Author of Killed to Order, Jan Jekielek, Exposes the CCP’s “On-Demand Killing for Organs” System

Senior editor of The Dajiyuan, Jan Jekielek, published his new book Killed to Order. (February 16, 2026)

[People News]Veteran journalist Jan Jekielek, who has long focused on human rights issues in China, said in an exclusive interview with Voice of America (VOA) this week that in his new book Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry & the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary, he compiles nearly 20 years of research and investigative findings regarding allegations that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has forcibly harvested organs. He argues that such practices are not isolated incidents, but involve systematic operations at the state level, demonstrating the existence of a systemic model in China that uses detained prisoners of conscience as a source of organs, and estimates that the actual number of transplants far exceeds officially reported figures.

According to a VOA report, Jekielek stated in the interview that many questions remain about the true scale and operational methods of China’s organ transplant system. Citing multiple independent studies, analyses of medical literature, and witness testimony, he challenged Beijing’s claim that it had “fully stopped using organs from executed prisoners since 2015 and shifted to a voluntary donation system.”

The CCP government has repeatedly denied allegations of “forced organ harvesting,” stating that its transplant system complies with international standards and describing such claims as rumors intended to smear China. However, Jekielek said that controversies surrounding transplant volumes, organ sources, and data transparency continue to draw international attention to the CCP’s alleged “forced organ harvesting.”

At the policy level, Jekielek believes that the impact of the CCP’s practices in organ transplantation extends beyond the human rights sphere, also involving international medical cooperation and U.S. national security assessments.

Jekielek is also a senior editor at the English-language edition of The Dajiyuan and host of the interview program American Thought Leaders.

The following is a transcript of the interview. For clarity and brevity, the text has been edited and condensed.

VOA: My first question is, what prompted you to investigate the allegations of forced organ harvesting in China (by the CCP)? And why are you publishing this book now?

Jan Jekielek: First of all, this book, titled Killed to Order, can be described as a compilation of research findings from the past 20 years. These remarkable researchers began investigating in depth in 2006, which was also when I first became aware that this was real.

At the time, I learned about it almost simultaneously through two channels. We at The Dajiyuan also reported on it. One source was a whistleblower—a woman under the pseudonym “Annie.” She alleged that there existed something like a concentration camp where people, Falun Gong practitioners, were detained and “killed to order” for organ transplants.

At the same time, something else happened. The head of the transplant surgery department at Tel Aviv University had a patient. The director’s name is Dr. Jacob Lavee. I may talk more about him later, because he later became an activist.

He had a patient who had been waiting a long time for a heart transplant. One day, the patient told him that in two weeks he would undergo a heart transplant surgery that had already been scheduled for a specific date. When Dr. Lavee later recounted this episode to me, I felt chills.

From Lavee’s perspective—he had served as head of Israel’s organ transplant association—he said this was impossible. Absolutely impossible, because otherwise you would know in advance when someone would be killed.

But the patient did indeed undergo the surgery and then returned to Israel.

So, on the one hand, there was the whistleblower from China. Her husband was a surgeon who had personally participated in these procedures. He confessed to his wife that he had removed 2,000 corneas from living people and had suffered long-term nightmares as a result. His wife compelled him to repent and ultimately decided to come forward and expose the practice.

On the other hand, there was the firsthand experience of a transplant surgery director. These two allegations combined, along with research investigations, made me realize: this is extraordinarily horrific, yet it is real—so insane that it is almost unbelievable.

VOA: Let’s talk about the title of your book. What does Killed to Order mean in practical terms? How does this system operate?

Jan Jekielek: You need a “state actor” to operate a system like this—this is a very particular situation.

Because you must be able to exert coercive power over a large population; you must, through intensive propaganda, dehumanize a group that you intend to use for this purpose.

Second, you must have the capacity to imprison people on a massive scale—possibly hundreds of thousands, even over a million.

This is precisely what the Chinese Communist Party did to Falun Gong practitioners in 1999 and 2000. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice. Official estimates at the time said that 70 million to 100 million people were practicing it. It was a grassroots movement, completely different from the highly hierarchical structure of the Communist Party.

The dictator at the time—Jiang Zemin—decided, in his words, to “eradicate it.” Thus, a group of people practicing “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance” suddenly became the number one target for arrest. To justify the persecution, they launched overwhelming propaganda across society. At that time, one in every 13 people in China practiced Falun Gong. In order for the persecution to be accepted, people had to be persuaded that persecuting them was justified.

