

"Funny thing is," he added, "it's the Chinese who're leading the way on those drugs."

I did not quite believe my father. How on earth could the Chinese be leading the world on any front? This was 1990, to me China meant crappy Rolex imitations, shoddy plastic toys, turtle-blood (and not only) drinking Olympians and cheap scrapyards, to say nothing of The Great Leap Forward, the Red Guards, the jet-plane position (I'd taken a class about the Cultural Revolution in college -it was triple credits that had attracted me, nothing more noble than that) and of course Tiananmen Square. So I thought to myself "daddy just likes to make the point that not everything was invented in the rich countries."

Some twenty years later, dunno, in 2009, I was leaving work one afternoon and an RBS colleague approached me outside the office, near Liverpool St tube. He made it clear that this had nothing to do with work, but he wanted me to read a pamphlet he was handing out. The pamphlet said that the Chinese government was harvesting Falun Gong members for their organs. I read it with interest, went to the Internet, did a quick search and found absolutely nothing. Perhaps it was too quick an Internet search. I'm not an idiot, I did realise that the Chinese government would probably go out of its way to push the relevant results way to the bottom of any search I was bound to do and that my colleague at the bank would not be wasting his valuable time standing in the tube station for no reason, but perhaps I did not want to believe it. So I pushed it to the back of my mind and that was that.

This Christmas either the FT or the Economist, can't remember, listed the favorite books of the year for sundry personalities, and "the Slaughter" featured. I immediately remembered my colleague. If a book had come out about organ harvesting in China, I'd clearly been wrong to push it all to the back of my mind. So I ordered the book and prepared for the worst.

Or rather, I thought I had.

If you're into accounts of torture, this is the book for you. Pages 31 through to 285 of this 315 page book are dedicated to Falun Gong, and chiefly to its suppression and persecution. Pages 100 through to 250 are strictly about how individual members of Falun Gong were persecuted, tortured and beaten to death, after first having valiantly having done what they could to escape and then having held their faith. It's all entirely believable, well documented, highly unlikely to be fake, quite possibly verifiable, but just relentless. If you want to find about different ways people have been made to suffer, if you've read about the Roman persecution of the Christians and it whetted your appetite, then buy this book and you will not be disappointed. It's based on a good fifty interviews from people around the world.

The bit that is dedicated to organ harvesting is much more limited. It's the first 50 and the last 65 pages of the book (many of which overlap with Falun Gong).

If you read the acknowledgments you see what happened.

Quite clearly, the author originally set out to map the history of Falun Gong and its persecution in particular. The meat of the book is the story of Falun Gong. But halfway through his project the author ran out of cash and his next funders for the project made it a proviso for their funding that he should change focus to organ harvesting. Given that Falun Gong is a religion / sect / faith that not only mandates daily exercises but also forbids drugs and alcohol, its adherents make for some extremely high quality potential organ donors and that's where the Venn diagrams meet: a book that is about organ harvesting in China is very much also a book about the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners. They not only represent a high percentage of the Laogai (jail) system population, but also the cream of the pool of organs, so to speak.

So what we have here is one of those books that present themselves rarely: a lot how "the Great Deformation" by David Stockman is a poorly-written, poorly argued, discursive bad read but is regardless the best book of 2013 because it is to this day the only place where you can go read (if you know where to look and skip a lot of the dross) exactly what Corporate Equity Withdrawal is and how it is the most accurate description of what is wrong with our current brand of capitalism, a lot like if you wanted to read what "pushing on a string" means you once had to read John Maynard Keynes' truly awful, dense and self-important "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money," I'm afraid that if you want to read about the persecution of Falun Gong, the persecution of the Uighurs or one single interview about organ harvesting in China, Ethan Gutmann's book is the only show in town. And you get 50 interviews.

