Harry Wu's Continuing Battle Against Lao Gai

Unmadeinchina has translated this exclusive interview with Harry Wu, who is currently holding various conferences in Europe.

Harry Wu is one of the most well-known Chinese dissidents in the world, due to his campaign against the forced labor camps in China and the criminal traffic of the organs illegally removed from executed prisoners. Professor has declared that he intends to continue his battle until everyone in the world knows about the lao gai. He explains that the lao gai are the Chinese equivalent of the Soviet gulag; whoever criticizes the regime ends up in the lao gai. They are the symbol of the Chinese Communist regime.

Many people believe that the lao gai are an institution of the past…

"They are wrong. Today in China there are more than 1,000 forced labor camps. In the lao gai, thr re-education through forced labor is aimed at transforming the prisoner into a perfect communist; therefore, to cancel anything they consider a deviance, including religion and the desire for individual liberty. If the prisoner does not adapt, the sentence becomes extended. The prisoners work on cheap products, many for export. Many people in Europe pretend to not know that one third of Chinese tea, the majority of rubber soles and objects such as Christmas decorations are produced by thousands of slaves. Your money goes to their slavery."

Why are you accusing Europe and not the United States?

"The customs offices in the United States have a list of products which contain components from the lao gai, and they block those, goods at the border. The lao gai are a state secret, so many products are able to pass through customs, but at least in the United States this law and this principle exists. The European Union has never even attempted anything like that."

However, in Europe there is a lively debate going on about the Olympics and a possible boycott.

"The Olympic Games are transitory – to debate about a boycott is an incredible form of hypocrisy. In three months, the Olympics will be over and China will go back to being what it has always been. We should dedicate less passion to the Olympic question and deal with human rights violations more seriously. The Olympics will pass, communism remains."

You define as communist a country that trades with the entire world and that has opened its borders to western economies.

"How would you define a country where the state owns all the land and where any form of religion is not tolerated? In China, you can buy a building, but not the land it was built on, and rent has to be paid to the state. In China you can build a church, but you can never promote religious freedom. Both capitalism and freedom in China are fake."

Where would you begin the battle to defend human rights?

"From the one-child policy. That law is a symbol of aberration, because it takes away the natural right to procreate. In order to have a child in China, you need the permission of the state, and the right to procreate expires once you have your first child. The state has forced millions of women to to abort and has forcibly sterilized others. There is nothing like this policy in any other place in the world."

You say that the organs of those condemned to capital punishment are used in the transplants performed in state clinics. What proof do you have?

"In 2006 Chinese authorities admitted that 95% of the organs used in the 13,000 transplants were provided by executed prisoners. I have gathered and divulgated the testimonies of Chinese doctors involved in that traffic as well as the testimonies of patients who knew that their lives had been saved by the kidneys or the hearts of a person who had been condemned to death. The evidence can be found in Traffici di morte, the book realized by my foundation."

In China executions are performed in public with a shot to the back of the head, but if organs are to be transplanted, blood still has to circulate if you need to use a heart, in the case of a kidney, no more than 15 minutes can pass after death. So what you say seems technically incompatible…

"Read the testimonies of doctors and nurses who were sent by ambulance to the execution sites. They speak of bodies picked up 10 seconds after prisoners had been shot, and how their organs were hurriedly removed while they were still dying. In some cases of joint heart/lung transplants, prisoners were executed directly in the hospital. Chinese hospitals are state hospitals and work in strict collaboration with government authorities. Therefore, those who perform capital punishments and those who take care of patients are part of the same system. Doctors visit those who are condemned to death, they perform blood tests on them in order to determine their compatibility with the patients who are waiting for transplants. They file the data and wait for the moment of the execution. Remember that in China the number of capital executions is one of the best-kept state secrets, and don’t forget that communism has no respect at all for human dignity. So you can imagine how little respect is given to the dead."

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