A Chinese official and two doctors on Wednesday lashed Falun Gong's rumor on the "concentration camp" in Sujiatun District of Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Zhang Xu, a senior official at the National Traditional Chinese Medicine Thrombus Treatment Center in Shenyang, holds up a picture showing that the claims by the Falun Gong followers of organ harvesting at the hospital cannot be true, during a news conference in Beijing April 12, 2006. [Reuters]

Zheng Bin, vice head of Sujiatun District, denounced the rumor as "groundless" at a press conference in Beijing.

"The absurd lie was a mud-throwing activity not only to the image of Sujiatun, but also to China," Zheng said, calling on the international community to reprimand their despicable acts.

Falun Gong followers overseas have spread the rumor since March 8, saying that more than 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners were imprisoned at the so-called Sujiatun concentration camp in the district, and many of them were cremated and their organ harvested.

Falun Gong followers later changed their wording that the "concentration camp" was established in a small hospital, the Sujiatun Hospital on Thrombus Diseases.

Zhang Yuqin, vice-president of the hospital, said ever since March 18, the hospital received lots of phone calls overseas, saying that more than 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners were imprisoned and dissected alive at the hospital, and their organs were illegally transplanted. During a period of time, telephone lines for consulting service also received similar phone calls.

"Later we learned that it is overseas Falun Gong cult followers who fabricated such absurd and evil-minded lies," Zhang said.

Zhang said the hospital, with only 300 beds, has no enough space for 6,000 people at all, nor the "basement" or "cremator". "Their lies on the "concentration camp" is sheer fabrication, and that on organ harvesting was utter nonsense."

Zhang has been working with the hospital since 1990. She said the hospital was specialized in thrombus diseases with method combining western pharmacy and traditional Chinese herbs. The hospital annually receives nearly 300,000 patients from 21 provinces and municipalities, as well as from foreign countries including the Republic of Korea, the United States, Russia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

According to Zhang, a hospital in Seoul has established friendly ties and exchanged experts with the Sujiatun hospital since 1997. After the rumor on the "concentration camp" was released, Korean colleagues telephoned Chinese doctors expressing their much concern.

On March 31, all the working staff with the Sujiatun hospital issued a statement to refute the rumor on its website, namely, www.thrombusres-cn.net.

"We will reserve our rights to affix the legal responsibility for the evil behavior of the cult and its media," Zhang said.