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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6→Archive 9

Concerns on content removed and the NPOV tag being misused

I have removed the tag added under the claim that sources "all trace back to The two "witnesses" of the Epoch Times" - which am sure you could yourself verify is not true. The sources range from US Congress, Investigative Reportsby David Kilgour and David Matas,a Phd Thesis from Yale, Dr Kirk C Allision's analysis, a British FRCS surgeon's perspective as published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, The impact on international transplant policies, publicly verifiable and archived chinese transplant websites, UN special rapporteur's statements, among many others. I have to say that such a style of editing comes across to me as, am forced to say, dishonest and I feel is hardly conducive in maintaining the objectivity of the article.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Totally predictable, and totally wrong. Your blindness towards the FG cause, as shown by your disparaging remarkes about anything cited in Xinhua, has resulted in a faulty and blinkered interpretation of WP policies and guidelines, particularly WP:NPOV and WP:SYN. Ohconfucius (talk) 20:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I have restored the NPOV tag. As the major contributor to the article and a FG practitioner and propagandist, I feel you are not entitled to remove a {{NPOV}} tag justifiably placed. You merely trumpet the old recitation that it's sourced and therefore cannot be biased is just bollocks. You are too closely associated with the article for you to be objective. Ohconfucius (talk) 20:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Excuse me, [[User:|Ohconfucius]]: Without making content judgements, it would be MUCH appreciated if you would tone down your bitter rhetoric to encompass core policies like WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, and all those other little scraps of trivia that your commentary above has utterly disregarded. You are not the only individual who has the power to decide what will or will not be included in this article, and frankly, your approach smacks more of WP:OWN than that of any other contributor on this page. As I am watching this article closely now, owing to this edit war, please understand that your conduct is under scrutiny, as is the conduct of the other edit-warriors on this page. Gladys J Cortez 20:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Gladys, you're right, you spotted my temper beginning to flare again. In case you weren't aware, Dilip rajeev are old 'friends', and we get along like a house on fire. ;-) We have this habit of talking very bluntly to each other. There we are, perhaps it is a timely reminder of why I shouldn't come back here. This place is definitely bad for my mental health. Ohconfucius (talk) 01:26, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'm glad to see that you recognized your own flare-in-progress. There are some articles, IMHO, that some people just SHOULD not edit. For example: putting even a pedicured toenail into the waters of the current US Presidential election pages--ANY of them--would bring on a temper tantrum for me so fast your head would spin. I know it's against my best interests--both as a Wikipedian and as a sane, functional human being--to go near those articles, and so I don't. If this is one of those for you, and you recognize it, perhaps it's best to let it become the swamp you feel it to be, and hope that someone less-serious about the topic comes to clean up the perceived mess. (Personally, someone could write that Sarah Palin received the 1991 Grammy Award for her album "Nevermind", and I'd probably leave it alone.) If you do stay, though--and honestly, it's best to have all viewpoints represented, albeit a touch less stridently--just keep in mind that this is a hot-button issue, and try not to let that button get pushed. Easier said than done, I know. But I do appreciate the self-awareness! Gladys J Cortez 02:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but I have respectfully disagree. Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) is one of the most diligent and non-biased editors here who has attempted many time to restore the neutrality of the articles. I'm afraid that dilip_rajeev (talk · contribs), asdfg12345 (talk · contribs), HappyInGeneral (talk · contribs) etc who edits nothing but FLG articles are part of a WP:CABAL using wikipedia as a tool to spread their anti-PRC views in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:RS, as well as soapboxing in various talk pages about their cause. As such they have de-facto control of the FLG related articles, and can easily engage in edit warring and removal of paragraphs which they does not agree with via "consensus". In such a hostile and polarising environment, many users, including me, often just forgoe the discussion process and be bold in out efforts to root out what we see as FLG propaganda, which often led to edit wars and blocks.--PCPP (talk) 05:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
So far, dilip_rajeev (talk · contribs) has:
May throw in a word on Dilip's behalf here, though I also disagree with some of his editorial decisions often enough. By the way, if someone had run a series of bogus accusations against Ohconfucius, I'd write something similar to this. PCPP's also been blocked for editing, so have I; the second accusation is bogus, requesting a check user isn't "trying to get someone banned"; the third he apologised for because he didn't understand the technical definition of "vandalism"; the fourth, well, I don't think the spy accusation is particularly useful (can't verify it), but are you talking about posting this link? I think that's perfectly reasonable; how is posting stuff on admin board a problem?
Your first paragraph may be better simply ignored. Let's get on with civil discussion of the contents of the article and ditch the personal accusations and nasty recriminations. --Asdfg12345 13:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

In which we segue into "stream-of-consciousness admin"...

Does anyone remember....THIS? (ASD, I know you do, since you were an involved party... the rest of you might VERY well want to read it, as its sanctions are still in effect.)

What I've seen today includes: a number of 3RR vios, a lot of tendentious editing, and at least three, possibly four, violations of the spirit (if not the letter) of the RfA decision. Since I spent the better part of today off-Wiki, I wasn't able to completely follow the advice of my esteemed fellow-admins at the Admins Noticeboard, where I went for advice when Asdf asked if the 3RR I'd accused him/her of was truly a 3RR. (Sadly, yes, it was--at least per consensus there.) The admins there, as you'll see, thought I should block and protect like it was going out of style. Obviously, I didn't block anyone--not TODAY, anyhow. Everyone gets a pass....BUT...

