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Experts have expressed fears that the Chinese government plans to increase the forced “harvesting” of human organs from people in Xinjiang, home to a large Turkic Muslim population.

The concerns follow the announcement by the Xinjiang Health Commission late last year that it was going to develop six new organ transplant institutions in the region in the period to 2030, among other measures aimed at expanding transplant services.

Xinjiang is a large area in northwest China where the Beijing government has been operating a campaign of oppression against the indigenous population of Uyghur and other Turkic people since 2014.

The United Nations has said the campaign, which includes a vast network of camps, involves serious human rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity. “The announcement raises concerns about the ongoing procurement of organs through human rights abuses in Xinjiang, because there is no obvious reason why the new facilities are needed,” said Wendy Rogers, professor of clinical ethics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

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Enver Tohti [a former surgeon in Xinjiang who now lives in London] said he believes the Chinese authorities are expanding their organ transplant facilities throughout China, and not just in Xinjiang. “Xinjiang is just part of a wider picture,” he said.

He believes the Chinese authorities began to collect biological data from people in Xinjiang in 2016 with a view to building a database that could be searched for matches when organs were needed for transplant operations. “People in inner China just disappear,” he said.

“Maybe they are accused of a crime and sent to prison. In Xinjiang, they simply take the person – say they are a terrorist.” In China, “if you are declared an enemy of the state, then an enemy is not a human being.”

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Recently, at a military parade in Beijing, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, was caught on mic discussing organ transplants with his counterpart from Russia, Vladimir Putin.

“Biotechnology is continuously developing,” Putin’s interpreter was recorded saying in Chinese to Xi. “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality.”

Xi could be heard responding in Chinese: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

Tohti said: “They are talking about organ harvesting. Organ transplanting in China is organ harvesting. They are not taking organs from volunteers. Every organ transplant is part of harvesting.”

In December 2014, Chinese State media reported that China was to stop using organs from executed prisoners in transplant operations. However, Tohti said such statements are just optics. “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never keeps its promises. They make laws to show to outsiders. They make a constitution to show to outsiders. Inside the country, it is completely different.”

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