You’re listening to part one of A Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China interview with Pei Ming Cheng, a man who claims to have survived a forced organ harvesting surgery by the Chinese Communist Party. The interview was conducted by Dr. William Saunders, Director of the Center for Human Rights at the Catholic University of America, and translated by Dr. Sen Nieh, fellow at the center for Human Rights.
Bill Saunders: Hi, I’m William Saunders, the director of the Center for Human Rights at the Catholic University of America. Welcome to another edition of the Barefoot Lawyer podcast. Today I’m going to be talking with Peiming Chen, who I will call Mr. C, as other people do, because my Chinese is not so good. Mr. C is a survivor of forced organization transplant by the CCP. There have been stories of forced organ harvesting for many years and many claims, but as far as I know, this is the first person who says he has survived forced organ harvesting.
Also joining us on this podcast will be Sen Niah, who is an emeritus professor from Catholic University and a fellow of our Center for Human Rights. He will be translating what Mr. C has to say to us on this podcast. So for framing this a little bit, Mr. C has come to Washington D.C. over the last few months to present his story. He’s done it in three events; one on July 3rd, one on August 9th, and one on September 4th. These events have been sponsored by the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting by the CCP organization. Dr. Niah is a co-founder and director of that organization.
Let’s turn to discussion of this incredibly horrifying human rights issue. Imagine that against your will, some organ in your body is being taken out to benefit some rich person who can pay for it or some Communist Party member who has the power to get it. Think about what it means to live in a society where there is that kind of lawlessness where you don’t even have protection for your bodily integrity, which is a basic human right. Sen, when would you say this forced organ harvesting began, and who is subjected to such things?
Dr. Sen Niah: Yes, thank you Bill for having us on your program. I have been, with a group of my fellow friends, rescuing victimized persons from China, particularly Falun Gong practitioners in the past two decades. There is the famous Charles Lee, who was victimized for three years. We also rescued Ms. Ying Liping; she was raped by a prison guard in China. We’ve rescued a number of people, the most recent being Mr. C (Peiming Cheng), who is the survivor of forced organ harvesting. Then we have a website presenting different cases of these atrocities.
It started about nine years ago when a friend of mine presented a picture of Mr. C to me with a long scar on his chest, a picture of him shackled to a hospital bed, and his stories. I found Mr. C’s story to be interesting, and it fit with my current avocation to help our leaders in Congress. The Foreign Affairs committees and the senior congressmen are very interested in these cases, and wanted to hear about Mr. C’s experience in China first hand. They wrote a letter of support and he escaped to Thailand, which hosts a UN refugee camp in Bangkok. The letter was sent to our ambassador in Bangkok and the representative asked them to resettle Mr. C to the US quickly.
Five to six letters were sent, but it didn’t seem to work. From 2015 to 2018, it didn’t work until my fellow friend, Professor Bob Destro, who is assumed the Assistant Secretary of DRL, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, helped us. I had a chance to present the case to him; he looked into the case and asked his assistants to investigate this. He thinks there are very valuable people and victims involved, so he actually facilitated behind the scenes to make the rescues happen. After five years in Bangkok, we have successfully brought Mr. C over to the States in July of 2020. He believed he was a victim of forced organ harvesting, so we brought him to the hospital and the clinic to do tests. There are nine different kinds of imaging tests such as ultrasound, X-Ray and MRI that they can use to come to a conclusion.
They performed all these different tests on his abdomen. The tests produced about 4,000 black and white images, which were plugged into a software to convert it into colored 3D models that are easy to see. We asked the medical experts in our country and in Taiwan wrote a report; they confirmed that Mr. C’s left liver was surgically removed, as well as the lower loop of the lung. He lost parts of two organs in 2004 that forced him to the hospital. We had a case and we presented that in three press conferences. The first one was oriented toward Chinese media, the second to mainstream media, and the third was a rebuttal to CCP’s reactions. This has become the breaking news. There are about 64 English media reports and citations about him, including the diplomats, the American spectators; in the US, the UK, Australia, and in other countries. There are more than 100 Chinese news reports about his case. Mr. C is pretty much known by the medical professions assessments, the media, and public as the first known survivor of forced organ harvesting, becoming very unique. That’s about the basic backgrounds
Bill Saunders: Yeah. Thank you Sid. So let’s, let’s let the listeners hear from Mr. C himself. I’m just going to ask if he would tell us why he was a victim and what he remembers of what actually that he can remember that happened to him.
Peiming Cheng: My name is Peiming Cheng. I was born on August 29th, 1965. My hometown is in Heilongjiang Province, GC City, which is in the northeast part of China. It’s very cold, close to the boundary with Russia. I was a coal miner and doing various things. I started to practice Falun Gong in March 1998, as a steadfast practitioner. Adopting the teachings of Falun Gong in March 1998, that completely changed my life. I was hopeless, and it gave me hope for a meaningful life in my future. Falon Gong also benefited physical health and particularly spiritual growth. Unfortunately in July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party cracked down on this peaceful group of Falun Gong. Because I felt I benefited from Falun Gong, I wanted to tell the government that we are innocent, good people. So I went to protest, and I was arrested several times. A total of five times, from 1999 to 2002.
The Catholic University of America’s Center for Human Rights has published a documentary on the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The documentary features world class human rights experts, from former State Department officials to ambassadors and human rights activists. It can be found on our website at humanrights.catholic.edu