If this tendentious editing and 3RRing continues tomorrow the way it has today, my first act will be to full-protect the article til the question of reliability of sources is solidly in hand. This will be accomplished through the Reliable Sources noticeboard, which seems like a stellar waste of time since it's obvious from this talkpage that we've already been there repeatedly. My next act, however, should no relief from editwarring come through a solid establishment of which sources are, and are not, acceptable per WP standards, will be to hand out blocks to the editwarriors. The behaviour I've seen on this article is totally unbecoming of Wikipedia editors--for heaven's sake, where am I, the Homeopathy articles or something? Everybody go to your neutral corners, take a deep breath, and repeat the following til you believe it: "It's not the end of the world that someone is wrong on the Internet." (--gladys spends the next 20 minutes looking for relevant xkcd cartoon, while soup gets cold in front of her--No! Wait! [7] --microwaves soup--)Gladys J Cortez 03:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note to point out that as per consensus from my discussion with User:Magog the Ogre on: [8], am, rewinding, for now, the title back to the pre-existing one. Dilip rajeev (talk) 07:22, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

In response to an edit summary accusation=

Just read an accusation of "pov pushing" by me being made by User:PCPP in his edit summary. The only sense I am able to make of it is that it is a baseless personal attack being made by the user against another editor since he cant dispute the quality of the content I have contributed to the article. I request the editor who made the accusation to kindly let me know why he believes I have been "pushing" a "pov" - if there be legitimate issues with my approach, I'll only be glad to address them. Also I wanted to point out that I have reverted the rather substantial changes(including deletion of an image) User:PCPP had made without a single word of discussion - neither in terms of talk page discussion nor as edit summaries. Perhaps it is worthy of admin attention that the user periodically engages in such removal of content from the article - the last of which I document here.

Regarding personal attacks I don't take any personal offence with them - but my main concern is that it can obfuscate objective contributions to the article. Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Also wanted to point out that I have, for now, removed the POV tag. I request that reasons be made clear before such a tag is put on. We cant blanket an entire well sourced article as POV - unless there be a sufficiently strong reason. If there is indeed, I request it may please be made clear here on talk before such a tag is put on. If it is a particular section you find as "pov" then the focus must be there - labeling an entire article as POV without even bothering to make clear the reasons, despite requests, is, I believe, in violation of wikipedia policies and a style of editing that obfuscates what is objective and what is not. Remember that the POV tag itself can be [mis]used as a tool to push one's personal pov when used as a tool to attack objective content -and, am afraid, that is exactly what is happening here . Dilip rajeev (talk) 12:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

In contrast to your claims, you reverted all of ohconfucius (talk · contribs)'s edits [9], including two coatrack articles from Amnesty International and Sky News that deals with executed prisoners not FLG practitioners, as well as sandwiching the section on Phoenix TV, (which you tried previously to remove as "propaganda"), with two POV statements suggesting that it's "Chinese propaganda". The rest of the sources goes straight back to Kilgour-Matas, which a) were hired by FLG advocacy groups, b) never actually proved that the organ harvesting allegations exist. This is not an essay or investigative article on Kilgour-Matas, and I don't see why whole paragraphs and alleged sources straight from their website should be in their entirity. The article, as it stands, is something straight out of the Epoch Times, giving an undue weight to pro-FLG sources, while sources critical of the allegations eg Harry Wu, US State Dept, Phoenix TV etc gets only a few short paragraphs. Some of these sources are completely useless and only stated that they were "concerned" with the allegations, going straight back to organharvestinginvestigaton.org. Wikipedia isn't a collection of news articles nor an investigative website, and it's absurd to introduce whole chunks of quotes from random professors. Consensus goes both ways, and in this case it's you who needs to gather consensus before adding back the disputed material and POV tag.--PCPP (talk) 05:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


  • Information cannot be spaced out into mutually exclusive namespaces. The vary nature of information is such that there will be overlap between namespaces. Amnesty factsheet from which the information was drawn was specifically on the reports of organ harvestation from Falun Gong practitioners. The content provides background and is indeed substantial because it is documented by sources such as Amnesty, The US Congress etc. that innocent Falun Gong practitioners constitute 66% of labour camp and prison population in China.
  • All these things you mention are only related to the particular sujiatun case and are discussed in appropriate context.
  • When you rest your deletion of content on such absurdities as David Kilgour and David Matas were "bought", I really am not sure how to respond.
  • Random professors? Is that how you characterize a Yale University PhD Thesis, an article from the royal jounral of med, etc?
  • Anybody reading once through the article can see for themselves through how conspicuously ludicrous the claims you make above are.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 07:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Ohconfucius picked up on a few inappropriately placed quotes--they could have been moved to the organ harvesting in China page without any trouble. If Dilip is restoring those, I'd suggest he stop. There are a number of issues on this above, I'll respond now. PCPP just picked out three to respond to, and confucius left things in mid-thread. But PCPP's comment,just above, basically tells everything. I'll say it clearly: (and I quote) "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." You and confucius are getting yourselves in such a twist about this, but there's no reason for it. There are no violations of wikipedia policies here. You should be complaining to someone else, not on this talk page. Your problem is that you don't have any good sources to back of your POV, so instead of being able to add them to the article, all you can do is harp about all the good sources which back up the K/M report. That's not my fault, it's probably the CCP's fault, and probably also the fault of conscience. I would say that discussion and editing of the article should simply go according to the discussion above, where we have identified a series of problematic or contested points, numbered them, then are discussing them. As for which version the page is on while that is happening, I don't think it's as important. Edit-warring between the versions is no way to proceed, and I think both you and Dilip should stop that at once. Since the article was in a certain state beforehand, if I were the disputant, I'd leave it like that until discussion was worked out. Some people are more aggressive. The tag needs to be justified and the problems in the article actually specified so they can be fixed--it's not a protest slogan that you stick on when you find the reliable sources on the subject don't match up with your biases. --Asdfg12345 10:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)


