Organ Theft: Falun Gong

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:39):
Hello, and welcome to Murder DictionaryPodcast. My name is Brianna and that
is Courtney. Hello. So beforewe get into our next case for the
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(01:00):
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(02:12):
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(02:32):
guys for being on our Patreon,and again, if you want to join
us, go to patreon dot comSlash Murder Dictionary Podcast And I think that's
it for me. We can kindof get into our next organ theft case
for tonight. I really don't feellike it. I'm just going to be

(02:53):
honest. I'm really feeling queasy prettymuch every day since we started talking about
organ theft, and I'm ready tonot think about organs being taken out of
people while they're still alive. Solooking forward to this being over. There's

(03:13):
been other topics that are you know, like that one. I didn't really
like it whatever, you know,you hear us complain about nothing all the
time, but this one, it'slike a special kind of Oh God,
I have to look this up.I gotta keep reading about this right.
And it's a wormhole because you lookup one thing and then you start looking
up another case and then there's notmuch information. Then you try and go

(03:36):
to another case, then we foundthis one that's like a true wormhole where
it's just every little thing leads tosomething else. So then now you've got
all these pages open where you're likelooking up how much a kidney costs and
stuff, and it's like, theseare things I didn't never want to know
ever, and now I just haveknowledge of it and it's my brain forever.

(04:01):
Yeah. If we weren't on watchlist before, which I'm sure I
am, yeah, this this wasdefinitely the tipping point where it's like,
yeah, for sure, this isa confirmation I can just assume I am
for sure on a watch list definitelyif I'm looking up buying organs and stuff,
yes, yeah, just for yep. So um, Like we said

(04:28):
previously on our last week's episode,you know, we were looking for cases
that more fit the urban legend of, you know, someone waking up without
a kidney, and you know,those things aren't really cases that you can
easily find because it doesn't seem likethere's a lot of them out there actually

(04:50):
happening. There are some where peopleare willingly giving up their kidneys stuff like
that, but the source of theurban legend just doesn't seem to be out
there, but we did find thishuge, massive case out of China where
there are a lot of people ofone particular group that are being victimized and

(05:15):
having their organs stolen. So weare going to talk tonight about a group
called Fallon Gong. So before wedo that, we'll just talk a little
bit more about organ theft in general, kind of like we covered a few
generalities from last week. We're goingto know at least get some of that

(05:35):
information out of the way, soyou know a little bit about the organ
trade. So theft of organs ismore common than murder for organs, but
it does happen. Medicine murder isa killing strictly for the purpose of extracting
body parts, specifically to use andtransplant religious rituals or witchcraft. And for

(06:00):
clarification, medicine murders is different thanmedical murders, which medical murders are basically
doctors negligence. Okay, cool gotthat this is the easy part before the
queasiness sets in. I can dothis. So because of the lack of

(06:20):
donors, as we discussed last week, experts estimate that there are about ten
thousand commercial transplants, also known astransplants involving payments every year worldwide ten thousand
wow. So this means approximately tenpercent of all worldwide transplants involve an exchange

(06:44):
of money. And we talked aboutlast week, especially in the United States,
you're not allowed to charge money fororgans. So like any money that
exchanges hands for organs is for thingslike trans poor extraction, the surgical procedure,
storage, stuff like that. Butit can't be just for the organ

(07:08):
or tissue itself. It has tobe for costs incurred to get the organ.
From point eight to point B.Basically that makes sense. In many
countries, it is illegal to sellor buy organs, and physicians are prohibited
from transplanting organs that are paid for. So that urban legend about the ice

(07:31):
tub and the missing kidney. Ifsomeone shows up with someone's kidney and says,
put this in my body, thedoctors can't even legally do that.
That doesn't work. No, that'snot how it works at all. Even
the World Health Organization specifically requires thatorgans be obtained through donation only. So,

(07:55):
like we discussed, no money canbe exchanged. It's just for things
like harvesting, storing, and delivery. That money can cross hands in the
organ trade. It is true thatoften people from more affluent countries seek out
organs in developing countries from organ traffickers, who usually exploit or coerce people into

(08:18):
selling their organs. It's crucial toacknowledge, of course, that urban legends
about organ theft they often have theseundertones of xenophobia and racism, and we
don't want to perpetuate that at allnow. So it's important to bring up
that we are not talking about theuntrue stories where a guy from the US

(08:41):
gets seduced by a woman in adeveloping country and then wakes up in a
bathtube of ice missing a kidney.We just really could not find any verifiable
cases of this happening, and weeven ask you guys last week and nobody
sent us any cases. So Ijust don't see it being out there.
There must be some origin case whereit happened once and then the urban legend

(09:07):
was born, but I can't findthat case, and Courtney can't find that
case. So never found patient zero. No, I mean, it's just
gotta be like it's okay, ithappened, it happened. I go with
it happened. I'm assuming it happenedonce, Yeah, and then everybody was

(09:28):
like, you don't want to bethat guy. Remember that asshole he lost
a kidney and woke up an ice. So, I don't know. I
think that it's it's definitely also usedas a scare tactic, right. I
think it's just one of those thingsthat perpetuates xenophobia and racism, you know,

(09:48):
of just people are afraid of certainthings happening to them. Whether it's
like the guy going on vacation toa foreign country and scared that someone's going
to take advantage of him, orhe'll end up in like the movie Hostile
or some shit, you know,or someone in a developing country that's scared
that, you know, people fromrich countries come and we'll just take parts

(10:11):
of them, you know. Imean that's on both sides. People are
afraid, and it's based in thisxenophobia, really, and we do not
want to perpetuate that, No,not at all. And we also want
to clarify that people from affluent countriesaren't praying on developing nations and leaving individuals

(10:33):
on ice missing organs. Usually whenthere's instances of organs being taken, it's
like this whole trafficking network that isjust almost never brought down. But it's
not one individual showing up and takingadvantage of another individual. It's a much
larger scale and like internal thing ofsomeone you know from a certain country recruiting

(10:58):
like the family members and friends andhaving a whole system set up. Typically,
people do come from richer countries likeJapan, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia,
Israel, the United States, Westernand Western Europe to seek outbrokers that obtain

(11:22):
organs because they're in a desperate healthcrisis and they've exhausted all other options.
You know, people in these situationsthey're not just coming in for kicks to
steal these organs like they're afraid fortheir lives. You know, doesn't make
it right, but they're definitely notin a healthy state of mind. They're

(11:43):
scared and trying to fix it.The countries where incidents of organ sales or
theft are most prominent are China,Pakistan, the Philippines, Egypt, Turkey,
Kosovo, and South Africa. IRan is the only country in the

(12:05):
world where it's actually legal to sellorgans, and they've even established a base
price for organs of four thousand sixhundred dollars. That's amazing. Yeah,
I just it's it blows my mind. And I wonder the thing that I
didn't do enough research on and maybeI don't know if the information is out

(12:28):
there, but does that system workfor them? You know? Is it
something that you know, maybe othercountries can adopt and people can sell them.
I don't know. Or is itsomething that's just causing problems and more
of a rift and a divide betweenpeople that are you know, upper class,
upper middle class or something and peoplethat are in poverty. I don't

(12:52):
know. Yeah, it's interesting ofthem just put it right on out there
too, right, just like,yep, this is legal, and we're
selling a and this is how mucha goss? We don't care what you
think? Right. So it's safeto say that the organ trade is inherently
exploitative, since poor and vulnerable membersof society are sought out by brokers that

(13:15):
are specifically selling to the rich.Typically, it can cost between fifty thousand
and one hundred and fifty thousand dollarsto buy an organ for transplants, yet
the person who is the donor oftenearns as low as one thousand dollars for
their organ not enough. Isn't thatabsolutely mind blowing? I just, oh

(13:43):
man, it just hurts to hearthat, because these people who are in
a desperate situation that are like,I need this thousand dollars to pay for
whatever it is for my family,and then someone's making one hundred and fifty
times that much. It just blowsmy mind. So reported prices for different

(14:05):
organ and tissues are corneas or thirtythousand dollars, lungs one hundred and fifty
thousand, heart one hundred and fiftythousand, liver ninety eight thousand, and
kidneys sixty two thousand. In thecase of kidneys, which are the most
commonly bought organ, the criminals willoften tell the victims that the kidney will

(14:30):
grow back, or that having twokidneys is unnatural, or even that they
have a large and small kidney soremoval of the small kidney is harmless.
But the reality is that in manyof these cases, the medical expenses after
the kidneys removed actually makes their financialsituation even worse than before they sold the

(14:54):
organ. Jeez, yeah, Imean the recovery, you know, yeah,
just all the I mean, you'rehaving a major surgery, it's just
yeah, it's no good. It'sawful. They're completely being exploited and taken
advantage of and they end up wayworse off. It's so sad. So
even though it is illegal, verylittle is done to stop illegal organ trade.