Now, 50 interviews is nothing, I hear you say. Not so, I'd argue. In a world where David Cameron, the prime minister of the United Kindgom had to go on all fours to China to beg for forgiveness for having previously muttered something about human rights, in a world where (contrary to the very well-articulated warnings of important thinkers such as Daron Acemoglu) we pretend that we will transform the Chinese dictatorship by doing business with China, a guy who publishes the results of 50 interviews that prove beyond reasonable doubt that China is
(i) viciously persecuting a cult with 50+ million members
(ii) engaging in systematic organ harvesting for profit
is clearly somebody with enough courage to merit everybody's respect. There's tons of money to be made writing books which explain how China will lead the world, how it has the model that points to the future etc. A guy who has that opportunity but choses instead to live a life of relative poverty and research human rights abuses deserves our recognition and respect.

Here's a wonderful piece of circumstantial evidence in support of the author's thesis: Israel does not allow its citizens to travel to China for transplants.

And now I know how come the Chinese lead the world in immunosuppressants: practice makes perfect, they say. How disgusting!

[Mimi NL · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Slaughter is incredibly well written and engaging to many who don’t know about the situation in China, and so is a great introduction to one of the most egregious state-sanctioned crimes in human history. At the time of its publication, one had yet to find a text that could, with its compelling narrative voice, capture a reader’s interest and help them piece the fragmented puzzles which would ultimately make up the body of evidence and help one understand that organ harvesting is definitely taking place in China, while giving readers an understanding of how individuals were able to survive the system as well as the bigger picture of the organ transplant apparatus and the estimates as to the rate of forced transplants. At the time of this book’s publication, the majority of the world was still questioning whether forced organ harvesting was taking place in China’s public hospitals, even though convincing research had already been released way back in 2006 by David Matas and David Kilgour on the topic. The Slaughter would provide the reader with ample evidence to conclude unequivocally on the topic.

For more information on the issue and an update to Gutmann’s book, one can go to endtransplantabuse.org where Ethan has since collaborated with Matas and Kilgour and produced an updated report called “Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update”. This is because since The Slaughter’s release, more research came to light, and the scale of organ harvesting as estimated by Gutmann in this book pales in comparison to the updated figures. The text itself is incredibly comprehensive so may only appeal if you are looking for the most recent/accurate details and figures.

I would still recommend readers new to the topic of organ transplant to read this book, however. Gutmann’s The Slaughter is a testament to his journalistic work, integrity and style, and speaks volumes not just on the topic of organ harvesting but also about Gutmann as a journalist. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read something of substance, those who are interested in investigative journalism, and those who enjoy reading for the sake of reading good writing. This is one such book.

[Matt Baggett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The abject tyranny of the CCP as described in this book will make you want to oppose them with every fiber of your being and not want to buy anything Chinese made.

[C.J. Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Slaughter reads like dystopian fiction. Truly horrifying and infuriating. The banal evil of the totalitarian state of China is a horror that is difficult to contemplate. What's infuriating is that nothing will (or can?) be done about it. This book will not get the large audience or notice it deserves. America is much more infuriated, at this time (Dec 2014), that North Korea may have hacked Sony because of a half-rate comedy. Meanwhile for decades wealthy and powerful Chinese (and possibly wealthy foreigners) are being supplied organs harvested from live "donors" by China's imprisoned political dissidents.

[CD · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are two books and stories masquerading as one in this work. There is the story of the government of China repressing religious activities that are not pro-government told through the examples of Falun Gong. There is the story of the government engaging in human rights violations as told through the use of illegal (or at least in the West) organ harvesting for transplant and profit.

The two stories intertwine at places but should have been more carefully separated. It is difficult to separate where one bad policy ends and another begins. That religious political dissidents have been killed in China is not in question. That there are by western standards unethical behavior in medical treatment is clearly demonstrated. That the two are not inextricable isn't always so clear.

A lack of clarity weakens both stories in this work. There are obviously criminal elements that are subjected to a form of justice that the Modern West doesn't approve of at all. The story though here is that a number of these people are killed for what is in effect profit. However the quantification of the numbers and prevalence of this is subjective reporting confused by the glorified martyrdom of a religious movement. There is some overt deception about who Falun Gong is and what it is doing.