Thanks, friend. The quotes you refer to are pertinent to the wider issue of organ harvesting in China and is mentioned for the sole reason of providing context. The Organ harvesting in China article and this article - do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. To resort to an example from physics, in an article on Einsteinian relativity it might become necessary to mention Galelian relativity - so that the article is comprehensive and more so because the for the reader it would provide a background with which he can better appreciate and understand the content that follows. We cannot keep every namespace mutually exclusive when we attempt to organize information - there will be inevitable overlap. Again I think the quote you refer to is the line from Congressional Executive report stating that 95% of organ transplant sources in China are executed prisoners. When it is documented that 66% of the labor camp population in China are practitioners of Falun Gong - is not the content of central relevance? Does it not provide background to the reader ? And further while it provides central background, it takes up hardly a single sentence worth of space. I think information like that is central and there is no need or reason for it to be moved to another namespace. It could definitely be added there too - but there is no reason for it to be removed. It certainly provides a lot of context and background to someone new to the topic.Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, sounds fair. It should be added to the other article then, and retained here. But I'm losing track of which paragraph we are referring to. Really, I think the simplest way will be to start from now. Let me make a post below with a suggestion.--Asdfg12345 15:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Highly oppose. The article on organ harvesting and this article should be separeted to avoid coattracking. While China's history on organ harvesting should be mentioned and linked somewhere at the lead, to use the sources which no way supports the FLG allegations are really misleading, "guilt by association" coattracks.--PCPP (talk) 12:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
I think I'm getting it. Such information establishes that there have been illicit, underground organ harvesting practices going on in China for years. While the main article on organ harvesting in China should flesh out this issue in detail, I think it would be appropriate to establish on this page that, according to reliable sources, these practices have been happening for years. I don't mind how that is done or which sources are used. It just needs to be clear. It's only sensible to provide this background, wouldn't you agree??--Asdfg12345 12:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for what to do now, November 2nd

Right now the article is kicking through revert cycles. Let's put a stop to this very simply. Whoever wants to make changes from the current version, simply number every change below and explain. Just like we did above. Respondents should follow the same presentation format. If PCPP reverts, then I'd encourage Dilip to make any changes incrementally and with numbers, below, and if I see it first, then I'll do the same. I'd also caution every editor to simply 1)explain every edit with a summary and comment, 2) at the bare minimum, not revert more than once per day. Overall though, this shouldn't be too neceessary. I think the discussion format I'm proposing is the simplest way of ensuring that there is every point of dispute is covered. The first person should provide diffs to the disputed passages. This seems like the most sensible way we can run things on these articles. We just need to slow it down and talk about each of the changes.

If discussion centres around what is most useful for a high-quality encyclopedia, if we make reference to policies and high-quality sources when we make our points, and fundamentally, if we are concerned with giving our readers an informative and useful presentation of the subject (this is the purpose of writing an encyclopedia of course, it is not for ourselves, so the reader must come first), this will be the best way to progress. Okay, the invitation is here, so there is simply no excuse for continued revert warring, mean or accusatory comments, or anything like that. Let's all kick the professionalism up a notch or two.--Asdfg12345 15:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Edit on Nov12th. This is to note that a short section on phone call admissions have been added. The section attempts to outline data from the KM report pertinent to phone call admissions. I understand the material presented here doesnot comprehensively cover all aspects of the Kilgour and Matas' findings related to this - but I believe it touches upon some central aspects(and ofcourse can later be expanded). The source used: Revised Edition of the Kilgour Matas Reports.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 18:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. We don't need large paragraphs on every little allegations made by Kilgour/Matas, and take their word as facts.--PCPP (talk) 15:05, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

there may be a case made to pare down any repetitious elements, or to provide more concision for the reader, but simply blanking a whole section of a reliable and key source is clearly tendentious. You need to find reliable sources which back up your arguments, not delete things.--Asdfg12345 15:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Dilip, what is the rationale for reinstating the paragraph beginning "Earlier reports on the issue include a 2001 report that appeared in The Washington Times..." -- the rest of the revert I understand. This one I thought was going to be reduced or moved to the organ harvesting in China page. I understand that it is background, and people shouldn't have to read two articles to understand this one--so background is important--but there was some argument for reducing it? Anyway, massive reverting like this is unproductive, PCPP. I suggest you number the changes and be willing to discuss them rather than keeping this up. It's not solving the problem, and only making the editing environment more antagonistic. --Asdfg12345 12:24, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

front page of the Weekly Standard, "China's Gruesome Organ Harvest"

