A senior lawyer has told the U.N. Human Rights Council that it’s obligated to act against the killing of prisoners of conscience for their bodily organs in China.
London-based lawyer Hamid Sabi added that U.N. member states themselves are likewise legally obliged to address forced organ harvesting in China.
Sabi was counsel for the independent China Tribunal which in June found that forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced in China for a substantial period of time.
Sabi told the U.N.’s top human rights body the ramifications of the tribunal’s findings.
“[The] China Tribunal, a people’s tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, considered all available evidence and concluded that forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience including the religious and ethnic minorities of Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale, and that it continues today,” Sabi said Sept. 24.
“This involves hundreds of thousands of victims,” he said
“Acting on independent legal advice, the tribunal concluded that commission of crimes against humanity against Falun Gong and Uyghurs had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
“Victim for victim and death for death, cutting out the hearts and other organs from living, blameless, harmless, peaceable people constitutes one of the worst mass atrocities of this century.
“Government and international bodies must do their duty not only in regard to the possible charge of genocide but also in regard to crimes against humanity, which the tribunal does not consider to be less heinous.
“It is the legal obligation of U.N. member states and the duty of this council to address this criminal conduct,” he added.
Sabi’s statement comes during growing concerns over the fate of a million plus Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims imprisoned in China’s Xinjiang region.
Reports on the killing of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners for their organs by the Chinese state first surfaced in 2006. Large numbers of Chinese who adhere to the Buddha-school practice of Falun Gong have been subjected to harsh persecution by the communist state since 1999.
Watch this video below about the China Tribunal’s findings.
