Pursuing accountability for forced organ harvesting crimes

David Matas graduated from Oxford University, England, and is a legal expert specialized in refugee, immigration and human rights law. In July 2006, he and David Kilgour, through independent investigations, published the “Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.” The work won David Matas and Hon. David Kilgour the 2009 Human Rights Award from the German-based International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) and nomination for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Over the past decade, David Matas has traveled to more than 40 countries to raise awareness of China’s forced organ harvesting from living prisoners of conscience, especially Falun Gong practitioners. The documentary film of these investigations investigation into China’s systemic crime, “Human Harvest,” won the 2015 Peabody Award.

Carlos Iglesias Jiménez, Spanish human rights lawyer with a special interest in China. He represents Falun Gong practitioners in criminal cases brought against former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and four other Chinese Communist Party leaders on charges of genocide and large-scale torture. He is the European Director of the Human Rights Law Foundation. He participated in several sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva informing its members about the persecution of Falun Gong.

Theresa Chu is an international human rights lawyer. Since the onset of the persecution against Falun Gong in 1999, she has defended victims on a pro bono basis, and is actively involved in litigation to bring suit against former Chinese Party, Chief Jiang Zemin, and other CCP officials involved in organ harvesting crimes. An influential leader, Attorney Chu supported changes to human rights laws in Taiwan as adviser to the Taiwanese government. She is an expert lecturer, speaking before international government officials, human rights organizations and members of parliament about human rights concerns and the collective lawsuits from countries all over the world by Falun Gong victims. She is also the legal consultant of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.

Kim Song is a member of the International Human Rights Law Community of Korean judges. She presented her research on “Organ Transplant Law in Korea – Overview, Cases and Suggestion for Amendment in compliance with Declaration of Istanbul” at Asia Symposium on Combating Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism, which was held at Tokyo University in 2019. In this research Judge Song analysed all the Korean criminal cases on organ trafficking in China where the receivers were Koreans and found abnormal patterns in common, such as very short waiting period, suspicious source of organs, supply of organs on demand without no failure.