After completing the dehumanization and large-scale imprisonment—possibly detaining 1 million or even 2 million people, though the real number is unknown because it is a state secret. Leaking such numbers could cost someone their life. I’m not even sure anyone knows the true figure. They began conducting blood typing, tissue matching, and organ scans on these individuals.

Before 2006, there were even online advertisements openly stating: “Pay $150,000 or $200,000, and you can get a new heart within two weeks.” This is simply unbelievable.

But how was this possible? Because the so-called “donors” were already prepared to be killed on demand and had already been matched with you. Once you paid, they would find the match, transport the person, and then kill them. This is on an entirely different level—completely different from ordinary black-market organ trafficking, which is already horrifying. This is another level, another scale. According to our estimates, by the late 2000s, the number of transplants had risen to between 60,000 and 90,000 per year.

VOA: That’s shocking. You mentioned Falun Gong practitioners. Aside from Falun Gong practitioners, are there other victim groups? And why are these groups particularly vulnerable?

Jan Jekielek: That is an extremely important question. Thank you for asking.

In a communist system, there is always an “external enemy”—and incidentally, that is often the United States. That’s how the system is structured.

But there are also “internal enemies,” and that is different. Sometimes they are landlords—when the regime wants their land. By 1989, it became students and the student movement. In 1999, it became Falun Gong.

Why do these groups become vulnerable? Because the regime is essentially saying: we are going to target this group. There are two purposes. First, they seek to suppress or eliminate the group. Second, they send a warning to the rest of society—this is what the Communist Party is capable of. Don’t go against us.

The reality is that for about 14 or 15 years, almost no one took action, even though by then we already had a great deal of evidence showing that forced organ harvesting was absolutely happening. If you want to know more details, I can explain further. That’s how it was.

Later, a portion of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region also became targets. When I say “portion,” I mean fewer than Falun Gong practitioners, though it is still not a small number—roughly 10 to 12 million people. The same thing was done to them: they were dehumanized. As an ethnic minority, they were already dehumanized by the CCP. Their usual tactic is to make these people vulnerable by portraying them as inferior.

Author of Killed to Order and senior editor of The Dajiyuan, Jan Jekielek, gives an exclusive interview to the Chinese Service of Voice of America at VOA headquarters. (February 16, 2026)

Making them vulnerable is necessary because most people are not psychopaths. You have to artificially create a defect—a defect in human reasoning. Once you begin to believe that someone is inferior, you will do terrible things. That is how genocide happens, and some of the people who commit genocide are not actually psychopaths. They are not cold-blooded; for some reason, they come to believe it is true. So they dehumanized the Uyghurs and imprisoned more than one million people. The exact number is unclear.

As we understand it—especially through the research of an outstanding investigator named Ethan Gutmann—they appear to have incorporated many of these individuals into this vast “killed-to-order” industry.

My greatest concern is that if we do not take action, today it is Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs; in the future, it could include Tibetans, because Tibetans are also a group that can easily be targeted by propaganda. Recently, house Christians—members of house churches—have also been targeted. Recently, the leaders of a large church, Zion Church, were all arrested. Many of them remain detained to this day.

Catholic clergy have also recently come under tighter control. I do not know where this will lead, but in my view, the regime is intensifying its persecution of Christians. I worry that these groups will also be incorporated on a large scale into the dogmatic system of killing on demand.

VOA: Given the severity of this topic, both inside and outside China, very few people know much about it. My question is, what do you consider the strongest evidence?

Jan Jekielek: A large portion of Killed to Order is devoted to evidence. I have compiled most of the evidence from the past 20 years. But let me give you a few examples to help you understand.

The earliest investigative report was written by two Canadian human rights lawyers, David Kilgour and David Matas. Initially, they listed 17 pieces of evidence, later expanding that to 33.

Of course, one thing must be remembered: no journalist has ever suddenly burst into an operating room and exclaimed, “Oh my God, look—they are killing to order!” That has never happened.

In cases of large-scale atrocities, such as the Nazi Holocaust in Germany, they did not invite journalists to report from the scene. The evidence gathered at the beginning was indirect, but it was highly compelling.

