ENGLISH VERSION: Headshot for a kidney

Rao Enhuan: She never agreed to taking away the organs of her dead son© Mark Leong/MATRIX

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The man who has skinned hundreds of people raises the knife slowly and slices through the fresh meat. »I'm a good cutter.« In his first life in the People's Republic of China he was a doctor. Today he works in a New York suburb sushi bar where he slices tuna, salmon, and mackerel. »Finally I can use my talents for something positive«, says Wang Guoqi.

»I'm frightened that Chinese agents will kill me«

However, the terrors of his past still haunt him in his nightmares: the lethal shots to the back of the head, the images of blood, the splatter of brain matter and the memories of sweat and fear. He misses his family which he had to leave behind in the seaport town of Tianjin; his wife who is a nurse and his six-year old son. In the fall of 2000, the burn victim specialist defected to the United States under an assumed name and with false papers by joining a group of Chinese tourists who were visiting Las Vegas and Disneyland.

»I'm frightened that Chinese agents will kill me,« says Wang. The slender man in his late thirties is the principal witness for a horrendous accusation: China systematically transplants and even sells executed prisoners' skin, hearts, kidneys and livers to foreigners (despite the fact that organ dealing is illegal in China). Authorities regularly close down websites on which impoverished farmers sell their kidneys. »This way the state maintains its monopoly, and the executed prisoners serve as its spare parts supply« says Harry Wu, Chinese dissident and human rights advocate. »The government has helped build an industrialized killing machine with high profits and an international, mafia-like network.«