Although we live in times of selective concern about human rights, every so often a horror occurs that is so abominable that the world takes note.
A monstrous example of "inhumanity for profit" seems underway in China today, of which much of our mainstream media are not yet aware, or don't find credible because of unimaginable revulsion.
It is increasingly substantiated that the Chinese government is maintaining concentration camps and special prisons linked to hospitals, to "harvest" the organs of dissenters for sale to foreigners and those who can afford to pay.
Protests by Falun Gong supporters have had no effect in Ottawa, and limited effect in Washington. Ottawa, apparently bent on making money from China, seems to be ignoring the organ transplant racket, just as our governments have ignored cultural genocide in Tibet, threats towards Taiwan, human rights abuses and subversion and intimidation of Chinese people in Canada.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even the U.S. Senate are starting to pay attention.
The newspaper Epoch Times, published in some 60 countries, first reported about organ transplant prisons and quoted various witnesses, including a Chinese undercover reporter for a Tokyo newspaper; a doctor who performed cornea transplants from live victims and other workers.
China has long sold the organs of criminals on death row, but only recently has it been learned that of some 6,000 Falun Gong believers in Sujiatun death camp in the Northeastern city of Shenyang, none has emerged alive. An estimated 3,000 inmates have had organs removed and their bodies cremated.
While the New York Times, Washington Post and major TV networks haven't reported this to my knowledge, National Review and the Washington Times have run reports. The CBC has been advertising its new bureau in Shanghai. Investigating death camps that harvest organs would be courageous journalism, but the CBC seems more comfortable running interviews with U.S. army deserters.
Witnesses say organs are available on only two days' wait. Other reports are that executions are often delayed until there's a recipient demand for a specific organ.
What is Falun Gong, and why is China's communist regime so determined to wipe it out?
Compassion, tolerance
Essentially, it is a meditative philosophy based on truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. It has no definable leadership, no politics, no temples, no priests. It is more spiritual than religious, and is no threat to the communist regime -- except that it is rapidly growing in popularity and now has 100 million practitioners in China and followers in 60 countries.
At first tolerated by Beijing, it has been banned since 1999. Chinese intelligence agents have waged an international campaign to undermine and harass Falun Gong, which believe in kindness, selflessness and balance through meditation and gentle exercise. Doesn't sound very threatening, but anything that rivals the popularity of the communist party is considered dangerous by Beijing.
"Harvesting" and selling the organs of executed prisoners is bad enough (4,500 Chinese are executed every year) but killing innocent people who are considered nuisances and selling their organs is obscenity at another level -- and something the civilized world should protest, but doesn't.