Europe’s cosmetics manufacturers must prohibit trade with parts of the body of persons executed in China!

Europe’s cosmetics manufacturers must do all they can to prohibit the trade with parts of the body of those executed in China. This demand was made by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) on the International Day against the Death Penalty (10th October). Following the charge made against Chinese firms that they were exporting parts of the body of executed persons Europe’s cosmetics trade must now act and demand from their Chinese trade partners the guarantee that no parts of the body of executed persons will be used, said the GfbV Asia expert Ulrich Delius on Friday in Göttingen. A few days ago the renowned British newspaper „Guardian” charged a Chinese cosmetics company from the province Heilongjiang in the north of the country with sending skin particles from executed persons.

According to the report in the „Guardian” of 13th September 2005 the pieces of skin used are collages, one of the most important albumen substances in the human body. The import of collages takes place in a grey area, since the European Union has not yet set up any regulations on the import of these materials. But in the light of the boom in cosmetic surgery and the cosmetics industry there is a great demand for this protein substance.

Human rights workers have for many years accused the Chinese authorities of conducting a systematic trade with the organs of executed persons. With photos and film material human rights organisations have documented how immediately after their being shot the condemned persons are transported to hospitals, where their liver, kidney or heart is transplanted. Doctors who have fled from China report that this is a lucrative trade for the Chinese authorities since many sick Japanese, Thai and Philippine citizens travel to China for transplantation. While the trade with the organs of executed persons has already been condemned by the Bundestag, the export of skin particles presents a new problem, to which neither the authorities nor European industry have reacted in an adequate manner, criticised Delius.

Although China always claims that less people will be executed in future, in no country of the world are so many persons executed as in the People’s Republic. According to the research of the GfbV on political prisoners it is particularly Muslim Uigurs who are affected by the executions. More than 700 Uigurs have been executed since 1997 because they exercised criticism against the Chinese rule over their province of East Turkistan (in Chinese: Xinjiang) in the northwest of the People’s Republic. From tax evasion to murder 68 crimes are punishable in China with the death penalty. Chinese human rights workers estimate that up to 15,000 persons are executed in China every year. The dark figure is very high, as in the provinces the death penalty is often meted out for less severe offences.

The 10th October was declared by the „World Coalition against the Death Penalty” the International Day against the Death Penalty.