An interesting entry in the political and social history of 21st Century China, but flawed on many levels. As a companion work or one that leads to other research and history it isn't a terrible book, just confusing for many readers and not one that should be taken alone as the final work.

[Shannon Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel that this is a book that everyone should read or at least be aware of what is happening in China today. Knowledge is power.

[sanjana simha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mindblown!

I'm astonished because I only came across the matter of mass organ harvesting in China over a week before I started reading the book. His book is concise and lays down the facts like they are and is an eye-opener! As a doctor it's scary for me to imagine that an entire fraternity would turn to butchering and murder for financial gains. The impact it's had on me I cannot put into words. Is China just another Nazi Germany?

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and well researched book. I could have done without the incredibly detailed history of the Falun Gong but I do understand it's relevance to the authors end goal. Gutmann's writing style suites me and was easy to follow.

[Katie Marsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nightmarish work of nonfiction about the persecution of those who practice Falun Gong, and the vast discrepancy between the number of organ transplants done in China vs the numbers of actual donors they have to work with. I felt ill through this entire book.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important Book

Highly recommend book.

I found it quite difficult subject matter at times. But still a really important and timely book.

Definitely recommend giving it a try.

Important read

4.7/5

[Zuza · Rating 4 out of 5]

U čtení jsem si vzpomněla na svůj komentář k Oprátce za osm mrtvých , protože spousta toho, o čem Gutmann v Jatkách psal, bylo tak neuvěřitelný, že kdyby vám to někdo předložil jako beletrii, jen si ťukáte na čelo, že to s tím fantazírováním fakt přehnal.

Jenže ona to bohužel není fikce a i když už jsem četla ledacos třeba o nacistických pokusech na lidech, tohle mě asi znechucovalo a děsilo víc než cokoliv jinýho. Protože čínské pracovní tábory, mučení, násilné odebírání orgánů vězňů svědomí a jejich prodávání i zahraničním pacientům není nějaká sto let stará záležitost, ale děje se to právě teď.

Nějak jsem čekala, že knížka bude rovnou o odebírání orgánů, ale relativně velká část je věnována historii hnutí Falun Gong (což je právě hnutí, jehož činnost se čínská vláda snaží potírat a jehož členy vraždí kvůli orgánům), svědectvím vězňů propuštěných z pracovních táborů atd. Šlo mi kvůli tomu čtení nejdřív dost pomalu, ale jsem ráda, že mě konečně něco donutilo se o Falun Gongu dozvědět více informací.

Rozhovory v DVTV na téma Falun Gong a odebírání orgánů (řazeno chronologicky):
Ředitel Epoch Times Zbyněk Zahálka
Miss World Canada 2015 Anastasia Lin
Čínský chirurg Enver Tohti
Investigativní novinář a autor knihy Ethan Gutmann

,,I když počet praktikujících Falun Gongu dosahoval do roku 1995 jen pár milionů, podle hrubého propočtu vycházejícího z exponenciálního růstu by počet praktikujících mohl do konce desetiletí přesáhnout 65 milionů (což byl přibližný počet členů strany) a otázka, kterou si někteří ve straně kladli, byla, zda by měli zakročit hned, anebo se za pět let probudit se studeným potem po těle."

,,Crystal vytočila nemocnici v Shenyangu a k telefonu přišla sestřička. Crystal se zeptala, zda nemocnice provádí transplantace ledvin. Sestřička, snad proto, že vycítila naléhavost v hlase na druhém konci telefonu, okamžitě nabyla dojmu, že Crystal potřebuje transplantaci.
,Ano, máme ledviny. Všechny jsou od živých mladých lidí. Měla byste rychle přijít. Čekací lhůta je jenom jeden nebo dva dny.'
,Kde ty lidi sháníte?'
,Jsou to zločinci odsouzení k smrti.'
,Odkud tihle zločinci odsouzení k smrti jsou?'
Nastala zřetelná pauza a pak sestřička zdvořile odpověděla: ,Prosím, na takové otázky se neptejte.'"