(15:18):
Really in any country. The organtrade is not prioritized by law enforcement
or any governments, and organ traffickersare rarely caught, which is why,
I mean, we've had an extremelyhard time even finding any cases of organ
trafficking. It's been difficult. Theyjust cannot make anything stick. No,

(15:41):
not at all. When an organring or a victim is discovered, there's
almost always nobody brought to justice forthe crime. In nineteen eighty four,
China past a law that allowed organsof executed prisoners to be used in organ
transplants if no one objected. Oneof the reasons China opted to allow organs

(16:07):
to be taken from executed prisoners isbecause they did not even have a formal
organ donation program set up for peopleto volunteer until two thousand and ten.
That's a really long time and nautimateprogram. Sorry, like that's just that's
too late for me. I honestlyhad no idea. I could not believe

(16:32):
when I read that. That's sorecents. Everybody else in the world has
some sort of donor program, Idon't understand. Yeah, minimum at least.
So from two thousand and three totwo thousand and nine, only one
hundred and thirty people in China signedup to be organ donors. And there

(16:55):
are one point three nine three billionpeople in China as of twenty eighteen,
and in twenty ten only thirty sevenpeople signed up. That's these numbers are
just astounding, right, Yeah,it's just staggering. There's just it's a
huge, huge country. The populationis just enormous, and nobody is a

(17:21):
donor. And I mean one ofthe reasons for this, it's important to
point out, is just their culturalcustoms. They don't sign up because postmortem,
your body is supposed to be keptintact according to a lot of spiritual,
religious beliefs, a lot of culturalbeliefs that are held. And I

(17:41):
can't fault people for that. Imean, if that's what you grew up
believing, and you just don't thinkabout donating your organs because it's not part
of your society, it's not partof your culture. And thirty seven people
in twenty ten. It's just notenough. No, I mean, there's
just so many people that need orin every country, so especially with the

(18:02):
huge population that they have, Iimagine that the demand is just so high,
and so it just it's very sadthat they didn't have anything set up
until twenty ten and people still aren'treally signing up to be donors. Yeah,
I just I don't know how tochange that, but part of me
just feels like, very passionately thatthat just needs to change because people are

(18:27):
out there dying because they're not willingto have the type of donation program that's
set up in every other country wherethere's a lot of donors that are willing
to give up their pieces post mortem. You know, Like I know it's
not a pretty thing to think about, but it saves people's lives, you
know what I mean. Like there'ssome comfort in that knowing that you've helped

(18:51):
someone else. Anyway. So inChina, most transplant recipients are not told
how the organ came to them andare never asked to sign any paperwork with
information about the donor. In thelate two thousands, Word begin spreading that
most organs in China were coming fromprisoners who were executed for their spiritual practice

(19:18):
of Falonong. Falanong is a religiousspiritual practice that was started in Northeast China
by former trumpet player Lee hung Ziaround nineteen ninety two. Lee's teachings were
similar to many other spiritual practices inChina, but he also offered a path

(19:40):
to enlightenment and salvation to those thatwere faithful. To quote Master Lee.
He quickly became a bit of adeity in the group, and there were
rumors that Master Lee could do thingslike walk through walls and levitates. Today,

(20:00):
Falonong is practiced in over seventy countries, and a two thousand and eight
estimate put followers in the range offorty to one hundred thousand. It's kind
of a big gap, but that'snot a small group, you know.
Although it's a relatively new religious movementin that it was founded very recently,

(20:22):
their core principles and practices draw fromancient spirituality similar to like Buddhism and Taoism,
using kind of breathing exercises, keigongand yoga, slow movements, you
know, that kind of stuff.Many people say that their first awareness of

(20:44):
Falanong was through seeing groups doing meditationsin the park. I think most people,
if you think about this, you'veprobably seen it, unless it's very
similar to Taichi. Yes, yes, and yeah, I meant to say
that too, like kind of theseslow moving like deep breath move slow,
just kind of meditate through slow movementand breathing, you know that kind of

(21:07):
stuff. And they would do itin groups out in public. So that's
a lot of people's first exposure waslike, oh, what are they doing.
Oh, that's just Faloong, youknow. Yeah. Their main focus
is the healing practice of meditation.Falonong's main three principles, which are used
as a motto, is truth,compassion, and tolerance. Falonong means law

(21:34):
wheel practice in Chinese, and theiremblem is a yellow swastika on a red
background. It's one of the fewthings that threw me off. I could
get behind a lot of the Falonongthings, but I don't understand why they
used a swastika, do you.I'm totally into the park. I'm really

(21:56):
fine with meditation, all of thiscool, I'll be there, but the
yellow swan and I couldn't. Howelse do you explain what this looks like
right, no, no, it'sdefinitely a swastika. Yeah, that's all
it is. It is, Andif you're developing this religion in the nineties,
it's not like, oh, itwas developed before the Holocaust or anything

(22:17):
like that. You can't say thatyou weren't aware. In every country around
the world, you know what thatsymbol means. So I don't really understand
why they used it. Yes,media, I could not find any explanation,
but you know, for what it'sworth, that's their symbol. In
the early days, they called themselvesa non violent and a political group.

(22:41):
Since their focus was more on thingslike meditation, philosophy, and seeking enlightenment,
they didn't really have time for orprioritize politics and anything like that.
Over time, Fellingong began getting attentionfrom politicians because it promotes free thinking and

(23:03):
critical thinking, which were, ofcourse, highly discouraged under the regime at
the time. By the late nineties, the Communist Party and public security agencies
in China started treating Falangong as athreat. Various government agencies disapproved of Falangong
because it was such a large organizationwhich was independent from the state, and

(23:29):
their spiritual teachings were seen as adirect opposition to the government. Yeah,
that's never gonna be good. No, it's just immediately the government's like everybody
in the room is turning all eyeson them. It seems like, yeah,
they're walking the room, and it'slike, you know, they've just
got a lot of attention on them, and they're growing, and it's becoming

(23:53):
more scary to the powers that bethat their numbers are getting bigger, that
their people are incouraging free thinking.It's becoming a threat. The group became
such an enemy of the administration thatFalonong was considered one of the five highest
threats to the ruling Chinese governments.When the government began its campaign to eradicate

(24:18):
the Falonong, its founder Lee Honzi, fled to the US so he didn't
have to endure the persecution that manyof his followers ended up being subjected to.
Well it must be nice, right, Yeah, just to have the
privilege of just leaving, like,okay, cool, now that you guys
have spread my religion to seventy millionpeople, I'm out. Good luck with

(24:44):
that. Appreciate it, Sea,That's a real dick move. Yeah.
By nineteen ninety nine, Falonong hadreached its height in number of followers,
and the government estimated that they wereover seventy million people practicing Faloong. That
is a lot of people. It'sa fuck ton of people. It's a

(25:07):
lot. While the spiritual organization wasgrowing, the state sanctioned press was running
a defamatory media campaign against them bypublishing articles disparaging the Faloong. Most of
the government media's campaign against Falongong soughtto convince the public that they are an

(25:30):
evil cult. Xang Yu, aspokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said,
quote the Falogong cult violates human rightsby controlling people's minds. He also told
the press that Falangong needs to besuppressed because it encourages meditation and the paranormal

(25:55):
over modern medicine. The Ministry ofCivil Affairs declared that the Fallangong was an
illegal organization that was quote engaged inillegal activities, advocating superstition and spreading fallacies,
hoodwinking people, inciting and creating disturbances, and jeopardizing social stability. It

(26:22):
just to me kind of doesn't addup that these people just you know,
meditating in the park are inspiring thismuch hate just immediately you're like, this
isn't right, you know what Imean, nothing they're doing really warrants this
kind of attack. But it justkept going yeah, and I'm just immediately

