Name: Tormented Chinese Doctor Recounts Live Organ Harvesting
Uploaded: 2024-07-11T05:17:54.000Z
Description: Reports of surgeons-turned-executioners in China are nothing new. But it's the first time a Chinese doctor is stepping forward with his real name to tell a deeply personal narrative, accompanied by profound horror.

NTD Newsroom comprises teams of reporters, editors, and producers assigned to cover breaking news and other stories.


NTD Newsroom

NTD Plus

Shows

Fast, compelling, first-hand news from China. China in Focus airs Monday–Friday at 9:30 p.m. ET.

China in Focus

Judge Allows Huawei CFO's Statements to Be Used at Criminal Trial

Vivian Li is a producer and reporter based at NTD’s global headquarters in New York City. With more than a decade of experience as a reporter and anchor for NTD’s Chinese-language division, she now primarily contributes to NTD’s English-language program China in Focus.

Vivian Li

Iran Backs China's Vision for a New World Order

Americans Warned of Possible Exit Bans While Traveling in China

Trumps Thanks Xi and Putin for Their 'Neutrality'

South Korea Asks Trump to Tackle North Korea's Nuclear Program

Japan, US Reaffirm Indo-Pacific Partnership at G7

Tiffany Meier is an anchor, China news investigative reporter, and producer for NTD News based at the network's global headquarters in New York City. Tiffany anchors NTD's flagship shows "NTD Evening News" and "China in Focus" and co-moderates NTD's special election coverage "The Nation Decides." She produced the award-winning NTD Original documentary "Hollywood Takeover: China's Control in the Film Industry."


Tiffany Meier

G7 Summit Highlights China Concerns in France

Taiwan Scholar Blocked From Kenya Conference, Taipei Cites China Pressure Campaign

Arthur Zhang

News

World News

Asia &amp; Pacific

G7 Leaders Reaffirm Opposition to Coercion in Taiwan Strait, East and South China Seas

Juliet Song is an international correspondent exclusively covering China news for NTD. She primarily contributes to NTD's "China in Focus," covering U.S.-China relations, the Chinese regime's human rights abuses, and domestic unrest inside China.

Juliet Song

Macron: Agreement on Rare Earths Expected at G7

Trump Thanks Xi, Putin for Their 'Neutrality'; US Embassy Warns Travelers of China Exit Bans

US, Japan Reaffirm Indo-Pacific Partnership; US Senate Condemns Xi Jinping

US Issues 3 Warnings in 2 Days on China; Beijing Detains 2 Christian Leaders

G7 Summit Eyes Supply Chain Resilience; US Agencies Ban Chinese-Origin Goods

China Arrests US Citizen; SpaceX’s Ambition May Depend on China

US Sanctions Chinese Entities Over Iran Weapons; China Leveraging Nuclear Buffer Against US?

Taiwan Fires Rockets Into Waters Facing China

China Hackers Target US Tech: Report; Taiwan Simulates Chinese Amphibious Invasion

Could China Back North Korea's Nuclear Status? Three Members of Underground Church on Trial

Trump Jr.: Don’t Invest in China; American Journalist Spies for China

The Associated Press is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. 

The Associated Press

Americas

Helicopter With Singer Oliver Tree on Passenger List Collides With Another in Brazil, Killing 6

News with integrity, from the United States and around the world. Focused reports and analyses that shed light on major issues the world deserves to know. NTD Evening News airs daily at 6 p.m. ET.

NTD Evening News

Up to 900 Planes Grounded Worldwide Amid Engine Shortage, United CEO Says

Reuters is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages.

Reuters

Andrew Thomas is a reporter for NTD News primarily covering business, the economy, and technology. 

Andrew Thomas

Science &amp; Tech

NASA Reverses Evacuation Alert Order for Astronauts Aboard Space Station

Rudy Blalock is a Southern California-based daily news reporter for NTD. Originally from Michigan, he moved to California in 2017 and the sunshine and ocean have kept him here since. In his free time, he may be found underwater scuba diving, on top of a mountain hiking or snowboarding, or at home meditating—which helps fuel his active lifestyle.