For example, researchers called hospitals and asked: Can I get an organ within two weeks? The hospitals answered: Yes. Some even asked: Can you provide organs from Falun Gong practitioners? The response was: Yes, their organs are the freshest, the best, the healthiest. It is widely known that people held such views about Falun Gong practitioners. That is a clue, right?

There is also a more recent clue. A scholar named Matthew Robertson, who specializes in this issue, recently published an excellent doctoral dissertation on the subject.

He co-authored a paper with Jacob Lavee—the surgeon I mentioned earlier, who later became an activist opposing these abuses. They focused primarily on Chinese transplant literature that had been officially published, including some papers published in Western journals. They found that among more than 2,000 published papers, over 70 cases violated the rules for deceased organ donation—and these were in publicly available studies.

What does that mean? It means that in those 70 studies, those 70 individuals died because their organs were removed. They were killed, and their organs were harvested. And this was written directly into the methodology sections of the research, right?

As to why they wrote it that way—this is my view now—they included it in the methodology because for the past 25 years, this has undoubtedly been the primary method of transplantation in China.

So people did not know there was any other method. In some cases, they may not even have realized they were committing murder. They simply regarded it as part of the transplant procedure. There are examples—actually, I have a recent one that is shocking. A former transplant surgeon from Germany confirmed it to me. He knew of a case involving a woman with severe liver disease and serious alcoholism, and she had some rare liver condition. Over the past decade, perhaps longer, she underwent three liver transplants in China. Think about that—how is that possible?

Because remember, under any ethical system, you must find someone who matches you. There must be a catastrophic accident. The organ must be the right size. The blood type and tissue must match. That is why in civilized societies, people wait years to receive a transplant.

Here, within two weeks, they have someone prepared—ready to be killed on demand.

I devote an entire chapter—Chapter Five—to presenting all of this research. It is a long chapter. If you want to know more, I would be happy to share.

VOA: I believe you mentioned that China is estimated to perform between 60,000 and 90,000 organ transplants per year. I would like to know how those figures were calculated. What is your evidence?

Jan Jekielek: Obviously, it is extremely difficult to estimate, because again, this is a state secret. Leaking such secrets could result in execution. That is how the CCP erects barriers.

Let me also add something extremely important that I forgot to mention. I must emphasize this: over all these years, the Chinese Communist Party has never provided any information to refute these allegations. They simply smear the people conveying the information. They say: these people are evil, do not listen to them, this is propaganda. They never say: we have real evidence showing that these things did not happen.

So, given the substantial body of evidence we have, we must assume that this is happening—until they provide substantial evidence that it is not. Because we must first stop the behavior and then demand proof.

In other words, we have been researching this for 25 years, and they have never truly provided any information. You know, even for survivors, it is unbelievable. There is indeed a survivor. He lost part of his liver and part of his lung, and they actually admitted to performing surgery on him. I could hardly believe they would admit it.

One of us—Bob Destro, a law professor at Catholic University—helped save this man. He had served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor during the Trump administration. He said at the time: I can’t believe they legally acknowledged this.

They essentially exposed themselves. It is truly shocking.

Now, regarding the 60,000 to 90,000 figure you asked about. To calculate this, for example, one piece of evidence was an in-depth study of a particular hospital. We called it a “hospital built for murder.” That was the title of an article we published in The Dajiyuan in 2016. We studied this hospital because it claimed to perform many organ transplants, boasting cutting-edge technology comparable to some U.S. hospitals.

But when we looked closely at patient numbers, hospital capacity, bed utilization, and the hospital’s expansion, we found something striking.

They claimed to be one of China’s top organ transplant hospitals.

In reality, the number of transplants they were actually performing was 10 times, perhaps even 20 times, the number they officially acknowledged.

So they drastically lowered the figures to avoid raising questions: wait a minute, how could you possibly be performing so many transplants?

Because at the time, they did not even claim to have a natural organ donation registry system—an actual system where people voluntarily donated organs. That system did not exist.

I can explain why we still believe that such a system does not truly exist, even though they claim it does. The number comes from investigations of that one hospital and many others, and then extrapolating from there. That is why the range is broad—between 60,000 and 90,000. Sixty thousand is the lower bound; ninety thousand—Ethan Gutmann, I recall, estimated even 100,000.

I reduced the number slightly because I want to be especially conservative. I do not want to exaggerate. But think about those figures. This is an extremely stark reality.

We are talking about the fact that, of course, multiple organs can be harvested from one person—that is true—especially after the advent of ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) technology. ECMO can preserve the lungs and heart—it acts like a bridge, extending the viable time for organ transplantation.