(26:45):
suspicious, like wait, so whydon't like because illegal activities? Right,
It's like, but I thought theywere just meditating. So like, hey,
you look into it, and you'rejust like, well, what a
legal activities? You know, butit's it's just any time that they want
you to hate something so intensely,right, you just have to look at

(27:07):
it. I kept thinking there wasgoing to be more. I was like,
yeah, I've got to look atthis. Let me think, let
me dig, let me use differentsearch terms, let me find different articles.
And I just couldn't find anything thatreally corroborated what the government was saying
about them. Just take that forwhat it's worth. If you want to

(27:29):
do research on your own, youcan. I just couldn't find anything that
was credible saying that the Fallonong wasreally doing anything bad. You know,
it really was just a combination ofso many of the other spiritual practices that
were you know, approved of andfine with the government. You know,

(27:49):
it didn't make any sense that theysingled them out. Yeah, the key
here is what you said, whichis what you could find right right,
that is shown to you because youcan find things that say, Foulon Gong
is this nefarious group of people,right, but it is not credible,

(28:10):
and that's really what it is is. It's more so like you had said
that it's not credible. The thingsthat you'll find, you can find it,
but you can tell it's just straightup propaganda from the Chinese media.
It's like it's kind of creepy.It makes you almost like there were a
couple times when I was reading stuffand I started thinking like, oh my
god, they're they're trying to getme right now, right this group,

(28:36):
yes, like yeah, and youstart reading about it and you're like,
well, yeah, that is terrible. I don't like that. And then
you're like, but wait no,he can't levitate either, Like you know,
there's all these things. So it'sit's one of those you have to
use your critical thinking and they don'twant that. Yeah. I mean,
if it was true and if itwas legitimately a controlling cult with you know,

(28:59):
punitive issues with the leadership hurting thepractitioners or you know, like and
true mind control and whatever it is. I mean, if it was that
way, yeah, of course wewould be the first ones to be like,
hey, that's a cult, pleasedon't join that. It's shitty,
you know. But also the governmentshouldn't be doing awful things to them.

(29:23):
They should just be like, hey, here's a warning, don't don't join
this cult, you know. Butthat's where it should end. But they
were on a full, all outassault to in their words, quote eradicate
the fallon Gong for really no reasonbecause there's no ability to corroborate and confirm

(29:45):
the things that the government was sayingabout them. It just is simply not
true. They were making it up. They were intimidated by the large numbers
and the free thinking, and they'relike, we got to get rid of
this group. It wasn't dangerous atall. It's funny because now you know,
now that I know how much they'rejust hate these people, Right,

(30:06):
I am totally gonna download Meditation Fellagonon YouTube, right because everything it just
seemed so it's taichi to me.It just seems so like, oh okay,
and I'm into meditation. We cando this, right, because yeah,
don't tell me not to do somethingyou know, I don't know.

(30:26):
I wouldn't do very well in thecommunist government. You can see I would
do the exact opposite of what theywould want. Yeah, it's just it's
striking to me because, like Isaid, from every source that I read,
and I am not an expert inreligions or spiritual practices, but everything
I was reading was just pointing outthat this was a direct combination of Buddhism

(30:52):
and Taoism, which are approved bythe Chinese government, that nobody has a
problem in with people practicing those religionsor spiritual practices. Everything that they were
drawing on from breathing exercises, meditation, keegong, yoga, all these things
are done by other groups and it'sokay, but the Falonong were not allowed.

(31:18):
You know, it was this onegroup that was singled out, and
it's just very scary that they startedthis all out campaign that went to a
very severe extremes. So the practitionersof Valongong would protest and pick it,

(31:41):
but they were not able to completelystop the campaign against them. On April
twenty fifth, nineteen ninety nine,over ten thousand Falongong practitioners gathered in Beijing,
for a silent protest outside the gatesof Zhong nine High the Communist Party's

(32:01):
leadership compound to demand legal recognition andfreedom from government persecution. In Hyan sights,
this large demonstration is seen as theevent that pushed the government to be
more severe and treat them as atrue threat to national security. On July

(32:23):
twentieth, nineteen ninety nine, theChinese Communist Party initiated a nationwide crackdown and
heightened propaganda campaign with the goal ofcompletely eradicating Falanong. One method used to
block people from finding Falanong related websites, which wait. One method use was

(32:46):
to block people from finding Faloong relatedwebsites, which meant that any person who
was searching for Falingong on the Internetwould only find the The States sanctioned negative
propaganda in October nineteen ninety nine.Falangong was declared quote a heretical organization which

(33:09):
threatened social stability, and by theend of nineteen ninety nine, the government
was coming down hard on anyone whowas caught practicing Falangong or spreading its teachings.
During the last months of nineteen ninetynine, the Ministry of Public Security

(33:31):
issued a circular forbidding people from meetingin groups to practice Falangong, possessing any
Falangong literature, displaying Valongong symbols,or protesting any of these restrictions. Sounds
like they're really close to burning booksto me. Really, I mean,

(33:52):
it's just every area of Valogong,they're just cutting it off. Yeah.
By this point, it was commonfor members of Falangong to be arrested without
cause, denied a lawyer, imprisonedwithout trial, psychologically abused, sent to

(34:13):
labor camps, tortured, and subjectedto damaging conversion therapy methods. It's just
all out brutality. I mean,it's just horrific what they were doing to
Faloong. Anyone who was caught possessingmaterials, practicing, or anything was subjected

(34:37):
to this terrible, just abusive,life threatening treatment. A forty one year
old geneticist and former Falgong prisoner namedBoo Dongwei recalls that himself and other Falangong
prisoners were specifically assigned to share cellswith more violent and dangerous criminals if they

(35:00):
did not denounce their spiritual beliefs.In addition to being put in these cells
with more dangerous people. The correctionsofficers would even encourage the fellow prisoners to
target and abuse any prisoner who wasfellon Gong. The ordeal was so harrowing

(35:23):
that Boodongwei has fled the country sincehis release, just like so many others
who were either scared off or radicalizedby the persecution and abuse in China.
I could see it definitely making alot of people turn the exact opposite and
just becoming like radicals. I meanmakes perfect sense to me, how,

(35:45):
especially when it's like your government hasturned on you. Yes, of course,
yeah, it's just gonna turn youinto a completely different person after this
persecution. As of two thousand andnine, human rights organizations estimate that two
thousand Faloong practitioners have died as adirect result of being abused while in state

(36:10):
custody. But there's many experts thatthink this estimation is incredibly low. It
seems low already just with their numbers. Yes, yes, And as we'll
see going forward, there's just somany accounts of this happening, and so
many things that they were doing tohurt the Falanong prisoners. It just doesn't

(36:35):
seem possible that there were that fewpeople and that's a large number. That's
too many, that's two thousand toomany. But still I think the number
is way, way bigger. Ofcourse, these deaths really never make the
news, and it's extremely difficult tofind any information about them. The government

(36:58):
just keeps it completely lockdown. Oneof the victims that we do know about
is forty two year old folk musicianYou Joe from Beijing. You had studied
French at Beijing University before joining afolk music ensemble who released two successful albums

(37:19):
and even performed on TV. Hewas married to a poet and painter named
Zoo Nah, who had been imprisonedfrom two thousand and one to two thousand
and six for practicing follongong. Fiveyears in prison just for your spiritual beliefs.
It's just unbelievable to me. It'sa big threat to them. Yes,

(37:45):
just living in fear and not knowingwhen your wife is going to come
home or when they could come foryou, I just can't imagine. Yeah,
So eventually she came home, likeI said two thousand and six.
But then on January twenty six,two thousand and eight, You was pulled
over by police on the way homefrom a concert, and he was told

(38:07):
that he had been speeding. Policedecided to search his car and they found
Falgong literature along with a Falgong CD. You was arrested and ten days later
his family was called with the newsthat he had died and they needed to

(38:29):
come pick up his body. Hisfamily was told that he had died because
of a hunger strike combined with dehydrationand complications from diabetes. However, you
was healthy and never diagnosed with diabetesprior to his arrest. It is believed

(38:50):
that you Zo died from the abusesuffered while in custody, but his family,
as well as the press, hasbeen repeatedly denied for a death certificate
or an autopsy report or really anyfurther information. I think that's what they
encounter. I mean, just youknow, we're the government and we're going