,,Čína je jiná než ostatní země. V jiných zemích pacienti čekají na orgány. V Číně čekají orgány na pacienty."

,,Doktor Francis Navarro, ředitel transplantačního programu v nemocnici ve francouzském Montpelier, byl pozván v roce 2006 do Číny, aby tam na Univerzitě Chengdu demonstroval svou techniku transplantace jater. Čínští organizátoři ho vlídně informovali, že pro něj budou mít játra připravena v den příjezdu. Pokud bylo tohle znamení, že jde o zabití na objednávku, Navarrovo podezření ještě utvrdil ředitel jedné vojenské nemocnice, který se zmínil, že má naspěch, aby dokončil všechny popravy před čínským Novým rokem. Navarro tento incident řádně nahlásil, avšak francouzská vláda vykázala mizivý zájem o potírání či omezení transplantační turistiky svých občanů do Číny."

,,Doktor Franz Immer, předseda Švýcarské národní nadace pro dárcovství orgánů a transplantace, rovněž uvedl podobný zážitek: ,Během mé návštěvy v Pekingu v roce 2007 nás jedna nemocnice pozvala, abychom zhlédli transplantaci srdce. Pořadatel se nás zeptal, zda bychom si přáli operaci ráno, nebo odpoledne. To znamená, že dárce zemře nebo bude zabit ve stanovený čas, kvůli pohodlí návštěvníků. Odmítl jsem se zúčastnit.'"

,,Doktor Jacob Lavee je kardiochirurg a ředitel oddělení transplantace srdce na Zdravotní klinice Sheba v Izraeli. V roce 2005 ho jeden pacient s vážnou chorobou srdce informoval, že mu jeho zdravotní pojišťovna nabídla možnost získání transplantátu v Číně - za dva týdny. Nejenom, že to pojišťovna měla uhradit, ale k Laveeho překvapení dokonce určila konkrétní datum transplantace, což jasně vyloučilo oběť dopravní nehody. Lavee už několik let slýchal, že Izraelci si do Číny jezdí pro ledviny, ale domníval se, že jde o něco podobného jako v Indii - nějaký nuzný člověk prodá jednu ze svých ledvin, aby si vydělal trochu peněz. Jenže tohle byla objednaná vražda."

,,Játra transplantovaná do nových příjemců, ať už těch ze zahraničí, nebo Číňanů, mohou stát až 115 tisíc amerických dolarů, přičemž srdce, plíce a rohovky se mohly u čehosi, co by se dalo nazvat sezonní cenou, vyšplhat až na dvojnásobek této částky.

,,Pro zkušeného policistu, vidět, jak někoho popravují, a během několika minut vidět tu přeměnu, během níž se život této osoby přenese do těl několika dalších lidí - bylo to strhující."

[Tahnia Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethan Gutmann tells it like it is. Disturbing and informative with plenty of evidence.
This author will be in Melbourne next week as a keynote speaker for the award winning documentary "Hard to Believe". August 18th - 7.30pm and August and Saturday 20th.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/melbo...

Hope to see some of you there!

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Niektoré knihy sa čítajú ťažko. Extrémne ťažko.
Pretože tie hrôzy, čo sa v nej popisujú sa naozaj dejú - prve v tomto momente sú popravovaní
a týraní nevinní ľudia a v celej tej mizérií je najhoršie to, že nikto s tým dokopy nič nerobí.
Môžeme len prihlidať.
Nikdy neoľutujem, že som na výstave HBE nebola - a som rada, že sú hlasy, ktoré volajú po spravodlivosti pre mŕtvych.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enlightening book quite difficult to read at times.

