Chinese organ harvesting ring: Height of cruelty

FOR Nigerians caught on the wrong side of the law in China, these are not easy times. Apart from being handed stiff sentences upon conviction, many of them are said to be disappearing mysteriously from prison, often never to be seen again. Investigations by the Patriotic Citizens Initiative, an NGO crusading for justice, suggest shockingly that these Nigerians “are being taken out and killed extrajudicially by Chinese prison officials for the purpose of harvesting and trading in their body organs.” The Nigerian government should investigate this absolute cruelty and initiate diplomatic action to end the inhuman practice.

The alarm raised by Nigerian returnees from Chinese prisons and the families of those still in jail in the Asian country is disquieting. At a sensitisation forum themed, “Plight of Nigerians in Chinese Prisons,” bloodcurdling details emerged of how Nigerian prisoners were disappearing without a trace. Most of the victims are arrested on allegations of possessing fake passports and expired visas, illegal entry, cybercrime, money laundering, robbery and credit card fraud. They are usually summarily tried and sentenced to different jail terms. In prison, they undergo slave labour, have no access to medical care and suffer gross human rights abuse. Numbering in thousands, many are also being jailed for trafficking in hard drugs.

There is really nothing wrong with China enforcing its own laws. However, the problem is that most of the Nigerians allege that they are victims of circumstances and a cruel judicial system. A returnee, Francis Jones, lamented, “I was accused of violating my wife’s rights; that I touched her, whereas I didn’t. This did not warrant being detained for an hour. But I was detained for 15 months. Whoever wants to go to China should be careful.”

Nigerians make up a good percentage of prison inmates in China. A recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report says Nigerians and Pakistanis account for the highest percentage of the 1,559 drug traffickers in Chinese prisons. A foundation – Dui Hua – corroborated this, saying that in 2010, Nigeria, with 47 inmates, recorded the highest number by any country in Beijing’s gaols. That figure had risen dramatically from only four in 2006.

The Nigerian government should no longer ignore these allegations. We urge Abuja to empanel a high-powered diplomatic mission to interface with the Chinese government on this issue. Nigeria, being a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Consular Rights, should explore its provisions to give the affected Nigerians a fair hearing.

But the imprisonment saga is just the tip of the iceberg. The real peril is the alleged barbaric organ harvesting trade in China. According to PCI, 40 Nigerians are victims of this every year. These allegations, however, are not without a basis. A 2015 documentary entitled, “Human Harvest: China’s Organ Trafficking,” aired in Australia on SBS One TV, exposed the practice. It alleged that state-run (Chinese) hospitals were killing prisoners to sell their body parts. This is horrible. It said 10,000 organs were transplanted in China every year, but only a few people were on the organs donor register.

Researchers from around the world, including a former parliamentarian from Canada, David Kilgour, and human rights lawyer, David Matas, who began probing the practice in 2006, reached the conclusion that the practice was real. “Some practitioners were still breathing after their organs were removed…” the documentary alleged, citing the members of the Falun Gong (a sect) practitioners as the victims. The European Parliament and the United States Congress have passed resolutions condemning the culture of organ harvesting and urged China to stop it. The UN has also criticised China for using death row prisoners for organ transplant.

Activists argue that part of the motive is pecuniary. A Canada-based filmmaker, Leon Lee, who is behind the documentary, claims the organ trade is worth $1 billion a year. Transplants range from $60,000 to $170,000, while the Orient Organ Transplant Centre in Tianjin realised revenue of around $16 million from liver transplants alone in 2007, the documentary alleged.

Reciprocity is a tested convention in international diplomacy. The Nigerian government should open the necessary diplomatic channels to rescue our nationals in Chinese prisons. Many countries negotiate the release of their nationals serving jail terms overseas to come and complete them in their home countries. Nigeria should do the same. The National Assembly committees on Nigerians in the Diaspora should also intervene in the matter.

Furthermore, President Muhammadu Buhari and Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, have to focus attention on this phenomenon. There are 16,250 Nigerians in prisons around the world, says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some 6,000 of them have been convicted for drug trafficking, according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

Nigerians are often treated cruelly in other countries, and our government should be concerned. The case of 17 Nigerians, some of them imprisoned on spurious charges, in Egypt in the 1990s, exemplifies this. One of them, Ganiyu Ishola, who was gaoled in Kanater Prison, Cairo, had his sentence changed after serving 10 of his 20-year jail term, which began in 1992. It took the intervention of Abuja to get him and two others – Nosa Osagiede and Fitzgerald Onyekaba – released a few years ago. Such efforts should be intensified to get Nigerians who are imprisoned on flimsy charges abroad freed.

The organ harvesting episode in China is a warning for desperate Nigerians who would do anything to travel out of the country. In their desperation, they should remember that the culture of impunity at home cannot stand in other climes. Thus, it goes without saying that they should be law-abiding at all times.

Culled from PUNCH.