A Voice Heard Around the World: Wang Wenyi
Dear Readers: By now you've almost certainly heard about Wang Wenyi, the Epoch Times journalist who challenged Hu Jintao during his recent "highly-scripted" speech at the White House.
Wenyi, a Falun Gong practitioner, unfurled a banner that read "Falun Dafa is Good" and proceeded to implore George Bush to intervene to stop the killing of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
[Wang Wenyi speaks out at the White House.Note the Chinese reporters pulling down her banner.
Several media reports say that she was assaulted by him.
Photo Credit: Roger L. Wollenberg/Getty Images]
What Wenyi did was well beyond the scope of her conventional role as a journalist, as she was there on a press pass. It may impede The Epoch Times from gaining similar media credentials in the future, and perpetuate an inaccurate depiction of The Epoch Times as a "Falun Gong newspaper" -- this much we have gathered from the numerous media reports.
Yet it also has to be noted that everything that she did say was true! And, the overwhelming media response to her actions has been largely positive. Here is an excerpt, from Investors.com, for example:
"But just maybe there was something deliciously reportorial about Dr. Wang's protest. It drew attention to the many victims of Beijing's oppression at a time when so much of the Western media gloss over the ugly side of modernizing China. Surely it was no ruder than some of the White House press corps' antics."
See The Epoch Times statement on Wenyi's actions.
Unfortunately, many of the media, while hailing her "courage" and glorifying her act of civil disobedience, still continue to gloss over the reason why Wenyi went to such drastic measures to have her voice heard. It is:
The ample evidence that Falun Gong practitioners, and perhaps some Chinese dissidents are being slaughtered for their organs at record pace, even as we write these words.
Read The Epoch Times April 19 "Dear Colleague" letter urging other media to investigate.
For those who doubt, there is evidence enough, at least, for the international community to DEMAND an genuinely independent investigation into organ harvesting in Chinese labour camps ASAP. Independent (as in random, unplanned, with unrestricted access) as opposed to regime-planned visits , as was the case of the show "tour" given to US diplomats of the Sujiatun hospital many weeks after the initial disclosures about the camp.
The two sources of the initial information about the Sujiatun death camp spoke publicly for the first time recently. You can read their statements here and here, respectively.
[Annie and Peter go public with their informationPhoto Credit: The Epoch Times]
An April 19 BBC report on organ harvesting in China is well worth a read as well.
Wenyi was not the only person to be removed from Hu's presence. During his speech at Yale, CNN Associate Producer Joe Vaccarello was ejected because he asked Hu if he "had seen the demonstrators" outside the university. Said the article,
"Helaine Klasky, a Yale spokesperson, said that the journalist was sent out of the meeting because he broke 'all ground rules' and engaged in disorderly behavior."
Since when is asking unpleasant questions "engaging in disorderly behaviour?" We are still in shock at the extent that Western institution after institution kowtows to Beijing. We are also amazed at the numerous posts on blogs and elsewhere that decry the revelations of atrocities taking place in China as "making China look bad." To the authors of such messages, we suggest remembering:
The Chinese communist regime is not China. It is not the cause of the successes that China has enjoyed, but rather the cause of the living hell that Chinese people have endured for the past 50+ years. Making the regime "look bad" inevitable if one is to look at it at all. China, on the other hand, is an incredible country with 5000 years of history -- it deserves MUCH MUCH better than the dictatorship it now suffers.
We feel that the regime's demise is inevitable -- and our hope is that a peaceful transition can be achieved with the will of some of the more rational elements of the leadership, instead of a sort of bloodbath that had characterized all of the "movements" in China in its communist history thus far (and most of the successions of dynasties, for that matter, as we understand).
Comments are welcome -- although with respect to our recent "fan" Charles Liu, we're guessing we already know what you're going to say.
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on Sunday, April 23, 2006 at 2:33 p.m..
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April 29, 2006 2:40 a.m.Dr. Wang is the lead researcher for Epoch Times NY's convienently timed "Sujiatun Auschwitz" allegation that has since being discredited:
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=April&x=20060416141157uhyggep0.5443231&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
Given Dr. Wang's profession and New Yorks recent string of grisly illegal organ harvesting cases, it's not hard to see how she put two and two together and rehashed the 70's era anti-communist tall tales of people sentenced to vivisection during Cultural Revolution.
