China insider: U.S. Starts Investigation into Organ Harvesting in China 

Robert Destro, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, called for joint efforts to stop modern slavery at a press conference held on Oct. 16. When a journalist asked a question about Falun Gong, Destro said that the United States has already looked into allegations of the CCP’s crime of live organ harvesting. The journalist, Ken Yang, from The Epoch Times Taiwan, said that the CCP has been persecuting Falun Gong practitioners for 21 years and that the CCP has committed the crime of forced organ harvesting. He asked, “would the Department of State step in and take specific actions to stop the forced organ harvesting by the Chinese Communist Party?” Assistant Secretary Destro:  “Well, I can’t think of a more horrific human rights abuse than stealing somebody’s liver. We have had consistent reports of this. We have actually looked into allegations of it.  And I encourage anybody who has information that we could use to nail this down to please be in touch with us.” John Cotton Richmond, Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, also addressed the question. Ambassador Richmond:  “I’ll also say that the removal of organs is one of the forms of exploitation under the Palermo Protocol, the UN protocol against trafficking in persons.  And we continue to gather information about this.”