(39:12):
to tell you no. And that'syour answer is we're not giving you anything
else, right what we say,just accept it? Yeah, absolutely.
Under that regime, of course,they said, you don't get the information.
This is how we died. Acceptit, move on. And that's
what they did with a lot ofpeople because the government sought to villainize the

(39:37):
Fallingong and suppress any information about governmentsanctioned human rights violations. It's extremely difficult
to find anyone who will come forwardand talk about their experience. However,
there are a few people who havetried to share their story, including the
family of Coo cheng Ling. Coowas a seventy seven year old director of

(40:00):
Dongfeng paper factory in Wuhan City ofHubei Province who was known to practice follongong.
Even though he may have been alittle bit older, he was actually
in the army when he was young, and so he continued to stay fit,
and he was known to be verytall and strong and athletic even in

(40:22):
his advanced age as he got older. On the evening of August eighth in
two thousand and eight, when theBeijing Olympics began, Kao got on his
bike and left home, but henever came back. His family began searching
for him and even stood outside hiswork to ask people passing by if they

(40:45):
had seen him. One woman saidthat she recognized him, but when she
tried to speak, a man interruptedher and said, mind your own business.
Excuse me, sir, we don'tdo that here right Where is he?
You know? Like, uh,I don't know, Like, mind

(41:07):
my own business. What do youthink you are? Excuse me, there's
a seventy seven year old man missingrights. Well, this is the time
for us as a community to belike, okay, we're going to figure
out what happened. Did you seehim? Did you see him? Let's
figure out what his last steps were, Where was he last seen? Like,
let's figure this out. It couldhave been anybody's grandpa, you know.

(41:28):
But the problem is, you know, it's it touches. You know,
you can ratting each other out,mother versus child even you know,
like if you have contraband, right, you have something that you isn't you're
not supposed to have. Like everybody'safraid of each other because they're ratting each

(41:50):
other out to the party, rightand all that stuff. It's very like
it's very Nazi party esque. It'sit's all that stuff that's going on.
So everybody's like, mind your ownbusiness, don't talk about it, and
just you know, like you're betteroff. You're gonna bring a heat down
on all of us, you know, right, Yeah, nobody wants to
attract attention. Nobody wants to bethe person that singled out that later on,

(42:10):
you know, they're coming to youfor information or be established as a
snitch or who knows, you know, like or that they're afraid that if
they tell them, hey, thegovernment snatched your dad off the street,
then the government's going to come afterthem, you know. So yeah,
people are living in fear and theydon't want to tell the truth. And

(42:31):
any person that you know their consciencegets to them and tells them, I
really want to say, what happenedto this person, they're shut down.
You know. Everybody else is like, no, don't say anything. And
I feel kind of bad, likeusing the analogous the Nazi Party, but
it's just that that, right,you know, I don't know how else

(42:52):
to explain it. But yeah,no I don't, Okay, I don't
take that lightly, no, ButI you know, even in of course,
when you start diving into a caseand really looking at it, you
start talking about it to people,right, And I mean, this is
an all out genocide. This iswhat I've explained when I'm talking to people

(43:13):
about it. It's a genocide.And you know, one of the biggest
examples we have of that in moderntimes is the Nazi Party. So I
mean of course it draws comparisons.When these people are practicing a certain religion,
the religion, you know, isbecomes an enemy of the state.
The government decides it's going to quoteeradicate this religion, and then they start

(43:37):
employing tactics that we've seen the NaziParty US. And this is not that
long ago. This is late nineties, early two thousands. I mean,
that's what I kept coming back to. Also, Yeah, it's just yeah,
whenever I talk about it, I'mjust like, and this happened,
Like, people know about genocide,people know about the Holocaust, and this

(43:58):
is something that you know, somany people lost their lives. Will continue
to get into it as we asthe episode goes along. But I mean,
they're snatching people off the streets,like this seventy seven year old man,
and they're never seen again, youknow. I mean, yeah,
I totally understand. This is definitelyyou know, it's it draws the comparisons,

(44:22):
and I don't take that lightly,but I do agree with you that
that's where my mind goes to isand nuts. Not to minimize either side,
but it's just to say that that'sone of the examples that we have
of genocide in you know the recentpast, you know, and this is
very recent. So it's definitely scarythat a genocide like this could happen where

(44:46):
just a religious group could just beso persecuted and killed and it's government sanctioned.
It's scary. I've been watching toomuch Man in the High Castle.
Oh God, all right, allright, nobody wi nobody wanted that,
all right, keep going. It'sjust scary. So even though people had

(45:07):
clearly seen him around his work andnobody was willing to talk, they couldn't
find anybody that was willing to givethem information. But it did seem like
people knew something had happened and theyjust weren't willing to talk about it.
Two days later, the family receiveda call informing them that he was in

(45:30):
the hospital, so they rushed overto see him. When they arrived,
they found him unconscious and bruised,with a broken hand, head injuries,
and lacerations on his back, asthough basically he had been kind of dragged
on rough ground or like asphalt orsomething. That's his family was told that

(45:52):
he had a stroke and fell offhis bike, but of course his appearance
and injuries made it clear that hewas involved in a physical struggle and altercation.
This was not just you know,a stroke or heart attack or something
like that where you just fall over. You know, a fall is one

(46:14):
thing, you've got a concentrated bruise. This was injuries all over, defensive
wounds, dragging wounds. It wasbad because his family was fallen gong.
They knew this was possibly a motive, and they were extremely suspicious of the
doctor, who gave them very littleinformation, so they requested a transfer to

(46:38):
another hospital, but the doctor refused, so pretty much the only hope that
they could cling to was that hewould regain consciousness soon and then once he
was up, they'd be able tospeak to him and he could tell him
what happened to him. But shortlyafter, the doctor made an incision in

(47:01):
his throat which made him unable tospeak, although he claimed it was to
help him breathe. And my counterto this is that in everything I read,
breathing was never listed as an issuethat he had. Nor does breathing
seem like it would be an issuethat would have been sustained from a stroke,

(47:24):
you know, like, it doesn'tseem like it's explained by what the
doctors were telling the family. Nowwe can't let this old man talk.
No. Exactly, at six amon August fifteenth, two thousand and eight,
the doctor pronounced mister Cow dead,and his family is still hoping that

(47:46):
witnesses will come forward with information aboutwho snatched him off the street and beat
him to death. As heartbreaking asthese deaths are, much more extreme.
Dream stories began emerging about what washappening to imprisoned Faloong members the same year

(48:14):
the Faloong persecution campaigns began. Innineteen ninety nine, the amount of prisoners
was declining and the need for organswas increasing. It was no coincidence that
there was a surge in organ transplantsin China starting around two thousand, when

(48:34):
Falonong began being severely persecuted by thegovernment. Previously, wait times for certain
organs had been years, but suddenlythe wait lists seemed to completely disappear and
organs became readily accessible. The surgein transplants was so severe that practically overnight,

(49:00):
China had become number two in volumeof transplants per year, right after
the United States. Thirty seven peopleright, thirty seven people provided enough organs
for them to be number two sure, it's just unreal, this huge boom,

(49:23):
this surge in numbers. China nearlytripled their number of operating transplant centers
in the first year after the imprisonmentof Fallonong began. Within a decade,
China increased from just a few hundredtransplants per year in nineteen ninety nine two

(49:47):
over ten thousand in two thousand andeight. And these numbers were even confirmed
by their Chinese Ministry of Health.These aren't numbers that are speculated or that's
some outside source that's not reputable.No, this is directly from the government.
They admitted that there were ten thousandtransplants in two thousand and eight,

(50:08):
as opposed to just a few hundredten years earlier. No, they love
taking credit for stuff. It's weird. Like that's what I noticed too.
They're just all about giving you thesewild numbers that make no sense, but
give them credit for things that theyreally should not be taken credit for.
Anybody else looking at that would justbe like, something's wrong. This is

(50:30):
a horror story. There's theft happeninghere. Anybody would look at those numbers
and say they don't add up.So them bragging about it You're right,
it's just completely asinine. It justdoesn't make sense. They do it a
lot, a lot. Yeah,every other country has donors who volunteer their

(50:52):
organs. Right. However, likewe said before, China didn't set up
their donation system till twenty ten,so at this time it was a complete
mystery as to where this surge inorgans was coming from. In two thousand
and one, a Chinese doctor testifiedthat he had been part of extracting organs