But I believe—my point is—we can estimate that over the years, more than one million people have lost their lives as a result. I suspect the actual number is far higher, but again, I am being extremely conservative. The fact is, the CCP does not provide us with the number of transplants it performs.

We do not even know their true economic data. As for transplant numbers, that is even more opaque. So we are doing our best to determine the reality. At this moment, I believe the evidence is very compelling.

VOA: As you said, the CCP conceals various types of data—not only organ transplant data, but other kinds of statistics as well. However, as you know, Beijing has repeatedly claimed that as early as 2015 it stopped using organs from prisoners and now relies entirely on voluntary donations. But I think it is clear that the evidence points in the opposite direction. Could you explain this for us?

Jan Jekielek: First of all, generally speaking, culturally in China, people are not very enthusiastic about organ donation. So that in itself poses a problem for them.

But let’s set that aside for a moment. Let’s return to the doctoral dissertation by Matthew Robertson that I mentioned earlier. The dissertation has actually been published, though I forget which journal it appeared in. He analyzed data from the transplant registration system and the growth of the numbers since 2015, when they claimed to have established that system. Robertson demonstrated very powerfully that the data followed a perfect quadratic equation.

Basically, real human data are irregular. A perfect quadratic equation means they artificially created a formula and fabricated the numbers. That is absurd, right?

Again, the problem is that the incentive structure is completely wrong.

It’s somewhat like slavery in American history and in other countries. When you dehumanize a group of people and treat them as tools for whatever purpose you desire—such as organ transplantation—it is very difficult to change that situation, because you already have control over those bodies.

That is how this system operates. You know how bureaucracies function—even in the United States, reforming a bureaucracy is difficult. They spent 25 years building a bureaucratic system around killing on demand in the field of organ transplantation.

So when most Chinese people are unwilling to donate organs, how do you suddenly transition to voluntary donation? It is completely a fraud.

Recently in China, something shocking happened when a microphone was not turned off. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un were in Tiananmen Square, and they began discussing achieving longevity through continuous organ transplants. It was unbelievable!

I have worked on this issue for so many years and had never thought of that angle before, because they mentioned—Xi said our goal is to reach 150 years of age, right? Suddenly, I had an epiphany: my God, this is the “Project 981.” “Project 981” is an elite longevity program. Chinese elites live far longer than ordinary people.

How is that achieved? I had never considered that continuous organ transplantation might be part of it.

And note this: they can have unlimited access to organs forever.

What is that worth? By the way, the annual value of this industry—as you mentioned, this is an industry—is about $9 billion.

Again, that is a very rough estimate based on the median price of organs.

But now, having unlimited access to organs forever—wow, in my view, that is worth far more than $9 billion.

VOA: For the United States, is this purely a human rights issue, or is it also a national security issue?

Jan Jekielek: I believe it has profound national security implications, because we are dealing with a regime that uses “killing on demand” as a standard operating method.

So if we understand that—for example, as a diplomat working with the Chinese Communist Party—I must realize that I am not dealing with a normal government. I am not even dealing with a normal dictatorship. I am dealing with a totalitarian dictatorship, and I have already explained the distinction.

There is an outstanding scholar at Stanford University named Chenggang Xu who has explained this distinction in detail, and that helped me understand it very much. The key point is that a communist society can destroy all manifestations of civil society.

We are dealing with a regime that believes all civil society—all activities that arise among the people outside of direct government control—must be destroyed in order to maintain the Party’s supremacy.

Fundamentally, that is the most important message.

At the same time, I recently wrote a commentary on this issue that was published a few months ago in The Baltimore Sun.

We have trained many of those surgeons. We have provided various solutions and technologies. We have funded some hospitals involved in forced organ harvesting. We have cooperative relationships with research institutions.

Let’s put it this way: in China, military-civil fusion is one of the seven national priorities elevated by Xi Jinping. So you can imagine—there are even allegations that if the CCP were to invade Taiwan, they would begin using Taiwanese soldiers as organ donors.

In China, anything that has a military dimension will be utilized, because that is one of Xi’s top priorities.

Therefore, the national security implications here are enormous.

VOA: Unfortunately, we have run out of time. Thank you for accepting our interview.

Jan Jekielek: It was my pleasure. Thank you for your excellent questions.
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