Organ theft

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Organ theft is the practice of stealing people's organs via surgery while they are under the influence of drugs, or once the person is dead, when the organs can be illicitly removed and then used for further purposes such as transplants or sold on the black market. The practice is occasionally advanced as a theory into mysterious disappearances or murders, and is then advanced by sensationalist news reports, followed by word-of-mouth promotion as an urban legend. Its semicredible basis, in fact, is the extreme difficulty with which organs can be preserved postmortem (usually requiring a braindead but still functionally alive patient), and the long waiting lists for available organs. There has never been sufficient evidence, however, to suggest that the practice has ever occurred on an organized basis. This has not prevented its repeated depiction in horror movies and fiction, as well as countless urban legends.

[edit] Organ theft events

It has been confirmed that the organs of a number of prisoners in China were taken for transplant after their executions (though ostensibly with their freely-given permission)^[1] on a for-profit basis, often to foreign nationals. The Chinese authoritarian justice system is alleged to work very quickly for those sentenced to death, not allowing significant time for appeals. This has led to allegations that the entire justice system has been corrupted by a government approved system of organ theft. Among those making this claim are Harry Wu and the Laogai Research Foundation. Until 2006, the Chinese government did not have a specific law in place outlawing the acquisition of organs without express consent. However, even with this new statute, other conflicting statutes remain, including that which allows State prisons to use prisoners in whatever way it deems beneficial to the State.

In July 2006, former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour, and Human Rights Lawyer David Matas, published a report concluding that "...large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners are victims of systematic organ harvesting, whilst still alive..." ^[2]

In The Hunt: Me and War criminals, Carla Del Ponte claims that Kosovo Albanians smuggled human organs of kidnapped Serbs after the Kosovo war ended in 1999.