"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Chinese Organ Update: According to a very diligent commenter at this post, the claims by the Falun Gong that China has a special concentration camp for organ harvesting may be exaggerations:
The gruesome allegations have been made by a Chinese journalist and the wife of a surgeon who worked at Sujiatun.
There are a few problems with the claims. Both persons, who are now in the US, refuse to be identified because they fear consequences for their families in China. This is understandable but does not make verification easier. The journalist's story was not published by the Japanese news agency for which he says he worked and which he also will not identify.
It appears the claims by Falun Gong have been at least substantially exaggerated. Initial investigations by researchers for a US congressional committee have identified the site at Sujiatun as a hospital, where it is suspected organ harvesting occurs but on nowhere near the scale claimed by Falun Gong. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed the allegations as "absurd lies".
The Falun Gong description of the hospital as a concentration camp or death camp appears to be wrong. While China has re-education camps, there is no credible evidence that it operates the equivalent of gulags or concentration camps. But given past Chinese behaviour, the Falun Gong claims cannot be completely discounted. It is well established that China conducts so-called organ harvesting, including among the 5000 to 12,000 people sentenced to death each year, and not necessarily with their permission or that of their families. It is a lucrative trade, with overseas patients flying to China for transplants.
It's not all that reassuring to have the word of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, or that a Congressional committee found no evidence of concentration camps. No doubt such a committee would have found "labor camps" not concentration camps in Nazi Germany, too. Still, witnesses who could be verified would make a better foundation for the accusations. posted by Sydney on
4/09/2006 11:13:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
There's a lot out there on this topic. Of course, an investigation is what is required to verify and rectify this genocide. The word is that the UN and the US have made such a request. The concern is that it might be too late by the time they get there as apparently the slaughtering has begun already.
There is a lot of denial as well mainly from the CCP and their affiliates and pro-CCP advocates who have gone on all the blogs to spread the denial. The last thing the CCP wants to do is to admit to their crimes against humanity. The Foreign Affairs Departments will deny this as well as long as an international investigation hasn't been conducted.
So far I’ve seen one investigative report on Sujiatun from (NGO) WOIPFG. It is worth checking.
http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/
And there is a positive reaction from Congress–
STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFINGS Daily Press Briefing Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman Washington, DC March 31, 2006 ……….. QUESTION: Okay. I would like to switch the topic a little bit. About the recent revealed Sujiatun concentration camp where it is said thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs, what is the State Department’s comment about that? MR. ERELI: Well, obviously, any such reports are taken very seriously by us. We haven’t been able to confirm them. We have contacted the Government of China about them. The Chinese have publicly denied the allegations. We’ve made the point that a further investigation would be helpful. We urge that it be done. So at this point, they are basically unconfirmed reports and we’ve raised them and we’ve urged a full investigation. QUESTION: Did you suggest any international investigation or a third party — MR. ERELI: No. We’ve raised it with the Chinese and urged them to investigate. QUESTION: Okay.
Here’s a few media reports I came across. It is worth mentioning that National Review has interviewed Jin Zhong who is the first witness.
US presses China for probe on Falun Gong organ harvesting claim PP 369 words 31 March 2006 06:35 PM Agence France Presse English Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006 All reproduction and presentation rights reserved.
WASHINGTON, March 31, 2006 (AFP) -
The United States pressed China Friday for a probe into claims by the Falun Gong spiritual group that thousands of its followers at Chinese concentration camps have been killed and their organs harvested and sold.
"The Chinese have publicly denied the allegations. We've made the point that a further investigation would be helpful. We urge that it be done," deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.
"Well, obviously, any such reports are taken very seriously by us. We haven't been able to confirm them. We have contacted the government of China about them," Ereli said.
Asked whether the United States had suggested any international investigation, he said: "No, we've raised it with the Chinese and urged them to investigate."
The Falun Gong spiritual movement had alleged that as many as 75 percent of its 6,000 followers held in a state-run camp in the Sujiatun district of the northern Chinese city of Shenyang had been cremated after they were killed and their organs harvested and sold.
In a statement Friday, the movement, quoting "a veteran medical doctor who has served in the Shenyang military zone," said there were 36 such camps and that "the scope of the problem far exceeds that previously imagined."
The largest camp, codenamed "672-S," is said to hold over 120,000 people, among whom are Falun Gong and other "prisoners of conscience," it said.
There has been no independent confirmation of the Falun Gong reports.
The Chinese communist leadership consider the rise of Falun Gong as a mass movement and a threat to its power, rights groups have said.
Since the banning of the Falun Gong in 1999, estimates of adherents who died in custody due to torture, abuse and neglect ranged from several hundred to a few thousand, according to the State Department annual human rights report released in early March.
In addition to being sentenced to reeducation-through-labor camps, some Falun Gong members were sent to detention facilities specifically established to "rehabilitate" practitioners who refused to recant their belief voluntarily after release from the camps, it said.
U.N. envoy looks at Falun Gong torture allegations http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2 006-03-30T155024Z_01_L30516921_RTRUKOC_0_UK-CHINA-UN-TORTURE.xml&archived =False
A place called Sujiatun http://www.nationalreview.com/nordlinger/nordlinger200603300722.asp
Toronto Sun: For sale: $25,000 for a liver http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Worthington_Peter/2006/03/25/15 05613.html
Washington Times: China harvesting inmates’ organs, journalist says http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060323-114842-5680r.htm
News Max: Report: China Selling Prisoners’ Body Parts http://view.e.newsmax.com/?ffcb10-fe8f10737263027d70-fe2415797d6d027f7316 70-ff2c1d70746d
Directorio participates in Falung Gong press conference before the UN http://www.directorio.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?note_id=966
Reads like PR. Genecide and killing of thousands occurs every year in some conflict plagued area of the world. Hitler did try to destroy the jews, but on the scale of millions not thousands. Even all the photographs, leftover equipment, and historical evidence does not stop people from trying to deny it happened. I am greatly concerned that a few thousand prisioners deaths if they did indeed happen will get swept under the rug of international trade relations. No matter what the intentions on all sides.