May 01, 2006 11:59 a.m.
*Sigh*
Best to see what British and Australian medical association as saying about organ harvesting...
BBC: China 'selling prisoners' organs'
Epoch Times: Australian Surgeons Condemn "Horrific" Organ Trade
That's just the tip of the iceberg...
May 04, 2006 1:10 a.m.
May I point out the fact neither of the above article mention "Auschwitz" or "Sujiatun"?
The British Transplant Surgeons article is about consent for organ donation from the condemned. I was so impressed with this article I wrote another single-issue blog:
ChinaOrganDonationCulture.blogspot.com
Essentially there are cultural and religious foundation we in the west don't appreciate, and the subject of consent by the condemned is not only debatable, the Chinese are debating it.
May 16, 2006 12:18 p.m.
It's true that there are significant cultural differences between Western and traditional Chinese culture. But here we are talking about "cultural differences" relating to the Chinese communist regime ...
For example, from a Guardian report about a Chinese company using executed prisoners' skin to make collagen for export to the UK:
"The [company's] agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".
This perspective stems from a law passed in the '80's that allow "use" of condemned people's bodies to whatever end the regime sees fit. Many such bodies have been used in Gunther von Hangens' grotesque "Bodyworks" exhibits -- though now he has removed bodies with bullet holes to the back of the head, and has papers that apparently prove the European origins of the cadavers.
Now it must be remembered that in thie communist culture we know these "condemned convicts" can be anyone that the regime doesn't like, for whatever reason.
We also know that 20 million+ Chinese people were starved to death by their government during Mao's Great Leap Forward.
In Mao's culture, communist cadres were also forced to denounce others based on quotas. It didn't matter if the others were "guilty" or not, the quota had to be met, or the cadres would face denouncement and death themselves. Some culture.
The list of the macabre peculiarities of this "culture" which seeks to destroy all others in its reach (traditional Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, to cite a few obvious examples) is endless -- see the Nine Commentaries for further details. It's not a good idea to give in to moral relativism here.
May 18, 2006 4:54 a.m.
"Moral relativism" or "self-righteousness hypocrisy" - what ever it is, it ain't "Auschwitz" as Dr. Wang and Epoch Time's cry wolf claimed:
- Two US government investigation have discredited the story.
- The hospital Epoch accused is a joint venture with a company affaliated with the Malaysian government. Malay officials have visited the site in previous years:
http://crc.gov.my/clinicalTrial/documents/Proposal/TCM_Stroke%20TrialProtocol%20synopsis.pdf
I've never heard of death camp advertising for foreign investment or official tour...
May 19, 2006 8:16 p.m.
Charles. Please let me highlight something we have stated in past posts: When a genuinely independent investigation is conducted, with unfettered access to the laogai / concentration camp system, we can have a sense of the veracity of the allegations. Anything less than that would simply be a sham. Otherwise, it is ESSENTIAL that people continue to do what other kinds of investigation are possible -- and I applaud the US gov't for doing that. Given the magnitude of the allegations, and evidence like taped conversations of doctors saying that organs have come from Falun Gong practitioners, or, come get your organs before the supply dries up, or the official statistics that suggest a VAST organ bank an order of magnitude larger than yearly executions...I seriously doubt the good intentions the mainland officials that hand-held the US diplomats that visited the Sujiatun site.
Charles, the issue is not one camp. It doesn't matter if there is no barbed wire, or if there were fewer (or more) victims than was alleged by the witnesses. If any Falun Gong practitioners or Chinese dissidents are being used for organ transplants, this is a terrible crime against humanity.
Ten thousand Israelis signed a petition to expose the allegations and evidence of organ harvesting in Auschiwtz, because they felt it was a fitting place to do that. I agree.
It is a simple issue for PRC officials to disprove the allegations, it they are not true: Allow a genuinely independent investigation is conducted, with unfettered access to the laogai / concentration camp system. Allowed to go anywhere, anytime, with no forewarning.
In the absense of that, I plan to continue to expose whatever little information there is. The Communist Party's historical precedent, that of blood and lies, and the evidence that exists, demand that.
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