Politicians also want to stop people going on “organ tourism” trips to China in search of transplants and for the claims to be probed. Lord Hunt, the former chief executive of the NHS Confederation, says evidence shows that “forced organ extraction in China continues to happen on a wide scale”. Victims are said to include Tibetans, Christians, Uighur Muslims and members of the Falun Gong movement.
Chris Evans, Labour MP for Islwyn, said that the allegations sound like something out of a horror movie.
Concern intensified in the wake of the China Tribunal, led by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC.
In December he found it is “beyond reasonable doubt” that “forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims”.
Ethan Gutmann, of the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse In China, which initiated the tribunal, said: “This is a crime. Somebody actually dies to provide that organ. In most cases we believe that is an innocent person.”
He accused the Foreign Office of being “spineless” and said the Chinese “have done something we did not expect to see again after the Nazis”.
DUP MP Jim Shannon, who has secured a debate this week on the claims, said: “The UK must take action, not only because it is the right thing to do but because UK citizens could unknowingly be receiving organs taken from innocent religious minorities.”
Benedict Rogers, of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, urged the Government to “work to secure an international investigation”.
However Mark Field, the minister for Asia, said: “While we scrutinised the recent report on allegations of organ harvesting carefully, we don’t agree the evidence substantiates the claims of systematic state-sponsored or sanctioned organ harvesting.”
China’s embassy was invited to comment.