In case anyone doesn't know, the Weekly Standard is a conservative-leaning political magazine based in Washington. It's highly regarded and widely read by politicians and decision makers. They recently ran a long article by Ethan Gutmann which looks at these claims of organ harvesting and presents a variety of detailed testimony from prisoners of conscience. I imagine President Obama will see a copy of it for himself: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/824qbcjr.asp.--Asdfg12345 09:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

by the way, in case it wasn't clear: the publishing of this article in a highly influential political magazine puts to rest the nonsense that these claims have no place in mainstream discourse (it is marginalised for a reason, as Gutmann points out, and while marginalised, it's still big), that this wikipedia article does not deserve to exist, or covered in depth, and it also adds a giant supporting weight to the scale of affirmative, over negative, representations of the case for organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, and of the K-M report, in mainstream publications. Plan to add material from it next week, unless someone beats me to it.--Asdfg12345 14:17, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
Highly regarded and widely read by politicians and decision makers? Prove it. The Weekly Standard is the same publication claiming that Saddam had WMDs and links with al-Qaeda. It's simply an opinion article by one person, and added nothing new the Christian Science Monitor or others didn't cover. The fact that the US Department of State and Harry Wu found nothing, and that Phoenix TV's claims has never been addressed shows that there's more than one side to the story. You're obviously here looking to push your anti-PRC propagandic agenda.--PCPP (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
On my comments about the Weekly Standard, please read this. Actually, "highly regarded" can't be substantiated, and some people probably hate the magazine. Let me take that remark back. The point is that we're not talking about the Weekly's brand of politics as a judge for their credibility here, we're talking about a mainstream, highly influential political magazine publishing a 5000 word article on this issue, front page. That's significant, and as I said, adds a lot to the credibility of this whole story as a major thing. For the record, I've stated before that I have no problem at all with China. I love China, many of my best friends are Chinese, I find the Chinese language beautiful, and Chinese culture and history simply fascinating. This isn't a discussion of my or your personal proclivities, however. The Gutmann article obviously and easily meets wikipedia's reliability requirements, and details from it will be added to this wikipedia page in short order.--Asdfg12345 15:31, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
By the way, judging by your remark, you haven't actually read the piece. It's not an opinion item at all, and while it covers same of the typical ground by way of background, the bulk of the content is completely new. The focus are a series of witness testimonies about extensive medical tests in China. There are other details as well. It adds another dimension to the available sources.--Asdfg12345 15:35, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
"Reader for reader, it may be the most influential publication in America," said Eric Alterman, a columnist for The Nation... The circulation may be small, but "they are not interested in speaking to the great unwashed," Mr. Alterman said. "The magazine speaks directly to and for power. Anybody who wants to know what this administration is thinking and what they plan to do has to read this magazine."[10]
-White House Listens When Weekly Speaks, The New York Times
Dilip rajeev (talk) 15:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

yeah, pcpp got shut down there. Plan to add two more sections of no more than a couple of hundred words: one about the witness statements, based on the article by Gutmann, and another based on both he and John Kusumi's explanations of why there is not much media coverage of this. This final one is particularly important and saliently missing--a couple of hundred words on it will be highly useful for readers. I have just added another sentence to the lede which hints at this, and then make a small section later.--Asdfg12345 17:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but its true somewhat. We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We have created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It is a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. Its a great little racket. Im glad we found it actually.

In the first issue the magazine published after 9/11, Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly, two employees of Kristol’s PNAC, clarified what ought to be the country’s war aims. Their rhetoric — which laid down a line from which the magazine would not waver over the next 18 months — was to link Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in virtually every paragraph, to join them at the hip in the minds of readers, and then to lay out a strategy that actually gave attacking Saddam priority over eliminating al-Qaeda. The first piece was illustrated with a caricature of Saddam, not bin Laden, and the proposed operational plan against bin Laden was astonishingly soft.

Straight from the horse's mouth, silly propagandist.--PCPP (talk) 03:51, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

doesn't particularly matter. The point is that it's a mainstream, well-recognised media outlet. For wikipedia purposes it's a reliable source. I never said I agree with their brand of politics. Doesn't mean anything for us here.--Asdfg12345 13:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality

I'm going to tag this article for neutrality. It is obviously biased in favor of Falun Gong. The sources aren't very reliable either. Much of the info is from a Falun Gong run newspaper!--Edward130603 (talk) 00:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