Rudy Blalock

US News

State News

California

8 Dead After B-52 Bomber Crashes at Edwards Air Force Base in California

40,000 Ordered to Evacuate as Chemical Tank Leaks, Threatens Explosion in California

Video of US Fighter Jet Shooting Down UFO Over Lake Huron Emerges in New Pentagon Files

Ohio

At Least 12 People Shot at Ohio Festival, Search for Suspects Ongoing: Police

Mary Man is a writer for NTD. She has traveled around the world covering China, international news, and arts and culture.

Mary Man

Daniel Monaghan is a reporter for NTD News covering culture, social issues, and education. He holds a BA in Political Science and Government.

Daniel Monaghan

China News

Epoch Times Obtains Over 2,000 Unseen Tiananmen Square Photos on 37th Anniversary of the June 4th Massacre

News you can trust from the U.S. and around the world. Critical information and insight. We cover the stories that others don’t. NTD News Today airs Monday–Friday at 11 a.m. ET.

NTD News Today

US Embassy in Israel Issues Travel Alert for Much of Middle East

Jack Bradley is a Washington correspondent for NTD News based in Washington, D.C. Jack previously anchored "NTD Newsroom" and worked as an assistant producer for the show. 

Jack Bradley

FBI Warns of Chinese Spies Posing as Recruiters

Label

Live

NTD+ Live

NYC Firm Hosts Book Party on Investing in Critical Minerals Beyond Beijing’s Reach

'Mineral War' Author on China's Rise, Global Response

China’s Long Arm on American Soil

Special Reports

Global Trade Under the Shadow of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre

How Americans View China and Chinese ‘Elections’: Special Report

Countering Communism in US With Memorial for Its Victims

US Funding Chinese Communist Party Economic Growth: Experts

China's Artistic Censorship Aimed at Americans: Browde

Taiwan 2024 Special Election Coverage: China in Focus

Expert: Why Social Media Apps Are 'Legal Malware'

Reports of surgeons-turned-executioners in China are nothing new. But it's the first time a Chinese doctor is stepping forward with his real name to tell a deeply personal narrative, accompanied by profound horror.

Zheng Zhi, a then-resident doctor at one of China's largest military hospitals, recounted how he witnessed a man's kidneys and eyes being carved out for transplant—while he was still alive. Now, he's shedding light on the horrifying forced organ harvesting industry in China.

"I was ordered to take one of his eyeballs by the soldier on the other side, and the nurse handed me a hemostat. I really couldn't stand it, and I said 'I can't do it, I can't,'" Dr. Zheng said.

The horror he witnessed took place in 1994 inside a van guarded by armed soldiers, and staffed with five surgeons and nurses. He thought they were on a "secret military mission" near a prison around China's northeastern Dalian city.

But what followed has stayed with him for decades.

"I looked at him, he was looking right at me. This man at my feet [during the operation], he was really looking at me, his eyes were moving."

Dr. Zheng says the man was no more than 18 years old. Carried into the van by four soldiers, his limbs tightly bound by ropes. A doctor first sliced open the man's stomach, and two others extracted a kidney each.

The man's legs twitched, his throat moved, but no sound came out. Then a doctor instructed Dr. Zheng to "step on" the man's legs and "don't let him move."

"As I pressed down, his still-warm body made me think he was alive. A surgeon took a scalpel and made a large incision directly under the xiphoid into the umbilical cord. When the abdomen opened, the intestines came out, and I was really terrified. Another surgeon pushed the intestines aside and retrieved a kidney. Then another got the second kidney. The head nurse swiftly placed both kidneys in a temperature-controlled box," Dr. Zheng said.

Next, Dr. Zheng got the order to extract the man's eyes, but he was too sickened to do so. Another doctor swiftly carried out the procedure instead.

The now motionless body was then placed in a black plastic bag and carried away by soldiers.

