In a background briefing on the Wang Guoqi's case, the U

In a background briefing on the Wang Guoqi's case, the U.S. House committee for International Relations said that Wei Jingsheng, a Chinese dissident living in the US, had recounted that guards on death row in China told him that organ removal - while the prisoner was still alive - was often the means of execution because of the big demand for living-donor organs.
Harry Wu, a Chinese American who spent 19 years in prison in China for political offences said that he went to great lengths to verify Wang's identity and that both he and congressional staff members found the doctor's statements "highly credible."Wu heads the Laogai Foundation, an organization campaigning against the collecting of organs from Chinese prisoners.
According to the Laogai Foundation, there were 1,769 executions and 3,167 kidney transplants in China in 1998. Wu noted that a 1984 Chinese regulation bars organ removal from condemned criminals unless they, or their families, volunteer their bodies for medical use. But he said that, in practice, prisoners and their families are not consulted and the process is rife with corruption.
In its annual report on human rights this year, the State Department said that "credible reports have alleged that organs from some executed prisoners were removed, sold, and transplanted."