[RuoLing · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was written by a white man who frequently apologizes for speaking NO Chinese while interviewing with Chinese-speaking media. He has absolutely no evidence for his claims against the Taipei mayor’s involement in organ harvesting, claiming that he doesn't have any recordings of his conversations because “thats what off the record means”. When you watch him in interviews with the Chinese and Taiwanese media, it is clear he knows there is no basis for many of the claims he makes. Americans who don’t speak Chinese take every word he says as if it was uttered by god. Another monolingual basic white man getting famous cuz he’s a white man who spent a bit of time in Beijing. As a white woman who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese, I saw this book as nothing more than an infuriating look into how a fraudulent white man abuses bilingual contacts in China to make a name for himself. This is all too common in China and Taiwan. I can’t believe he was nominated for a Nobel Prize, and I look forward to watching him get sued for slander.

[Angelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was caught reading this book in a Canadian ICU by a fellow coworker who had immigrated to Canada over a decade ago from China and was told this book is fake and accused it of being propaganda and a way for Americans to bully China.

Which is why it is even more important to exercise my freedoms to read and review this very much banned book (in China) publicly. It took me a long time to finish because of the brutality and unbelievable cases against basic human rights and ethical practices against dissidents and "criminals" in Chinese prisons.

It would be a huge disservice to the very real human beings robbed of their lives and organs by the Chinese state itself if it is seen as "fake". Well researched, well written, brave topic, thank you for putting names and faces to the organs, this is an important read, now more than ever.

[PengSheng Chen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do believe in humanity and am against illegal organ harvest. It could very likely be factual that the Chinese government is illegally taking organs from its people. However, the fact that Mr. Gutmann is willing to lie on tiny details in order to straighten his story and sell his books is unsettling. It does bother me as I realize that he has absolutely no regard to verifiable facts and only aims to acquire fame (and maybe money comes along) when he accused Dr. Wen-je Ko of being actively involved in illegal organ harvest without any physical or circumstantial evidence. Things like illegal organ harvest should definitely be exposed and condemned, but I really hope it's not by Mr. Gutmann as his lack of integrity would undermine the credibility of a fact.

[Jackie · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my 2 cents opinion, the information was true, but the structure of the book can be compromised and coined. This is more fiction than an observatory reading matter. And recently, the author inveighed the city major of Taipei without ZERO proof in order to promote his book, making the credibility of the book is questionable. If people like fiction and novel, the book is good to read. Otherwise, I incline to read some information without fabricating.

[Yann Roshdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrible events, still ongoing, horrendous methods, and terrifying implacations for the rest of the world. The chinese communist party is guilty of crimes against humanity on a scale that can be compared in each and every way to the Holocaust.

The liberal and democratic countries must step in to coerce the CCP into ending his mass corpses harvesting and his diverse programs selling the ressources to other parties around the globe.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 4 out of 5]

427 - 2015

Komentar agak panjang bisa dibaca di sini:

http://threezstacks.blogspot.com/2015...

[Hiu Ying]

已記錄/漂出/無睇過

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Funny man, I quoted the doctor and I think he is a liar. Do you even have common sense?

[Alexandria Avona · Rating 5 out of 5]

In current times, we see people like Bill Gates or others say they're "not political" while fighting parts of the CCP that enforce a politicization on everything. As we saw in Covid-19, things that are usually not political, like medicine and bodies, were made deeply political. And as we saw in Bill Gates' book on the matter calling the White House and getting angry at them when they didn't want a centralized tech website, politicization happens in these spheres that subvert the electoral process despite what they might otherwise claim. Falun Gong did not want to be political, I believe that. But it became that way. And you can't go on a hunger strike in a prison and still claim to not be political. Sometimes the whole thing is just cowardice, and some of the Falun Gong members admit as much. But it's fair to say that if you can't just practice qigong without a gruesome fate the avoidance of politics has reached such a fever pitch that it will be extremely hard to push back the CCP's materialist, "greed is good as long as it's greed for China's prosperity" certainty. Falun Gong is a clear case of what happens when all the "talking down" that is done to prevent valid self-defense actually is implemented. And the result is ten times more horrifying, and doesn't even succeed in preventing violence, but rather encourages it as people capable of such cruelty operate on a "might is right" basis and have no respect for weakness.

