Forced live organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China is once again in the spotlight, as former Japanese gang leader Ushio Sugawara has stepped forward to reveal a harrowing tale.
Sugawara, former leader in the Japanese criminal organization Ymaguchi-gumi, currently a Japanese economic commentator, tells how a friend’s brother flew to Beijing in 2007 for what was supposed to be a life-saving liver transplant.
After learning that no liver was available in the United States or France, two of the handful of countries offering liver transplants at that time, a Chinese medical tourism broker told the family that they could come to China “anytime” for the transplant, at the cost of 30 million yen (approximately $255,000).
However, Sugawara found himself entangled in the situation when he was asked to smuggle more suitable albumin, which was needed for the transplant, into China from Japan. He successfully did so with the assistance of the Chinese hospital and authorities.
After arriving, Sugawara went to visit his friend’s brother the day prior to the scheduled surgery, and was shocked at what he discovered.
According to Bollyinside, Sugawara recounted how “Chinese surgeons forcefully anesthetized a young man after cutting his tendons in order to prevent him from fleeing, and proceeded to then carve out his liver in an organ harvesting operation.”
During the visit, the surgeon offered to show Sugawara who the organ would come from. As he looked on in surprise, Sugawara asked who the young man was who lay motionless on a table, bandages over his severed tendons. The doctor initially said he was a death row prisoner, but when pressed further, he revealed that the 21-year old was a member of Falun Gong, and would “die anyway.”
The surgeon told Sugawara that they had cut the man’s tendons the day prior, in part to keep him from fleeing. “No doctor who follows the medical oath would do that. If they can cut tendons, they can also remove organs without consent. It is a ‘medical barbarism,’” Sugawara told The Epoch Times.
Ultimately, the surgery failed and the patient, along with the Falun Gong “donor” died.
When asked whether Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials were involved in forced organ harvesting, Sugawara told The Epoch Times, “Of course they are. They said that without the support of the CCP officials, internal organ transplants would not be possible, and many things could not be handled.”
In what’s believed to be a billion-dollar-a-year industry, Sugawara’s account adds to the extensive database of evidence that the Chinese Communist Party continues to harvest organs from prisoners of conscience, with their main target being Falun Gong practitioners. In fact, Chinese authorities have recently bragged that their thriving transplant industry will soon rival that of other countries.
Saguwara is still haunted by what took place. “This incident is really cruel, I still feel cruel about it now. It costs about $220,000 and kills two lives, which is bad for anyone.”
