"Do you think what they say about harvesting organs from Falun Gong prisoners is true?"

I look at my roommate, puzzled. How would I know if it’s true, untrue, or partly true? It’s impossible to know. If it’s true, it’s all happening in the dark. Stories that do come out, are either biased, strongly exaggerated, or even pure gossip.

Underlying interests

Here is one story about the alleged organ harvesting. The source is a Canadian human rights lawyer, David Matas, so the source has a clear interest: the more dirt he can put on the Chinese government, the better, for this makes his case look stronger.

There is also a Canadian politician involved, David Kilgour, who is supposed to try to win votes every couple of years, so he is likely to, at least to some extent, support whatever his country’s public opinion supports. Because Falun Gong knows how to use the western dominated “free” press, Falun Gong is among the good guys, as far as public opinion is concerned.

Update: One of my readers informed me that Kilgour is actually retired so he does not need any more votes.

Conveniently left out

In the article, Matas says the Falun Gong movement was banned by the Chinese government because of its huge number of followers (he mentions a huge figure and presents this figure as a fact, while in truth it is just a guess, by the Falun Gong movement itself). But this is just a part of the truth. Matas conveniently leaves out a more important fact.

In China, it all went for the worse when the Falun Gong movement shifted from being a spiritual movement only, towards being a political movement too. This, and the unknown but large number of followers, turned the movement into a threat to harmony. And that is against the constitution inChina.

On top of that, the political movement has its headquarters on foreign soil, and receives a great amount of foreign financial aid. So this political movement is trying to changeChinawith western support: foreign interference. That too, is against Chinese constitution.

(Don’t get me wrong: if something is a violation of the law, that obviously does not mean this makes any violation of any human right.)

Matas and Kilgour wrote a book on their case. The article mentions this, but does not mention that researchers, among whom a Falun Gong expert, say it was based on questionable evidence (Wikipedia).

Extremely biased

I am not an expert on Falun Gong – if you are and read this, and think that I am wrong, please let me know – neither am I an expert on the alleged organ harvesting practices. But as far as I can tell, this story is at least extremely biased in the issues I mentioned. Extrapolating, I can only expect the rest of it to be highly exaggerated.

The website on which the article was published, Suite101.com, carries the slogan “insightful writers, informed readers”. That sounds very impartial and unbiased – something this article is clearly not. I just hope the world’s big newspapers don’t fall for that. And if they do, I hope that interested readers, among whom my roommate, will judge wisely if all content is to be entirely believed and accepted as truth.