In the wake of Vladimir Putin likely targetting and killing another Russian dissident Prigozhin (to the point he was willing to kill everyone aboard the plane for the sake of 'plausible deniability'; absolute vanity and cowardice...he is very unpopular with the world for good reason) it's important to also study a huge ally to his reign in terms of the CCP. This is what they are both capable of. It's important to remember that Russians are also well know for being ethnicist, which is racism but even more arbitrary and petulantly otherizing, to the point they say all people in one area are such and such way by being in that area. They did it to the Chechens and Ukraine is also deeply about ethnicism, which again is just racism, but even more capricious. So, when Putin's Russia claims to talk about Nazis, remember they mean German support of Ukraine to kick out his influence in the region because Ukrainians genuinely and organically do not want a corrupt mobster who they state "r*ped their country" when he installed a puppet presidency for the sake of access to oil and access to Europe. *If you don't have the critical thinking to understand being German is not inherently being a Nazi, that some of the toughest antifascists with the most sophisticated technology originate in Berlin, you don't have the critical thinking to run a huge swath of land. That's the meaningless arbitrariness of ethnicism, again, which is even worse in terms of comprehension of causality than racism and runs rampant in Russia. Even Americans don't get that one wrong that much anymore. And ironically ethnicism is the root of eugenics, the most Nazi behavior around. *

This book is the same thing as that. It shows how Falun Gong tried to play it as the "good kid protesting" in China. They tried to remain "respectable" and "civil" and "Chinese". And what happened to them? They ended up stripped of their skin, plasticized, and in one case, for all eternity made a plastic, corpse version of a human being penetrated sexually by another corpse for anyone to ogle...included ten year olds. So when someone tells you to "keep it civil" around anything that constitutes a) numerical assignment of identity as opposed to social assignment b) signs of death capitalism such as killing someone just to own all their property or to sell their organs c) mass disposal d) mass processing and e) most importantly, unnecessary and grotesque sadism and nearly masturbatory self-congratulation about said sadism, just know they are the Falun Gongs of the world...the ones trying to keep their reputation peacefully only to be the most humiliated, the most stripped, the most dehumanized. This is not how you effectively deal with hyperfascism, and it's not a matter of "character" or something like that. It's a matter of science and actually studying this as a large scale symptom of desperate capitalism.

As we all know, communism is a way out of poverty. For many years, the rural and agricultural areas of China were severely neglected. Communism came and for awhile helped that until it became top down and centralized and the shared, more anarchic communes now were managed by people who just yesterday were just screaming how unfair things were and actually didn't have a positive, studied vision on what they were doing. It then fell apart again, and took up to 2,000 of cultural wealth with it. That's a scar that never heals. Falun Gong made that scar throb again as it was a deeply Chinese qigong practice that became popular all over the world. The pain of the cultural revolution clearly was exacerbated and when it is that deep in the cultural nervous system, the behaviors repeated again. Dehumanization, targeting. Even the administrators of the CCP when they were at the court of appeals said they had never seen a protest like that since Tiananmen. The book cites that they were deeply jealous, enraged, by the popularity Li had. They didn't need to play the game of the "karaoke bar" politics to get up to the top like those in the communist leadership did; they won on merit, on attractiveness, and had deep, genuine loyalty.

The loyalty the CCP had was not deep, genuine, enthusiastic loyalty. It was loyalty forced into the nervous system. The overall message was that "your body is not your own and you have to obey power and money". The even deeper messages was "being meek with hyperfascism is not going to make it better. It will make it worse. They have no respect for that." They exterminated prisoners of conscience and sold their bodies for money merely because they were easy targets being peaceable and in good health. It is very similar to Putin sending healthy men to the front line for a fake war essentially based in narcissistic rage and to kill off young men who might threaten him, already making his weak country even weaker. Complete selfishness. All actions just worried about staying in power. No deeper vision.