(51:14):
from prisoners, some of which hesaid, we're not even dead yet.
In two thousand and five, China'sdeputy health minister Huang chief who said that
yes, ninety five percent of organscame from prisoners and that he would implement
measures to help curb this practice.And again, this is them, this

(51:39):
is their deputy guy coming out takingcredit. Yeah, and you know what,
really quick side note, I'm sorryif we are completely butchering like Chinese
here. I don't think we're thatfar off. I don't, but just
in case, I'm just saying thisout loud. No, I'm not perfect
at these things. I'm trying mybest. No, we don't think anybody

(52:01):
here is perfect, especially when you'rereading all this three hours in a row,
so I'm just saying it out loud. I know it's it's hard enough
to do, I'm sorry, searchto put this together, and then the
fact that it falls apart when I'mbutchering the names. It's okay, people,
So I'm doing my best. I'mdoing my best. You're doing a

(52:23):
great job, Brandon. In Marchtwo thousand and six, whistleblowers came forward
admitting involvement in forced harvesting of corneasfrom Falanong prisoners. By April two thousand
and six, the US State Departmentformed the cipfg OR Coalition to investigate the

(52:45):
persecution of Falingong. The group askedCanadian Secretary of State David Kilgore and human
rights lawyer David Matas to investigate theallegations and prepare a report. There had
been rumors about Fallingong followers held incamps, but of course being killed to

(53:08):
supply the Chinese organ transplant industry wasa completely new, escalated twist. China
refused to cooperate with any officials whowere attempting to gather data and investigate allegations
for this report, which is wherebecause they could have just given them all

(53:28):
these false numbers like they do allthe time, but this particular time they
don't want to be involved, right, interesting because they're not controlling the narrative
exactly. Yeah, when Kilgore andMattis were finally granted access to hospital facilities,
it was abundantly clear that they hadall been cleaned in preparation for their

(53:52):
arrival, or basically, harvesting hadbeen completely shut down in anticipation of their
investing. When they returned to theUS, they decided to utilize Mandarin speaking
agents to contact transplant centers in China, requesting a phone consultation and saying that

(54:12):
they would be coming from the USor Canada to buy an organ. And
this is completely genius. They're like, if you're not going to cooperate with
us, if we can't actually seeyour real facilities, we're going to have
to be covert about it. We'regoing to have to try and get information
other ways, when you could justbe transparent and be honest, you know,

(54:34):
not if you're murdering people for theirorgans, what do you mean?
I know, you're right. It'sjust so frustrating that, yeah, that
this is even happening. And thatthey're having to do this and try and
think of these ways. But itisn't an ingenious way to kind of go
around the back door and pretend tobe basically a customer and say, okay,

(54:55):
here's a Mandarin speaking person. I'msaying I'm from Canada and I really
need to get an organ. Whatcan you do for me? You know,
that's a great way to try andget in with a doctor or a
transplant facility and kind of get someinformation. Because you're far away, you're
from another country. You need allthis information over the phone. It's not

(55:17):
that you can like drive down thestreet and come in and do a consultation
in person, you know, sothey have it all on tape. It's
great. Multiple agents specifically asked thedoctors if they could get a fresh fallonong
organ, and the doctors from multiplefacilities assured them that the organs would be

(55:40):
available within a week and be transplantedwithin ten to fifteen hours of harpists.
This was significantly shorter of a waittime than any other country, since it
usually took like three to five yearsto get a transplant of any organ in

(56:04):
any other country. It's a bigdifference, huge it's just so clear that
something's wrong. Overall, they wereable to get about fifteen percent of the
doctors from facilities they contacted all acrossChina to admit to using Fallonong organs specifically.

(56:27):
One aspect of the report centered onwas the for profit organ system,
a byproduct of the nineteen eighties healthcarereform, which made basically the medical community
need to get creative to find waysto secure more funding. Kilgore and Mattas
discovered that certain Chinese hospitals that neededto generate income were catering to wealthy foreigners

(56:53):
willing to pay fees starting at aroundone hundred thousand dollars for a liver,
lungs, and heart transplants. Onthe China International Transplantation Network Assistance website in
two thousand and six, the goingrates were corneas thirty thousand dollars, kidneys

(57:15):
sixty two thousand dollars, liver ninetyeight two, one hundred and thirty thousand
dollars liver plus kidneys one hundred andsixty two hundred and eighty thousand kidney plus
pancreas one hundred and fifty thousand dollarslung one hundred and fifty thousand, two
one hundred and seventy thousand and aheart one hundred and thirty thousand to one

(57:37):
hundred and sixty thousand, And that'swhat was on their website, just totally
public. Just could I could goon my AO all dial up yeah,
whatever, right, and maybe wait, maybe it's not battled, and I
could go on this website and justtype it click, let a collect click
and just be like, I wanta liver kidney package, and you can

(58:01):
get prices and then you could gofrom there to Expedia and get like hotel
rooms and flights for your It's insane, it's true. It's unbelievable that you're
right. I mean, that's theperfect comparison. It was as easy as
booking a flight to buy an organ. It's unbelievable. It's not good.

(58:22):
In addition to wealthy individuals from outsidethe country, there were also a high
ranking members from the government who werequickly supplied with transplant organs. I'm going
to say something right now, butyou know, when you need a haircut,
hey, all right, you cancut whatever you want. It's a

(58:43):
very California joke. But I'm justsaying, of course, when you're in
the government, you need the perks, right, Who cares these developers are
throwing money at me? Come on, yeah, I mean anybody in a
position of power, anybody with money, they could just pray on this system
of stealing organs from these people thatare just completely being eradicated, this group

(59:08):
of spiritual practitioners. It's unbelievable,so crazy, a witness said, quote.
China is different from other countries.In other countries, patients wait for
organs. In China, organs waitfor patients. E. The Kilgore Mats

(59:30):
Report was published in July two thousandand six and concluded that since nineteen ninety
nine, quote, the government ofChina and its agencies in numerous parts of
the country, in particular hospitals andattention centers, have put to death a
large but unknown number of Falangong prisonersof conscience. Some of the evidence outlined

(59:54):
in the report was based on thenumber of executed prisoners, not really a
lining with the number of transplants andthe fact that China has significantly shorter weight
times than any other country. Outsideexperts have estimated that the number of China's
executions is between two to eight thousandpeople per year, but that number isn't

(01:00:19):
even close to the ten thousand transplantsthat are estimated to take place in China
every year. Again, that's numbersthat were given by their own ministry,
and we also know thirty seven donors, so those numbers don't add up.
And it's like hard to know whoeven is beginning. I mean, I

(01:00:42):
know he's telling the truth, butit's hard to know the true numbers,
even from the people who are tellingthe truth. It's hard because it's just
it's also deceptive from the beginning,because it's not deceptive. I mean,
it's not even deceptive when there's norecords, Like it's very easy to just
pull numbers out of the sky becausehe never wrote anything down, so it's

(01:01:02):
like, yeah, nobody's asking,so you can say, oh, we
only did ten when you did tenthousands. Nobody's checking. And this is
the challenge with these cases in generaland this case specifically, is we don't
really have the specifics and the names, and it's hard to really talk about
something where there's not a case ofOkay, this person is charged with the

(01:01:28):
murder of that person. This isnot one of those cases. This is
a genocide. It's completely different,and it's just so frustrating to see these
numbers and not really know the truenature of how many people were suffering behind
bars. We don't really know howmany people were imprisoned that we're just for

(01:01:51):
Fallingong. We don't know how manypeople were killed just for these organ transplants.
These are just estimates, and thereality is they're real people. These
are people's parents and siblings and children, and they're all meaning something to someone.
They're friends and family members, butwe don't know their names. They're

(01:02:14):
just a generic number. Oh,we estimate that it's about ten thousand people.
We estimate it's about two thousand people. And that's so unbelievably tragic that
we just have no idea the scopeof of the people that suffered and that
lost their lives during this time.We just don't know. It's all guesses.

