Ethan Gutmann

According to Gutmann, before 1999, Falun Gong practitioners didn't systematically use the Internet as an organizing tool. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, they were isolated, fragmented, and looking for a way to organize and change government policy. They went online, used code words, avoided precise details and communicated in short bursts. But like a cat listening to mice, the 6-10 Office could find their exact location, having developed the ability to search and spy as a result of a joint venture between the Shandong Province public security bureau and Cisco Systems. The result was a comprehensive database of people's personal information, including the 6-10 Office's Falun Gong lists and a wraparound surveillance system that was quickly distributed to other provinces. The Chinese authorities called it the Golden Shield, and Hao Fengjun used it on a daily basis. "As far as following practitioners" he said, "the Golden Shield includes the ability to monitor online chatting services and email, identifying Internet Protocol addresses and all of the person's previous communication, and then being able to lock in on the person's location, because a person will usually use the computer at home or at work." Then the arrest is made.[5]

In 2011, two lawsuits were filed in U.S. federal courts against Cisco Systems alleging that its technology enabled the government of China to monitor, capture, and kill Chinese citizens for their views and beliefs.[6] Evidence of Cisco's activities in China had become public in Gutmann's book Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal.[7]

In 2006, allegations emerged that a large number of Falun Gong practitioners had been killed to supply China's organ transplant industry. The allegations prompted an investigation by David Kilgour and David Matas. The Kilgour–Matas report[8] stated, "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and "we believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners."[8]

From 2006, Gutmann wrote articles about organ harvesting.[9][10][11] In 2012, "State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China", was published with essays from six medical professionals,[12][13][14][15][16][17] David Matas and Gutmann.[18][19][20][21]

Gutmann interviewed over 100 witnesses including Falun Gong survivors, doctors, policemen, and camp administrators. He estimated that 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008,[1][22][23] and that between 450,000 and 1 million Falun Gong practitioners were detained at any given time.[24][25][26][27]

In October 2014, in an interview with the Toronto Star, Gutmann did not limit the time frame to 2000 to 2008 and stated, "the number of casualties is close to 100,000".[1]

Gutmann was one of the key interviewees in Human Harvest, a 2014 Peabody Award winning documentary on organ harvesting in China, as well as the PBS documentary Hard to Believe (2015).

In August 2014, Gutmann wrote The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem,[27] which described China's organ transplant business and its connection with internment camps and killing fields for arrested dissidents, especially the adherents of Falun Gong. The new book, which took seven years, was based on interviews with top-ranking police officials, former prisoners of conscience and Chinese doctors who killed prisoners on the operating table. Gutmann interviewed dissidents including of Falun Gong, Tibetans, Uighurs and House Christians.[22]

In 2016, Gutmann, David Kilgour, and David Matas authored an updated investigative report on China's organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.[28] The 700-page report contains extensive information on the actual transplant statistics, sourced directly to Chinese hospitals' own publications and other Chinese primary sources. The report has been widely publicized by Chinese officials in The New York Times,[28] The Globe and Mail,[29] The Times,[30] CNN,[31] The Independent,[32] and several other major media outlets around the world.

During the 2014 Taipei City mayoral election there was controversy about what Gutmann's book, The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem, published in August 2014, said about mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je. Gutmann stated he had not said that Ko was involved in the organ trade and that he might have been misinterpreted.[33] On 27 November, Gutmann released a legal response with lawyer Clive Ansley, stating that "no English-speaking reader to date has understood for one moment that Dr. Ko was acting as an organ broker" and "Mr. Gutmann believes, and we think his book demonstrates, that Dr. Ko has acted honourably".[34]

On 29 November, Ko won the election. A full explanation, including the actual email correspondence where Ko signed off on the story for publication, was provided by Gutmann in December.[35][36]

In the 2018 Taipei City mayoral election, there was a controversy regarding Gutmann's book and his statement in 2014. In a news conference in Taipei on 2 October, Gutmann was asked if he had changed his mind about Ko, in which he answered “yes”.[37] Gutmann showed a group photograph of Ko attending a conference on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation training in China and said Ko had told him he knew about organ harvesting of Falun Gong members in 2005, but Gutmann had discovered that the conference took place only three months before he interviewed Ko. “Dr. Ko did not say explicitly what he did in the mainland,” Gutmann said, adding that Ko did not tell him whether he was making money or arranging for patients to receive organ transplants in China. At the end of the news conference, Gutmann said he thought Ko was a liar. He was sued by Ko and was subpoenaed on October 5, 2018.[38]

In 2012 Gutmann stated, "There is a long-standing taboo in the journalism community about Falun Gong, about this issue [organ harvesting]. To touch this issue is the Third Rail of journalism. If you touch it—if you are in Beijing, if you are based in China—you will not be given access to top leaders anymore."[3]