Chinese Seek Answers in Organ Scandal

Meng Zhaoping shows a photo of her executed son, during a visit to Xi'an, in China's Shaanxi province Jan. 31, 2007. Meng believes her son's body was stripped of its organs for use in transplants, after he was executed in 2005 for killing a man in knife fight. Meng has been searching for answers ever since - her persistence shedding light on one of China's darkest practices - the taking of organs taken from executed prisoners for transplant surgery. (AP Photo/Audra Ang) (Audra Ang - AP)

XI'AN, China -- Clutching a grimy tote bag filled with legal documents and photos of her executed son, Meng Zhaoping is trying to argue her way past a security guard at the provincial high court for the second day in a row.

All she wants is an audience with a court officer, she says, her voice echoing down the building's empty hallways. All she has are two questions: Why was her son put to death? What happened to his body?

The answer to the first question is in the charge sheet: He knifed a man to death in a brawl. The second answer, she is convinced, lies in a much-criticized Chinese practice _ taking organs taken from executed prisoners for transplant surgery.

"Let me talk to someone! Give me justice!" Meng shouts as the guard blocks her way.

Ever since her son was convicted and executed in January 2005, Meng has been searching for an explanation. She never saw his body. His corpse, tagged No. 207, was put in a hospital van and taken to a crematorium.

By then, Meng believes, the body had been stripped of its organs.

"It would be unbelievably cruel to take his organs. It's the final insult," Meng says later, riding a public bus to yet another government office, lines of fatigue etched around her eyes.

She has no direct evidence to back up her belief, but the secrecy in which China has shrouded the whole issue has long bred suspicions, with foreign medical and human rights groups saying it is opaque, profit-driven, and indifferent to medical ethics.

What's new is that these critics are being joined by ordinary Chinese such as Meng, a 53-year-old apple farmer from the fringe of the Gobi Desert.

Over more than two years, Meng has made a dozen trips to this city in north-central China, borrowing money for the 46-hour train trip from the family farm. She has journeyed even farther, to Beijing, seeking central government intervention.

Each time she has been shunted among government agencies. In March, she said, officials in her hometown of Kuitun prevented her from leaving. "Ordinary people like us are like ants. The system just steps on them and destroys them," says Meng.

Much of the furor surrounds the use of organs _ mostly kidneys, livers and corneas _ from executed prisoners who may not have given their permission. Critics argue that death-row prisoners are not truly free to consent and may feel compelled to become donors, violating personal, religious or cultural beliefs.