The whistleblower’s father said his son, a hospital intern, refused to source child donors and thus may have been murdered, according to an Epoch Times source.
News Analysis
The recent sentencing of a Chinese doctor and the mysterious death of a whistleblower have further exposed the large-scale state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in China, according to analysts.
Liu Xiangfeng, a surgeon at a top Chinese hospital who was accused of corruption and removing patients’ healthy organs, was sentenced to 17 years in prison in China.
Meanwhile, the parents of the whistleblower—who died in suspicious circumstances after collating evidence against Liu and the hospital—had gone into hiding on Nov. 3 just before the police went to arrest them, a source familiar with the matter told The Epoch Times.
The parents had published allegations on social media that the hospital traded organs and assigned medical students to source pediatric organ donors and that their son may have been murdered because he tried to blow the whistle.
Sentencing
Liu, 50, was the deputy chief physician at the Second Xiangya Hospital of the Central South University. Between 2017 and 2018, he studied at the Baylor College of Medicine in the United States, according to his now-deleted profile on the hospital’s website.
Liu had been under investigation and dubbed the “devil doctor” by Chinese media after anonymous whistleblowers’ allegations went viral on social media in 2022. He was accused of various wrongdoings, including performing unnecessary surgeries on patients with minor conditions as well as patients beyond saving and removing healthy organs from patients for profit.
On Oct. 31, a Chinese court sentenced Liu to 17 years in prison for crimes such as intentional injury, bribery, and occupational embezzlement. He was also fined 420,000 yuan (about $58,200).
According to the court’s statement, Liu and a co-worker, who was sentenced to seven years in prison, “exaggerated patients’ conditions and fabricated symptoms” to perform unnecessary surgeries on six patients in order to charge extra fees, causing serious injuries to five patients, and minor injuries to one. The court did not provide details of the injuries.
Death of Whistleblower
New allegations have recently emerged against Liu and the Second Xiangya Hospital, brought forth by the parents of the dead whistleblower, Luo Shuaiyu.
According to police reports, Luo died after falling from the hospital dormitory building on May 8.
Luo was a student pursuing a master’s degree and worked as an intern at the hospital’s kidney transplant department.
On Oct. 19, Luo’s parents published a video of themselves claiming that their son was murdered for blowing the whistle on the hospital’s illicit harvesting and trading of organs. Luo’s father had since live-streamed on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, talking about evidence that Luo had collected. His account was emptied on Nov. 2.
According to the allegations that Luo’s family published online and materials provided to the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times from a source who spoke to Luo’s father, the family had suspected foul play in Luo’s death but was forced to sign a document that says his death was a “suicide.”
The family retrieved Luo’s cell phone and computer from his dorm, had data restored, and found more than 1,000 pieces of evidence that Luo had collected, including screenshots and voice recordings, on Liu’s alleged harvesting and trading of organs in collusion with others.
Luo’s family claimed that the Second Xiangya Hospital, over the years, used the WeChat accounts of students, including Luo’s, to “transfer up to 40 million yuan [about $5.5 million] of profit from illicit organ transplants” to the head nurse of the kidney transplant department.
Luo’s father also spoke of conversations he had with Luo in which his son suggested that doctors at the hospital had been removing patients’ organs without their knowledge or consent.
One recorded phone conversation between a hospital “liaison” and then-newly employed Luo eventually led to the death of the intern, his father believes.
In the clip, the person could be heard asking Luo to find 12 pediatric donors, including six children aged between 3 and 5, and six children aged between 6 and 9, and each group was required to include three boys and three girls.
The purpose of the three-year project was “to study kidney transplantation from child donors and to collect experimental data for a research paper,” according to Luo’s father.
The father said Luo had refused to carry out the task and may have been murdered because of it.
According to the source who spoke to Luo’s father, the day before Luo died, Luo was pressured again by his tutor to source the 12 child donors, and Luo responded with threats to report it.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify the allegations.
State-Sanctioned Organ Harvesting
According to China experts, Liu’s case is only an offshoot of China’s industrial-scale organ harvesting.
Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based current affairs commentator and a medical doctor, said the court’s description of Liu’s crimes obscured the core issue of “stealing patients’ healthy organs” and selling organs for profit.
“In fact, it exposed one of the most horrendous crimes of the Chinese Communist Party, which is the black industry of live organ harvesting, of which [Liu’s case] is a part,” he told The Epoch Times.
The Second Xiangya Hospital has one of the top transplant centers in China and is allegedly a major player in the CCP’s state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, according to human rights group World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG).
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The group has been persecuted by the CCP since 1999. Millions have been detained, tortured, or killed, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
In 2019, the London-based China Tribunal found that the Chinese regime had committed torture and crimes against humanity in the state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience and that Falun Gong practitioners had been and continued to be the main group of victims murdered for their organs. Evidence also pointed to forced organ harvesting of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in recent years.
According to WOIPFG, the number of organ transplants at the Second Xiangya Hospital has surged since 2002, while its human organ donation coordination team was “in name only,” suggesting the hospital is part of the CCP’s murderous organ trade.
Due to the Chinese authorities’ past record of covering up information, it is difficult to verify the involvement of specific doctors in forced organ harvesting. WOIPFG has alleged in its investigative report series on the matter that “all transplant facilities in China today have participated in live organ harvesting.”
Wu Shaoping, a U.S.-based human rights lawyer, told The Epoch Times that the circumstances surrounding Luo’s death indicate the “extremely terrifying” reality of living under a communist regime.
“These things can’t just be done by hospitals alone,“ Wu said, ”they would have to involve CCP officials or even entire government departments” that protect the interests of those involved in the organ supply chains.”
Lily Zhou, Zhang Ying, Jiang Zuoyi, Gao Hui, Ning Haizhong, and Yi Ru contributed to this report.