The organs were taken to the General Hospital of the Shen-yang Military Region, where Dr. Zheng did his residency. A team waiting there then used the organs in transplant operations.

By then, the procedure was long over. But for Dr. Zheng, the haunting image of those desperate, fearful, and pained eyes plagued him.

"At dinner the previous evening [before the operation], an officer introduced the boy, who was less than 18 years old. His parents paid 10,000 yuan to get him an army spot. Through the window, I looked at the gun-wielding soldiers, guarding this heinous act. No military in the world would plunder and sell its own soldiers' organs. My ambition as a military doctor was to save lives and serve my nation, but I couldn't fathom the depth of my country's atrocities."

Soon after the horrific event, Dr. Zheng left the hospital.

"This incident had a great impact on me at that time. After that, I rarely spoke, and I didn't like social interactions," he said.

But little did he know, what happened in that van in 1994 would soon become an industrialized killing apparatus in China, set up to extract organs from prisoners of conscience and sell them on demand.

Within two decades, the mass-scale, state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting ballooned into a billion-dollar industry.

In the 2020 China Tribunal Judgment, it's said "Falun Gong practitioners have been one—and probably the main—source of organ supply."

"They don't consent. They don't even know what's happening...we call it a cold genocide in the sense that it's not happening all at once it's happening slowly over time," said David Matas, an international human rights lawyer and one of the world's leading researchers of forced organ harvesting.

In 2002, while accompanying a military official for a medical check-up, Dr. Zheng first learned that Falun Gong adherents were used as an organ source.

Doctors at the hospital where Dr. Zheng once interned told the official that he needed a new kidney to survive.

"'Shenyang Army General Hospital will pick a top-quality one for you, a fresh one, from Falun Gong practitioners.' I told him, 'Don’t do it, isn’t that committing a murder?' He nodded to me and said, 'I am not going to get this kidney transplant.' But he suddenly said to me in a particularly stern manner, 'You should leave as soon as possible, and the farther the better.' I realized I might be 'silenced' if the story got out."

Another acquaintance, an aide to officials at the core of China's most elite leadership body, told Dr. Zheng something even more shocking.

"During [his] visit, I said the persecution of Falun Gong in northeastern China was quite severe. He seemed attentive but stayed silent. But before we parted, he suddenly told me that Falun Gong practitioners, including minors, were held beneath the Hubei Provincial Public Security Bureau's backyard in Wuhan City. He said he had been there. Then he left abruptly. At that moment, I said to myself: 'I must go abroad!'"

Dr. Zheng added that to boost transplant profits, the military set up "green passages" at airports to aid the swift transportation of organs across the nation.

He also said infectious disease units inside military hospitals had all become "dens" for forced organ harvesting.

To avoid citizens becoming complicit, U.S. lawmakers have taken steps to prevent Americans from engaging in "transplant tourism" to China.

But Mr. Matas says the killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs is still ongoing.

"They're continuing to add advertise transplant tourism, and the institutions are still functioning. I mean, they haven't closed on these transplant hospitals," he said.

Dr. Zheng obtained refugee status while in Thailand, and moved to Canada in 2007. He said he's been looking for the right media outlet to share his story because should he make the wrong choice, not only would he get himself into trouble, the issue wouldn't get the spotlight it needs.

He acknowledged the concern of potential retaliation from Beijing, but said the issue is bigger than himself.

"I want to speak publicly—the Chinese Communist Party is slaughtering Chinese people, harvesting their organs, and selling them for money. This is a crime, and it is intolerable to mankind."

He said that he has carefully preserved his records, and that when the Chinese Communist Party falls and faces judgment, he will take the witness stand—adding that "justice will prevail."

Latest

Programs

china

Videos

01_Lead Story

04_Top Stories

Latest Clips

Management

02_Second Lead

Organ Harvesting in China

Latest and breaking news, documentaries, movies, and lifestyle content on NTD+.
 
Empower your knowledge and elevate your spirit with NTD+, your go-to destination for truthful news, insightful documentaries, and captivating lifestyle content that enriches your life.