(01:02:38):
I really bummed myself out with thatone. That rough. Yes,
sorry, sorry, family members.This is all I've been thinking of this
whole time, and they never camehome to see them or pet them again.
It really is just all I've beenthinking about is that we don't know

(01:02:59):
any of these people. And that'swhy the few cases where we did know
that, you know, someone disappearedoff the street or someone was pulled over
by the police. I included thosenames, and those people that I could
find, or a couple witnesses thatwe're going to hear from. I included
those things. But those are theonly people whose names we have. Everybody
else is just gone, you know, just disappeared into the mist. We

(01:03:24):
just don't know who they are andwhat happened to them, and it's just
it's heartbreaking, it's just really devastating. So as we know, because of
health issues, medical conditions and age, like we talked about last week,

(01:03:49):
some people are not medically suitable candidatesto donate. The donor also needs to
match the blood and tissue typing beforedonation can be confirmed. So basically,
doctors use this ratio they call theten to one to signify that it takes

(01:04:10):
testing ten people to find the oneperson that matches the patient needing an organ.
So we can't just take one prisonerand take their organs and then immediately
transplant it into another person. Wehave to do all this testing and find

(01:04:30):
the matches, and typically you haveto from the doctors saying this ten to
one ratio, we have to lookat ten people before we find the one
person that matches. So with thatsaid, those numbers go up kind of
astronomically. If they're testing all thesepeople taking organs and some of them are

(01:04:51):
rejecting, possibly they think that thatis what is happening because they're not being
careful. They're just taking it transplanting, trying to see, like throwing stuff
on the wall and seeing if it'sdicks. Basically, yeah, like we
talked about last week, the lackof donors and difficulty matching patients with compatible
donors leads to long waiting times.So using kidneys as the example, the

(01:05:15):
US average is three and a halfyears, while in Canada the wait time
is four years and the UK theaverage is two and a half years.
In China, however, patients wouldhave a suitable donor matched and the surgery
transplant performed within two to four weeks. Some facilities in patients report being able

(01:05:41):
to have the organ transplant performed withina few days. Okay when they tell
you that, right, they're like, okay, well we've done no testing
and everything we know is wrong andwe can't give you any numbers, but
we can have that cornia and kidneyfor you within three days? Is I'm

(01:06:03):
saying, get like and you stillgo through with it? Yeah, And
even hearing some of the recordings fromthe investigation by Kilgore and mates where they're
talking to these doctors undercover, andthe doctors are saying, just get here,
just book your flight and we willhave it for you. Book your

(01:06:24):
flight, stay for a couple ofweeks, and we will have your organ.
Don't worry about it, We'll haveit in a couple of days.
Unbelievable. I just can't wrap myhead around it. The numbers don't add
up, and it's so clear thatthey're just murdering these prisoners for their organs.
There's just no two ways around it. Yeah. An American data compiling

(01:06:47):
company called Quintillis IMS corroborated the estimatesof high transplant numbers by confirming the high
demand in China for immuno suppressive drugsthat are always used after transplants. So
it's not just these random numbers thatare kind of pulled out of space.

(01:07:08):
We are actually seeing that the drugsmatch the amount of transplants. It's a
smart way to go about corroborating that. Yeah, absolutely, I was impressed
with that. Yeah. The KilgoreMattas report says, quote, the source
of forty one thousand, five hundredtransplants for the six year period two thousand

(01:07:30):
to two thousand and five is unexplained, and we believe that there has been
and continues today to be large scaleorgan seizures from unwilling fallingong practitioners. In
twenty ten, Kilgore and Mattas werenominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Government

(01:07:55):
officials tried to claim that the organsall came from execute to death row prisoners,
but they would not release statistics onhow many prisoners are executed per year.
But again we've got the estimates thatit's about two to eight thousand.
So the numbers don't add up welljust from I mean the fact there's forty

(01:08:15):
one and a half thousand, it'slike it's high end eight thousand. You
know, it's just nothing. Noneof these numbers out up. None of
them. Doesn't matter what numbers,they just give you so many different ones
you get confused, yep. Andnone of them really explain the severity of
how quick it is to just geta transplant to show up in the country

(01:08:36):
and have an organ. Yeah,none of it adds up. Although the
Chinese government was attempting to downplay ordeny the allegations, other countries were taking
the report very seriously. The Australiangovernment announced in December two thousand and six
that they had ended their training andresearch programs with in their hospitals beyond the

(01:09:03):
Kilgormatas report. The other significant experton Falangong organ harvesting is the twenty seventeen
Nobel Prize nominee Ethan Gutman, whois the author of The Slaughter Mass Killings,
Organ Harvesting and China's Secret Solution tothe Dissident Problem. Ethan studied international

(01:09:25):
affairs at Columbia University before becoming anadjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense Democracies,
then co founding the International Coalition toEnd Transplant Abuse in China. Ethan
even testified before US Congress, EuropeanParliament, and the UN about Falangong prisoners

(01:09:47):
in camps who were being executed ondemand in Chinese prisons. To meet the
need for donors for his book,Ethan interviewed over hundred witnesses, including doctors,
law enforcement, corrections officers, andfalgong practitioners who survived imprisonments. He

(01:10:12):
estimated that sixty five thousand falgong practitionerswere killed for their organs from two thousand
to two thousand and eight, andthat between four hundred and fifty thousand and
one million falanong practitioners were detained atany given time. Not so many people.
Unbelievable, just rotating, not evenrotating, just coming through a door

(01:10:38):
and not going out the exit rightand not leaving. Yeah, nobody knows
what okay. So like nobody knowswhy they were taken off the street because
the police aren't really telling the familieswhat's going on. They're denied legal counsel,
they're denied a trial, so they'rejust sent directly to a prison or

(01:10:59):
labor camp and their family has noidea. It's just unbelievable. I just
it makes my blood boil thinking thatthey were doing this to these people.
Usually when you go into prison,you have a sentence and you get out.
None of these people leave prison.No, the ones that went in

(01:11:21):
for this shit in nineteen ninety rightor ninety nine, when the whole thing
they start cracking down. Those peoplenever left prison and they're not there anymore.
It's so sad. So it's like, okay, where are you then?
And nobody seems to be asking thatquestion except for like these three guys,

(01:11:41):
you know what I mean, notreally, but I mean everybody's asking,
but the families are even scared.You're right though. It's not that
nobody's asking, but it is thatvery few people are asking because they're scared.
You know, they know how powerfulthe government is and they can't rock
the boat. And I mean ifthey say anything, they could be snatched
off the streets, you know,and they're just living in fear, so

(01:12:06):
sad. A former Falgong labor campprisoner named Cindy's Song confirmed that she and
fellow prisoners were subjected to physical exams, X rays, ultrasounds, blood work,
and other medical testing. Of course, we know these were not to

(01:12:28):
ensure the health of the prisoner sincethey were torturing and abusing them in prison,
but instead it was to have theirinformation readily available so they could be
matched as a donor. When otherprisoners were interviewed and the information was compared.

(01:12:48):
It was concluded that the Falgong prisonerswere all subjected to frequent medical testing,
while the non Falongong prisoners underwent notesting at all. So it was
so clear from his research that theFalingong were specifically targeted for their organs.

(01:13:11):
This was one of the most conclusivethings that we could find. You know,
It's clear that only Falingong prisoners werebeing targeted for their organs. And
Ethan's research revealed that the elderly andunhealthy Foalingong prisoners were almost more fortunate in
the sense that they were not asharvestable as the young and healthy, so

(01:13:34):
they had an increased odd of makingit out of prison alive. Never been
so happy, be geriatric, right, It's just yeah, oh I have
these health issues. Oh thank goodness, because I can't disappear like the person
next to me did. And thiscell, you know, I mean just
thinking that today could be the daythat I could be taken out of my

(01:13:56):
cell and not come back. Youknow, ordinarily you wouldn't want to be
bragging about all the problems you have, right, right, But in one
sense, you're like, God,I can't see anything, and my palpitations,
I can't breathe. I think it'smy asthma. They just like get
out of this camp. We don'twhatever, just go back, get out
of here, Get out of here. You might make it out alive,
or they're just gonna kill you becauseyou're just recessive as hell, right,

(01:14:19):
But like at the same time,it's you know, it's proved to be
safer to be unhealthy, because they'dkeep you in prison for a few years,
but then they'd let you go becauseit was just like you're of no
use to us, we're using youfor your organs, and then you can
go tell the story of how terribleprison is, right and don't be in

(01:14:40):
Faloong. Oh yeah, yeah.Multiple former prisoners said that it was quite
common for police and correctional officers tothreaten to take their body parts when they
were angry. So basically, ifa Faloong practitioner was being reprimanded, a
cop would say things like, I'lltake your heart and liver out nobody could