After some quick regular expression "magic" here is the list of sources used, duplicates not included:
http://archive.edoors.com/render.php?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fen.zoukiishoku.com%2Flist%2Fcost.htm+&x=16&y=11
http://cipfg.org/en/index.php?news=422
http://cipfg.org/en/index.php?news=623
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa30146.000/hfa30146_0f.htm
http://en.epochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-3-10/39111.html
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-3-17/39405.html
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-3-31/39910.html
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/6-9-29/46489.html
http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/28-03-2006/77946-0
http://freechina.org.au/?p=134
http://media.faluninfo.net/media/doc/2008/12/IsraelNews_Translation.pdf
http://media.faluninfo.net/media/doc/2008/12/NKF_Statement_20060815.pdf
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/Dr.Lu-Voice-Recording/index.htm
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/events/Fact_sheet_Amnesty.pdf
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/events/YALE0407.pdf
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/release/pr-2008-08-22.htm
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131.htm#_Toc158023111
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131.htm#_Toc158023111],
http://phtv.ifeng.com/program/shnjd/200706/0628_1612_144064.shtml
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=69292
http://web.archive.org/web/20050317130117/www.transorgan.com/about_g_intro.asp
http://web.archive.org/web/20061207121056/en.zoukiishoku.com/list/volunteer.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20061207193016/en.zoukiishoku.com/list/cost.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20070124013341/
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1715849.htm
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/April/20060416141157uhyggep0.5443231.html
http://www.amnesty.org.nz/web/pages/home.nsf/dd5cab6801f1723585256474005327c8/83fba691f912206bcc2571d3001824ed!OpenDocument
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/07/06/team_says_china_harvests_falun_gong_organs/
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/theeditorialpage/story.html?id=c990936c-e208-4601-888f-810ff73bd994
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=2c15d2f0-f0ab-4da9-991a-23e4094de949
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=7cd6b2fa-2f14-4b5d-a2cf-b4e452545c0c&k=75530
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=8cbc8d14-fd67-4967-b320-872b00cb9e77
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=290fed94-d0c2-4265-8686-54ce75d08eca&k=34245
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=432dfdf7-9767-46b9-a210-65ff388d823f&k=17423
http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/bc.cgi?bc/bccn/0606/07chinese
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/07/06/china-falungong.html
http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200802/43361.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0803/p08s02-comv.html
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060706/organ_report060706/20060706?hub=Canada
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x33az_bodies-traffic_news
http://www.david-kilgour.com/2006/Kilgour-Matas-organ-harvesting-rpt-July6-eng.pdf
http://www.david-kilgour.com/2007/Dec_03_2007_01a.htm
http://www.david-kilgour.com/2007/Dec_06_2007_01a.htmBeyond
http://www.david-kilgour.com/2008/Mar_12_2008_02.htm
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/18720
http://www.faluninfo.net/article/546/
http://www.fofg-europe.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=110&Itemid=37
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1180867542307&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/newsitem.cfm?id=336
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0607/msg00154.html
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20876865-1702,00.html?from=public_rss
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1964180,00.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/CNN-Facing-Disgrace-Buste-by-John-Kusumi-080824-502.html
http://www.organharvestinvestigation.net/events/Fletcher_121307.pdf
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~falun/document/all092906.pdf
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/falun-gong-organ-claim-supported/2006/07/07/1152240489760.html
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-7/44706.html
http://www.transplant.bc.ca/stats_faqs_main.htm
http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RL33437.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49239-2001Jun26?language=printer
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/mar/23/20060323-114842-5680r/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/160ymogj.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/824qbcjr.asp
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=97&ArticleID=1560709
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060806_1.htm
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/CAT.C.CHN.CO.4.pdf
So I'm not quite sure what do you mean. There are lots of respectable third party sources. But if your intention is to call for a third opinion, well that I think is always a good idea. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 01:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the tag. I'm not much involved in this topic, which I am just starting to read upon and learn about, but if someone is going to add a tag without making a valid point, then there is no constructive purpose to that tag. Do U(knome)? yes...or no 08:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Since all of the external links so far are for Falun Gong, I will put a respectable link that is against Falun Gong.--Edward130603 (talk) 12:26, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair idea. (I wouldn't call the Chinese Embassy a "respectable" source for this topic, but yeah, it's better than nothing).--Asdfg12345 02:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

RFC on FLG organ harvesting allegations

I feel that that article currently remain a giant advertisement to Kilgour-Matas, proving their claims with undue weight. Note that:

  • Kilgour-Matas never actually visited the sites, rely their "evidence" based on alleged phonecalls and eyewitnesses, and "suspicious" Chinese websites
  • Kilgour-Matas never provided any conclusive evidence regarding the existance of the so called concentration camps. They pieced together their conclusions from circumstantial evidence.
  • Kilgour-Matas are linked to Falun Gong activists, and are sponsored by the CIPFG.[11]

So why, is it then, the article provide several sections and quotes on their report while ignoring the investigations by the US Dept of State, which concluded that there's insufficient evidence, and Harry Wu, who came to the same conclusion?

Along with this, the article contains numerous WP:COATRACK which are not related to the article eg:

  • On Apr 19, 2006, Sky News went undercover with cameras inside Chinese hospitals where nurses and doctors confirmed readily-available organs are taken from prisoners, and that the hospital's abundance of donors is due to its close connections with Chinese security forces.
  • Amnesty International, responding to Chinese government's statements on the issue, pointed out that it considers them to be "at odds with the facts in view of the widely documented practice of the buying and selling of organs of death penalty prisoners in China.
  • Wang Guoqi, a "burn specialist", said in his written statement that he had also seen other doctors remove vital organs from executed prisoners and that his hospital, the "Tianjin Paramilitary Police General Brigade Hospital", sold those organs for enormous profits."

Which relates to the separate issue of organ harvesting from executed prisoners, a practice the PRC has admitted to. To place them here is an attempt to mislead the reader into thinking that the FLG organ harvesting allegations are factual

  • "The source of some 41,500 organ transplants in China in the years 2000 through 2005 remains unexplained."

