By Veronica Cordoba

A new independent panel report lifts the lid on a horrifying fact that it says is happening in China. The report says China is forcibly taking organs from its prison population, from which many prisoners have died.

The report says the Tribunal arrived at these damning conclusions after examining organ donation accounts and noticing that the figures just don’t add up. It says in China it patients do not have to wait too long for an organ transplant, which is also a business to attract tourists.

These are the findings of the independent China Tribunal, a group which is made up of leading human rights investigators and prosecutors, including Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. It released its findings on June 17.

This represents the first ever “robust” analysis of the evidence of China’s organ harvesting and encompasses testimony from witnesses, investigators, forensics experts and human rights investigative analyses, the report says.

Contrary to other countries, organ donor waiting times are short and the reason is the authorities has set up a plan to harvest organs from prisoners.

The report says in the US and the UK patients may wait several months or even years but patients in China can expect to wait only a matter of weeks.

Part of the programme is to transform China’s organ transplant as a tourist spot, “where people needing organ transplants will pay huge sums to receive an organ. China has never adequately explained where it is getting these organs from.”

The alleged victims include those practicing the spiritual meditative practice known as Falun Gong in addition to Uyghur Muslims, some Tibetan Buddhists and House Church Christians.

“The conclusion shows that very many people (detainees) have died indescribably hideous deaths for no reason, that more may suffer in similar ways and that all of us live on a planet where extreme wickedness may be found in the power of those, for the time being, running a country with one of the oldest civilisations known to modern man,” Sir Geoffrey Nice QC says.

“There is no evidence of the practice having been stopped and the tribunal is satisfied that it is continuing.”

A variety of evidence points to systematic falsification and manipulation of official organ transplant datasets and the misclassification of donors in China. It also notes that China’s population are given cash incentives to volunteer their organs, something that is, at best, ethically fraught, says the report.

In 2014, China said that it would no longer be using organs from executed prisoners within its organ donor pool and has repeatedly dismissed claims that it is still using prisoner organs in this way. However, as the China Tribunal notes, the evidence suggests that China has continued this practice and may use its crackdown on religious groups to fuel that supply, the Care2 portal says.