(01:15:01):
find your body, or you won'tknow where your heart, livers, gleen,
and lungs end up. So itwas like a common joke, like
not only common knowledge, but somethingthat they would threaten and like make light
of. It's sick. One ofthe people, Ethan interviewed was a Chinese

(01:15:21):
born American doctor named Charles Lee whostudied at the University of Illinois and Harvard.
When he was a young medical researcherworking in China, he assisted on
surgeries, including organ harvesting of falanongpractitioners, who he said, we're still
alive. Later on, he beganpracticing falgong and was arrested then in prison,

(01:15:48):
although he considers himself lucky to nothave been murdered and harvested. People
that try this out, like I'mtelling you tomorrow, I'm going to be
a follower practitioner because the people thatlike he was there watching them take organs
out of fallingong people and then hehimself starts doing it, knowing that he

(01:16:11):
is now going to be you knowwhat I mean. It's like, yeah,
that's the last thing you want todo is start looking into meditation,
right, But no, he wentright into it, which makes me think,
like, this is a very there'ssomething to this for people, right.
It's it's like one of those thatit gets it's one of those um
self help and so it's very deepin you and I just I could see

(01:16:36):
this. It's scary. This isscary to the government because he's taken the
organs knowing what's going on, andthen he still gets into this group.
I mean, damn, he's proventheir point. Yeah. Part of me
wonders if it's just because he feltso bad that he's like, oh,
well, I took these organs,I'm gonna look into what this falling Goong

(01:16:58):
thing is all about, and thenhe started connecting with it. That's exactly
what I think happened. Yeah.Many accounts from doctors interviewed by Ethan confirmed
that the harvesting is often performed whilethe victim is still alive, either from
a non fatal but severe bullet woundor through a dose of incapacitating potassium.

(01:17:26):
The victim is never given any anesthetics, so they are often awake and capable
of feeling excruciating pain while their organsare being harvested. It's like braveheart No.
A former employee of a hospital inLioning known as Annie, says she

(01:17:47):
witnessed organs and tissue being harvested fromlive Fallonong prisoners, who were then sent
down to the boiler room, whichwas converted to an incinerator used to kill
prisoners. After harvest. She alsobelieves that some may have still been alive

(01:18:08):
when they were incinerated, way morethan some. At the same time,
her husband was a surgeon who tookpart in these organ removals because he was
afraid that the government what the governmentwould do if he did not comply.
Eventually, her husband began having nightmares, panic attacks. He was easily startled

(01:18:32):
and even flinched when she or theirchild touched him, so she convinced him
to quit his job. They wereforced to flee the country because they feared
that the government would have killed himif he stayed. A former government official
whose job had been to catch FallonGoong said to Gutman, quote, there's

(01:18:55):
nothing that the CCP is not capableof doing in ales and labor camps.
Prisoners are guinea pigs. They mightas well be livestock. Well, no,
I mean livestock like almost her rights. I mean, Jesus, people
kill each other over cattle. Youknow these people are less less than that.

(01:19:16):
Yeah, the recipients of these organshad no idea that another person would
suffer so severely and be killed becausethey needed an organ, and many are
haunted by that knowledge now that they'reaware. Since the Kilgormazas report came out,
UN officials have multiple times called uponChinese government to account for where they

(01:19:42):
sourced the organs used in transplants andcalled for sanctions on Chinese medical authorities.
In two thousand and eight, again, China's Deputy Health Minister Huang Jifu said
he would institute measures to help curbthe practice of harvesting organs from prisoners,
But of course he said the samething again in twenty ten when he announced

(01:20:09):
that they would start transitioning away fromprisoner transplants to only volunteer donors from a
registry. But that same year,a Spanish citizen was able to easily travel
to China for a liver transplant afterpaying one hundred and thirty thousand dollars and
waiting only twenty days. He justwent to the website and then booked his

(01:20:33):
flight right next to Expedia. Youknow, this was Travelocity. It's just
unreal how easy it was. That'sjust oh, it's not okay. Infuriating,
Yeah, none of it's okay.In twenty eleven, a group of
American surgeons called for a boycott ofChinese science and medicine related organ transplantation.

(01:20:58):
In twenty thirteen, the US basedorganization called Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting came
up with a petition condemning China's forcedorgan harvesting of Fallon goong. The petition
was signed by one point five millionpeople, then presented to the UN and
signed by representatives from four continents.In December twenty thirteen, the European Parliament

(01:21:23):
unanimously passed a resolution calling on Chinato immediately end the practice of forced organ
harvesting from Falangong practitioners. Many countrieshave since come up with regulations which make
it a criminal offense to engage intransplant tourism. In twenty sixteen, Ethan

(01:21:44):
Gutman, David Kilgore, and DavidMattis authored an updated investigative report on China's
organ harvesting. The report estimated thatsince the government had began prosecuting the Falangong,
between one hundred and fifty thousand andtwo hundred thousand people had been harvested
for their organs. Such an astronomicalnumber. It's unbelievable. It's yeah,

(01:22:10):
its it's way more than they canever document, right. The seven hundred
page report contained a lot of previouslyunknown information and was covered by all the
largest press outlets throughout the world.Chinese officials insist that they strictly adhere to

(01:22:30):
the World Health Organization standards for transplantand that they require written consent, and
any reports to the contrary are quotea total lie fabricated by the Fallonong.
Independent investigations and reports on the matterhave concluded that China is still engaged in
murdering political prisoners to harvest their organs. The Washington Post was one of the

(01:22:58):
few media outlets who did investigation andfound the numbers much lower than the estimated
sixty to one hundred thousand transplants performedin China today. Faloong creator Lee hung
Zi operates a four hundred acre headquarterscompound called Dragon Springs in Cutterback, New
York. See, he doesn't evenwant he's not even in China. He

(01:23:19):
knows. He's like, I'll bemurdered if I set foot anywhere. But
so he's got this like crazy compoundlike that all you know, good leaders
do and design, and it's justliving the dream of an upstate right.
He also oversees two nearby schools,Phayetian College and Phaytian Academy of the Arts,

(01:23:41):
as well as a performing arts center. Although he was formerly known for
his charismatic preachings, he's become kindof reclusive and reportedly rarely leaves his home
in Queens. Many Falgong practitioners arestill very active today. They are also
the ones behind that, you know, the theatrical dance group shen Yune.

(01:24:05):
Locally, if you're in La there'sa lot of ads for live performances they
do. I don't know if that'severywhere, but definitely there's a lot of
them around here. I think ata lot of colleges. They tour and
perform and it's there's a lot ofcommercials when they come into town, and
it's just like the ancient ARTI ofChinese dance, and they show the coolest

(01:24:28):
looking dance. I've always wanted togo. My grandma went and she loved
it. It's not at season,but um, I've never been. But
when I realized that this is connected, and the meditation and the tai chi
and the park looking stuff, youknow, it all kind of they're very
artistic. A lot of the peoplewe read we talked about here tonight were
musicians and artists and poets and stuff. It is definitely part of their I

(01:24:55):
don't know, like outreach or Idon't know, they definitely prioritize I think
outrange dance saying and yeah, theykind of promote their spiritual practice through like
getting these performances out there, andthe more people that will come to performances,
maybe they'll be interested in Falangong orask questions or something. Yeah.

(01:25:16):
Because of their strong anti communist beliefs, conservatives and Falongong actually aligned and were
a large support of the Trump campaignin twenty sixteen. Falingong has its own
media entity you may have heard of, called The Epoch Times that today is

(01:25:38):
usually recognized for its promotion of rightwing conspiracy theories as well as promoting ads
for the Trump twenty sixteen election allover the US social media. As I've
mentioned before, they didn't originally startout as political, but it seems like
in the last few years they've becomea little bit more vocal about policy picks.