Which comes from the Christian Science Monitor, which simply quoted from Matas-Kilgour. The article simply covered Kilgour-Matas, and did not gave anything to support or rebutt these two.

The section "The Kilgour-Matas Report" Reports_of_organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China#The_Kilgour-Matas_Report contains a giant text dump of a alleged phone call made by Matas in its entirity, which provides them with undue weight, as the phonecall cannot be verified and is not central to their investigation. Several of the pictures in this section also comes from Kilgour-Matas's report, with dubious copyright.

The article also suffers from other problems, as most of the quoting come Kilgour-Matas themselves. Does every issue needs a comment from these two when the article pretty much covered their views? And does the criticism section need a response from these two which are bigger that the criticism themselves?

As such I oppose the current state of this article. It is misleading, it provides a heavy undue weight towards Kilgour-Matas, while their critics are hardly given any scrutiny.--PCPP (talk) 07:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the DoS and Harry Wu comments were both in the article--you fail to mention that they were only about Sujiatun, and NOT about Kilgour and Matas, but anyway, they should be mentioned, and yes, they are. I have seen this deliberate obfuscation many times. The Sujiatun claims are distinct from the Kilgour/Matas report. This is something that CCP propaganda fails to clarify. for everything else: if you have reliable sources refuting the report etc., feel free to add them to the article, no one will stop you. On the Kilgour/Matas issue, I'll quickly state what I said before: they are the primary reason this whole issue is an issue at all, and their report has spawned--except for Sujiatun--hundreds of newspaper articles, several journal articles, and responses from the CRS, Amnesty, the UN, academics, and more. There are numerous high quality sources that have been generated from their report, all related to or commenting on their report in one way or another. Matas was recently awarded the Order of Canada, and is also a recipient of the Tarnopolsky award--Kilgour is an ex-secretary of State. They are high-profile figures. What it comes down to is finding more reliable sources which refute the report. If they don't exist, that doesn't mean the article is faulty. Wikipedia represents views in accordance to due weight, about how the topic has been covered in reliable sources. The article does that fine. --Asdfg12345 02:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • "The Sujiatun claims are distinct from the Kilgour/Matas report. This is something that CCP propaganda fails to clarify."

The Sujiatun case is widely reported by the media, including Wu, US Dept of State, Chinese media etc. The claim that China operates several "concentration camps" is only implied by Kilgour/Matas, which they have yet to prove.

  • "I'll quickly state what I said before: they are the primary reason this whole issue is an issue at all, and their report has spawned--except for Sujiatun--hundreds of newspaper articles, several journal articles, and responses from the CRS, Amnesty, the UN, academics, and more."

Wrong, the Sujiatun case has already received wide coverage before Kilgour/Matas wrote their report. The sources you mentioned either simply referred to the KM Report itself, or "expressed interest" over their claims. None actually confirmed their report as factual.

  • "Matas was recently awarded the Order of Canada, and is also a recipient of the Tarnopolsky award--Kilgour is an ex-secretary of State. They are high-profile figures. "

Personal accredances are irrelevant when discussing their claims. Being a lawyer and politician doesn't automatically grant them free pass from scrutiny.

  • "What it comes down to is finding more reliable sources which refute the report. If they don't exist, that doesn't mean the article is faulty. Wikipedia represents views in accordance to due weight, about how the topic has been covered in reliable sources. The article does that fine."

Their claims are just that, unproven claims. Half of the article and sources comes straight from their website, making this article an outlet in advertising their. This isn't an article on their report.--PCPP (talk) 13:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Doubt

Why is there information not related to doubt placed under the section. It should be under International Response but not under Doubt.--Edward130603 (talk) 00:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest removing the "doubt" section and just calling it all "international response", since some of the "response" is in response to the doubts. It would not make sense to place the refutation of the doubts before the doubts in the article, right?
Another thing is, this quote: The U.S. State Department has issued a statement that it had found "no evidence" to support the Falun Gong's claims of torture and live donor organ harvesting.[1] -- I think is a little problematic because it's an indirect quote. We need to find the original source of the US State Department. I'm not sure where it is, but it should be used, and not a secondary source on it. It's only if the original source is unavailable for some reason that we should go on what other sources say--in all other cases it's far better to find the original. Are you able to take this up?--Asdfg12345 04:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Asdfg, I have removed that quote after seeing that it has already been included from a orginal source a few paragraphs before.--Edward130603 (talk) 11:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
okay, np.--Asdfg12345 11:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
While I'm impressed with the abstrusity of the tag you've found, could you please justify it here on the talk page. Issues are 1) specifically, what does it mean? Provide example pls. 2) if there's a problem, how can it be fixed? Tags are only really for the purpose of telling reader that there is a problem that is (hopefully) being worked on, they aren't permanent fixtures. As editors, the key is, how can we improve the article?--Asdfg12345 07:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
It refers to Epoch Times, a Falun Gong run paper. Since the opposing parties are the Falun Gong and the Communist Party of China and Epoch Times is a Falun Gong newspaper, then maybe we should add more sources and information from China's POV. How about this.
Official says Falun Gong's claim 'absurd'
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the Falun Gong group had made an "absurd lie" by claiming its followers were being killed at a prison in Northeast China.
"This lie is not worth refuting and no one will buy it," the spokesman said on Tuesday.
Some Falun Gong groups in the United States reportedly alleged there was a Sujiatun "concentration camp" near Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province, where they said some 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners were being imprisoned.
They claimed two-thirds had been killed and cremated.
"The lie began to circulate on March 8, but we disregarded it because it was far too absurd," he said.
The spokesman touched on the topic when asked about it by the media on Tuesday.
The Falun Gong group later changed its earlier statement and claimed the camp was set up in a small hospital.
"How can 6,000 people be accommodated at a small hospital?!" Qin said.
Qin invited reporters to visit the area to see for themselves that there was no such camp operating.
The spokesman said the Falun Gong cult enjoyed spreading false accusations in the public arena.
For example, Falun Gong started a rumour that about 9 million members of the Communist Party of China had quit their membership, and membership numbers were steadily falling.
"Were that the case, the Party would have already fallen," Qin said.
Source: China Daily
Also from China Daily: When asked to make comments on this issue, Qin said Sujiatun is just a district of Shenyang city, and the so-called concentration camp does not exist at all. Falun Gong followers themselves also realized the absurdity of such a lie, and changed their wording that the concentration camp was established in a small hospital.
Falun Gong spreads lies about China. I think we should add some more information from anti-Falun Gong sources. According to Happy above, there are none from People's Daily and Xinhua. --Edward130603 (talk) 13:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

