Vatican rebuked for China invite

BEIJING’S A SUSPECT

Ethics experts and human rights lawyers slammed the Vatican on Tuesday for inviting a top Chinese health official to an organ trafficking summit despite concerns the Asian giant still uses tissue from executed prisoners.

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences invited Huang Jiefu, the man in charge of overhauling China’s transplant system, to the two-day conference in the tiny city state.

Wendy Rogers, a medical ethics expert at Macquarie University in Australia and the chair of an advisory committee on tackling organ theft in China, slammed Huang’s presence as “shocking”.

Huang said the controversy was “ridiculous” and the use of organs from executed prisoners in China “is not allowed under any circumstances”.

He admitted though that organ transplants from prisoners may still be taking place.

Both the European Parliament and US Congress have recently condemned organ harvesting in China amid widespread concerns tissue is sourced from executed prisoners of conscience.

Victims reportedly include not only death-row prisoners but also religious and ethnic minorities such as Uighurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong spiritual practitioners and “underground” Christians. Beijing issued its first regulation banning the trade of organs in 2007, but trafficking remains common as the country suffers a drastic shortage of donated body parts.

The practice of using executed prisoners’ organs for transplants was also banned in 2015, but there are fears prisoners may be being reclassified as voluntary donors to get around the rules.

Rogers and a group of experts including a former surgeon from Xinjiang in China wrote to Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, the academy’s chancellor, to warn that the church risked appearing to sanction the practice.

A Vatican spokesperson declined to comment on the issue to AFP.

The Vatican is also keen not to create a diplomatic incident with China. It is trying to re-establish ties with the country after six decades of estrangement. – AFP