(01:26:00):
The one hundred percent I use thelike the best way to describe this,
I think is the enemy of myenemy is my friend. Right.
So Trump hates China, right,so it doesn't make sense. But then
at the same time an he hatescommunism, but so do they, So
it's like here we both hate thesame person, you know exactly what I

(01:26:25):
mean. It's like we can hateon this bitch together, right, Like
that's what this is. And Iknow, just from my own like cruising
the internet life, anytime I've everclipped a link from this or seen it,
or you know, somebody posts somethingonline and it's something very like it's
inflammatory usually, or it's a headline, it's written a way to sound different

(01:26:46):
than it should. Sometimes it's justoutright crazy talk. But they get they've
gotten a lot better at making itseem not as crazy as it is.
Yeah, I mean there's definitely atactic of trying to make it seem middle
of the road, even when it'sa little bit outlandish. Yeah, but

(01:27:06):
yeah, they've definitely clearly chosen asideand they're pushing it hard. Yeah,
for an organization that wasn't political atall, they're certainly not only involved in
China, but like really pushing uspolitics, which is interesting, yes,
exactly, And I just don't youknow, I was very I was sold

(01:27:30):
on the meditation aspect, but thenthis was also once I put it all
together, especially with the websites youknow they're all connected to, it was
very eye opening in a sense.It's very strange. And then I'm just
curious to see what their best frienddoes for them, you know, like
because the felling goal. I mean, quite frankly, what the fuck,

(01:27:53):
Yeah he should I mean, ifhe if he's they're supporting him like this,
you know, scratch my back.Fuck stop this murder occurring in the
Chinese political prisons. But he can'tdo shit about anything. But still it's
just interesting because he's so you know, China, hate China crap, right,

(01:28:13):
But it's like the animal of theanimal is my friend. Yeah.
It's just someone needs to step inbecause it seems like this is just still
happening, even if it's on maybea lesser scale. We know that as
recently as twenty sixteen, they're stillreleasing numbers of prisoners that are executed for

(01:28:34):
organs. So I mean, thefact that this genocide is still happening and
other countries are just writing reports onit, I mean, it's just nobody
wants to take on China. It'sso unsettling, and I know, I
know people are afraid to take themon. I know that a lot of

(01:28:55):
Yeah, I get it, butit's also just it really really upsets me
that this is happening in current timesand nobody's really stepping up and doing anything
about it. You know. Yeah, it's just and it's interesting too,
kind of the evolution of the groupitself because you know, like we said,

(01:29:15):
starts meditation, went into you knowa little more of a past a
salvation sort of thing, and thenreally turned the most I saw it described
often is scientology is like their versionof scientology, And but is that propaganda

(01:29:38):
from the States words? That's thething is like, yes, there are
we can find comparisons of like sayingfoulon Gong is like scientology, Yes,
but we don't know if that's accuratebecause it's just so hard to find information
that's not state sanctioned propaganda. That'swhy I tried, you know, in
the interest of seeing all sides,to include you know, everything I could

(01:30:01):
find, and it's just you canfind negative talk about it. But then
it is very interesting because if they'reso close to Trump, how does this
still work? Like it doesn't makeany sense, none of it. There's
bigger things going on. It's like, I don't even want to talk about

(01:30:24):
your Courtney's statement. There's bigger thingsgoing on, I know. I just
I just feel like there's like thisis like a the ultimate conspiracy theory thing,
and the worst part of it isit's not a conspiracy. It's happening,
but it's just that we don't havethe information, so your mind just
wanders and it's like, Okay,well, I mean I don't even Yeah,

(01:30:45):
it's like you don't want anybody comingafter you if you sneak up,
if you say something. I mean, it's it's really wild and bizarre,
and I wouldn't be shocked if youknow, I know, Kilger and Man
has had a lot of issues,you know, just with things happening to
them while they were doing their investigationand stuff, and it's like that's what

(01:31:06):
keeps people from doing anything about it. And then like you know, the
other governments while they have partnerships withChina, like nobody's gonna blow that,
right, So I don't know howthis can end. I don't know,
I don't know how this ends.I know, this is just this case
is so deeply depressing to me becauseI don't feel like there's a resolution,

(01:31:28):
a solution. Nobody's trying to helpthem. The numbers, we think are
decreasing because they've been caught and calledout by so many different people and government
entities, But at the same time, it seems to be still happening,
and it feels so hopeless that itdoesn't seem to be coming to an end
anytime soon. And they're not reallytaking anybody's outside input seriously beyond just maybe

(01:31:56):
covering it up a little bit betteror decreasing the numbers a little bit.
It seems like they haven't done anythingto change and stop this genocide. I
think the only thing that they havedone is they have figured out that you
need to have paperwork and you needto have numbers that make a little more
sense than what you were giving us. Because yeah, I mean, and

(01:32:19):
honestly, they didn't get caught.They just got like a finger waved at
them in this sense, like you, that's as much as they could do.
So they don't care, and honestlyI don't. I think China knows
that nobody's gonna do shit, andthey just have to be better at hiding
hiding their tracks, and you know, it's just, yeah, this one's

(01:32:43):
been really messed up, and likethe two of us in the brain have
been jacked up because it's just thisdoesn't end. There's no resolution. We
like to do things that have resolution, and it really is like you know,
unsolved crimes and missing persons and stufflike the families that are stuck that
every day. It's like they couldwalk home tomorrow, they could come home
tomorrow. It's like that open endedness. That's how this is just so heavy,

(01:33:09):
no resolution at all. If there'sever like a you know how they
used to do like the Tibetan Freedomconcerts with Range against the Machine, Yeah,
we need to get them on this. We need to do a Fallon
Gong concert with Rage, Rage againstEverything. I'll hit up Tom Morello and
see what he's up to. Please. I would. Oh god, they're
one of my favorite bands. Iwould love that. Yeah, it's just

(01:33:31):
so I kind of I feel likeI need to apologize because I feel like
my tone is even different, likeI sound different even talking about this subject
because it's just so deeply affected meand made me feel so depressed because I
I there's so many people, thenumbers are so staggering, and there's so
many families and survivors and people waitingfor loved ones and friends to come home,

(01:33:59):
and I just wrapping my mind aroundit has just broken my heart.
So I'm sorry if I sound justlike kind of a robot right now,
but I've just kind of clicked offmy heart for right now so that I
don't completely fall deplete. Pieces liketalking about all these people disappearing and all
these procedures performed while people are aliveand awake. I mean, it's just

(01:34:25):
so gruesome and disturbing and horrifying thatthis is happening. So yeah, I've
we tried to give all the informationand that's all I can do. There's
we don't have any solution or justiceor anything, but that's the story of
Fallonong. Those are the facts,and that's kind of all we can present,

(01:34:47):
you know. Yeah. So that'sand that's the last organ harvesting case
that we're going to do. Wearen't going to cover any more organ theft
because quite frankly, we can't reallyfind a lot of cases and I don't
think that emotionally we could probably handleanother one. So we're not move on
to let her p next week.We're done. It's over. I'm wrapping

(01:35:11):
this one up for the sake ofI'll take care of my partner here.
We're moving on. We need tojust go to the next one because this
is just satellite to emotionally draining andyeah, so before we get out of
here, just to remind you,we've got merch available on thread lists.

(01:35:34):
You can get t shirts, mugs, phone cases, towels, all sorts
of stuff. And if you wantto get access to bonus episodes and add
free episodes and all sorts of stuff, you can join our patreon, which
is at patreon dot com Slash MurderDictionary Podcast, And we want to thank

(01:35:58):
the few people that joined our patreonthis week, so thank you to Sierra,
Megan Casey and Destiny. Thank you. Thanks you guys. We appreciate
you being on our patreon, andif you want to join, just follow
that link in our show notes,and we also have links to the research

(01:36:19):
material and all the resources that wewere reading. If you have any desire
after hearing all that to dig deeper, be my guest. The links are
in the show notes and I thinkthat's kind of pretty much it for us.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram,and Twitter and you'll see when our

(01:36:40):
episodes are coming out, when we'rePatreon episodes are coming, we'll get some
memes and some breaking news and truecrime tidbits. And I think that's pretty
much it for me. You gotanything Court September thirtieth, I think it
is on Netflix. There's a newChris Watts documentary coming. Yeah. I

(01:37:01):
just read that like like ten minutesbefore I got in the booth, and
um, that'll be interesting. Iguess. Um, I can't think of
anything right now. Nope, nothing, nothing in the brain's right. So
yeah, well it's empty because we'vejust talked about some awful shit for a

(01:37:21):
while. So yeah, so that'spretty much it. We're going to be
moving on to a new letter nextweek. So if Oregan theft isn't your
thing, which I've discovered it's notmine either, um, and you'd rather
hear about something else, do notdespair because we will be talking about a
new subject for a new letter nextweek. Cool. Can't wait. So

(01:37:45):
you guys have a good one,take care. We will see you next
time. Bye bye, Conny.I don't con

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