There are a couple of issues here. One was the tag. Since you didn't justify why the tag should be in the article, I have removed it. The article refers to The Epoch Times because that was the first media outlet to bring this to world attention. Apart from saying what The Epoch Times said on the matter, there is not a reliance on The Epoch Times for establishing anything in this case. There's certainly no cherrypicking of quotes here. The article gives a comprehensive account of nearly all the reliable, published sources on this issue. If that's not the case, please help to bring some more reliable sources to bear, and we can deliberate on them and add them.

It is agreed that the main viewpoints should be represented. The viewpoints of the Chinese Communist Party--such as the ones you provide above--appear in the article. They are at the end, and they're also responded to by Kilgour and Matas. Notably, the quotes you provide above are about Sujiatun, and not the Kilgour-Matas report. The Sujiatun section has a subsection called "Doubt," where the views of the CCP are also represented, see this paragraph:

A Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman rejected the claims as a “lie... not worth refuting.” The Chinese government maintains that the hospital is incapable of housing more than 6,000 persons, there is no basement for incarcerating practitioners as alleged, and that there was simply no way to cremate corpses in secret, continuously, and in large volumes. -- this is reffed to Pravda (the Russian version of Xinhua), but if you want to reference it to the CCP directly, like Xinhua or whatever, that's fine too. They say the exact same thing anyway, so either is fine by me.--Asdfg12345 01:33, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Pravda closed in 1991. The current Pravda has little to do with the USSR era Pravda.--PCPP (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Verifiability

How on Earth does this not have a verifiability tag on it ? The first line reads: "...The Epoch Times published.." This is a newspaper funded by the Falun Gong Cult.

Now that the Scientology cult has been restricted from Wikipedia POV articles and edits maybe its time to pay attention to this cult.

121.44.156.52 (talk) 11:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC)Aussie (and no I'm not from the Chinese government)

Some mainstream newspapers have reported on this - but not in depth and yes, due to the Communist Party's campaign to "erradicate Falun Gong" many, many people DO have prejudges or even blind hate against Falun Gong. But that in itself only prooves that the allegations could be true - not that they can not be true. Because if at the time of the persecution there wouldn't be many people believing the Communist Parties claims about Falun Gong being a cult etc. and therefore doubting the allegations - than the allegations could not be true. Only if there are many people doubting them because of their prejudges could the allegations be true. Because otherwise the persecution could not even get off the ground. Without prejudges, a persecution like this could not be possible. So precisly because people have prejudges about Falun Gong, could a persecution like this be possible. So saying that many people have prejudges about Falun Gong and have therefore not reported on the persecution - only prooves that under such curcumstances a persecution like that could be possible and not that it could not be possible. --Hoerth (talk) 20:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The first line says the first publication that brought the claims to light--it is newspaper run by Falun Gong practitioners, not surprisingly--what's wrong with that? Wouldn't it make sense to mention the first publication, whatever it was? Apart from that, your view that Falun Gong is a cult is Chinese Communist Party propaganda, it's part of a systematic persecution according to reliable sources, and it isn't backed up by reliable sources. Think whatever unsubstantiated nonsense you want, but it's not relevant to this discussion anyway. You need to say how the article is not verifiable before putting that tag on, and more than that, actually identify how we can rectify the article if there's anything wrong with it. The tag's aren't to make a point, but to notify people that the article is being improved. When you've finished reading it, you may have some ideas.--Asdfg12345 12:34, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Asdfg12345, The article is unfortuneatly over reliant on (well actually it's nearly 100%) Falung Gong literature.
This is hardly a reliable third party source.
There's a wikipedia mechanism for articles like this where the editor(s) may have a conflict of interest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest
Excuse me if I make the assumption that you may be a Falung Gong "practitioner" ?
I think you'll find it's not recognised as a "religion" by any country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.156.52 ([[User ::talk:121.44.156.52|talk]]) 12:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit conflict] eh, I'm not going to revert again, I'll only revert once per day, but you're violating wikipedia policy by simply slapping a tag there and leaving it at that. Read WP:DT: "Many editors consider use of any banner template in an article a serious measure of last resort, and would prefer other measures be exhausted before such detractions from the project be used. If one must be used, please make a thorough note listing deficiencies or items being disputed in bulleted or numbered paragraph format under a clear notice section heading." (There was a more official notice somewhere about how the templates should be 1) not a perfunctory first stop, but when discussion has broken down (discussion here hasn't even started), 2) only put when there are actual problems that have been identified -- but I can't find this other text right now. This one says the same, please read it carefully.) Going the ad-hominem rather than addressing the concerns raised is a cop-out, very un-Australian. While you may not like the article for whatever reason, the verifiabilty tag is probably the most inappropriate you could have chosen, since nearly every line in the article is sourced, i.e., verifiable. I would like to know what is wrong with the article, and if anything, fix it, not get into tag wars and personal attacks.