This is a very scary book but well researched and truly excellent. This is everything you need to know about how "forced trade" enters the nervous system in a deep way, and the slogans that are creating a "wealthy China" which is in fear of anything that doesn't brainwash its residents into accumulation in order to combat the West which does what...asks for transparency? Says, even your own people can see that the Cultural Revolution was only successful briefly in the agricultural sphere when you truly empowered the people and you ruined it yourself when you centralized and made the collectives less autonomous? And that Falun Gong is right to give the power back to the body, and to keep it in conversation with the mind?

There is a lot to unpack here, especially where the final product was paraded around the world, especially to European countries and many Chinese resent the West for the original Open Door policy issue that led to years and years of addiction. What good has Marx done China if this is the final result? A materialism that vile? Perhaps deep down it is China rejecting it, saying, take a look at your faithless materialism and see how brutal and horrifying it really is. It did this to us.

[Ruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Credibility is a human attribute; it can't be created in a lab so easily because it comes with limitations and prejudices and failings that are hard to reproduce. And of all the humans I have met, refugees from Chinese labor camps in particular carry a great deal of pain and expectation and need."

"So the sourcing of organs, organ transplants, organ surrogates, kidneys for sale-these are not the burning ethical quandaries of our age. It's the same old quandary it's ever been: not the inevitability of death, as Gunther von Hagens would have it, but the inevitability of human descent into mass murder."

[Magdalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after watching a film on organ harvesting. I wanted to know about FaLunGong and how they became perceived as a cult.

This book widened my knowledge and confused me at the same time. It is informative but it also provoked more questions. I suppose, that’s a sign of a good book?

This is my first book on organ harvesting in China, and I have no other books to compared it too. I’m satisfied with what I have learnt so far as this was a rather interesting read. It also brought up some shocking revelations such as the body museum.

[Goh Jiayin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book pretty much sums up what it wants to be heard based on its title. I can't believe such a horrific act was done (and still ongoing) in this modern era. But then again, how good is good and how bad is bad? I really hope science will be advance to the point where the organs grew in the lab can be used to replace the damaged organs so that such ill practices can end.

[Joel Fletcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifying. If even remotely true, this is certainly one of the largest human rights' violations of the century.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before reading this book, I had never heard of Falun Gong. After reading it, I’m still not quite sure what it is. Neither is author Ethan Gutmann, as he readily admits. Suffice it to say that Falun Gong combines stretching techniques with Eastern meditation practices to heal its practitioners, both body and soul. It sounds harmless, even like a net good, except that once its number of followers exceeded the number of Communist Party members in China, it became a threat. Or at least, their own government perceived them at that point as such.
Because they were so popular, a sort of dance had to be performed between them and the government, who might have repressed them mercilessly if they were mere criminals. Eventually, though, the velvet glove came off and out came the iron fist. Rather than just typical brutality, though—which they endured—Falun Gong members may have also been victims of organ harvesting. This is something they likely share with the Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority also present in Mainland China.
It's hard to verify exact numbers and even circumstances, as people are (understandably) reticent to talk about such a dangerous subject. Gutmann does good spadework, though, finding out the rough details of the process: the camps where Falun Gong members are imprisoned, conditions there, the menticidal attempts to break practitioners of their faith. Amid all the horror and depressing reality, though, are glimmers of hope and moments that make one respect the Falun Gong even more.
The read is also especially enraging since much of the “organ tourism,” appears to be coming from the West, as well as the Middle East now. Even more disturbing (perhaps) is that the corpses of those harvested may have been displayed in medical shows after their bodies were plastinated; it would appear that we have the return of the “resurrection men,” now with a postmodern twist and a patina of medical respectability.
It's a lot to take in, but once I started it, I felt obligated to continue reading it to the end. Tragic stuff. With photos.

[Kevin Dominique · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read, but with so much gory details. A book I would recommend for those who would like to know the 'dirty solutions' employed by the Chinese government but definitely not one to be discussed over family dinner.