Updated response: Your argument is that the article is nearly 100% reliant on Falun Gong literature? Please see the sources. There are a small amount of Epoch Times sources, and the rest are all from third party, independent sources. Just look at them, see if you can substantiate that claim. The Epoch Times sources just say what that newspaper said, since they were at the centre of the allegations in the beginning. CCP sources have also been used. Have you read the entire article, or much on this issue generally? My circumstances are entirely irrelevant, and it's obvious you are just attempting to sidestep rational debate by claiming I have a conflict of interest. Let's deal with the issues at hand. Outstanding issues: 1) justifying the verifiability tag, 2) explaining how the article is reliant on Falun Gong literature. Thanks for your time, and I look forward to a collegial and rational response.--Asdfg12345 12:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, my apology for the comparison to Scientolgists. You seem much more reasonable than a scientologist ;-)
But articles like these do no good for the Falun Gong at all. It's a fact that the Chinese Government does suppress the human rights of your group. There are reliable third party sources (western media) to back this up, "Epoch Times" etc is about as neutral as using a Chinese government source.
However, "Organ harvesting" and other atrocity stories are pure propaganda only ever reported in Falun Gong literature. Portraying the opponent (PRC Police) as behaving like Japanese soldiers during the Nanking massacre makes neutral westerners start to question if everything claimed by the Falun Gong is real at all. 121.44.156.52 (talk) 13:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)Aussie

Thanks for responding, I should be in bed now, but you haven't addressed any of the issues set out above. It doesn't matter what your or my opinion of this subject it, it is up to reliable sources to determine. The Epoch Times is referred to a couple of times, the rest is pretty much all top sources. The Epoch Times is used to say what they said, and that's it. I hope you don't let your prejudice on this particular subject cloud clear judgement. I mean, you don't even have to agree with the sources, it's just a fact that they are there (I'm talking like, United Nations Committee Against Torture, Manfred Nowak, Tom Treasure, Kilgour and Matas, Edward McMillan Scott, and others I can't think of right now). Please address the concerns I've raised with the tag, above. It's not me who has to prove anything, but since you want to put a verifiability tag on an article with a huge number of reliable sources, where nearly every sentence is verifiable, you really need to justify that. So far you've just expressed your opinions, without reference to any sources, basically just dismissing it out of hand. I actually want to improve the article, by the way. Rather than simply dismissing the claims, maybe you could suggest some concrete ways of improving the article. Have you read the report by Kilgour and Matas, which has been taken quite seriously in some quarters? Have you looked at the UNCAD document expressing deep concern about the claims, and calling for perpetrators to be punished? Have you read, even, this whole article, and carefully looked at where the references lead to? It will take a while to do all that, some hours I imagine, but it would be a good basis for beginning meaningful discussion. 2 cents. --Asdfg12345 13:47, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I have restored the verifiability tag. A tag does not necessarily mean the article has a problem, only that an editor feels there may be one. I don't want to get involved in this issue. just a little insignificant 20:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Consider that the genocide is ongoing. I'm sure that there is no way that everybody (even the criminals) will accept that the article has no problem, no matter how well it is documented. This is why I think that a verifiability tag slapped on by an anonymous IP is not something relevant in this case. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you can consider this a genocide.--Edward130603 (talk) 21:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
It fits the definition, however I agree that this never happened until now on such a large scale, backed up by a government. But other then that how else would you call it? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 12:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.

Genocide article

I assert that it has never happened at all. However it does give me some comfort to see an FLG member admit that his faith is a religion and not just a Qigong practice.Simonm223 (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

POV? suggestion to solve part of it

The article dedicates a lot of space for Kilgour and Matas to reply to negative reports. It looks like written from the POV that the harvesting is happening and that Kilgour and Matas made no mistakes.

Unfortunately, for now, I don't see how to reduce those replies without losing content that should be kept. At most, one or two of the repplies could be summarized a bit more.

The first part of the article is a plain exposition of Kilgour and Matas allegation with no context. It's all from Kilgour and Matas' POV. I do have suggestions to improve this:

  1. In the "Admissions on phone" section it should have a short paragraph citing the congressional report doubting the credibility of the recordings.
  2. In "Chinese organ transplant websites" section it should have another paragraph saying that the PhD Thesis from Yale University and Tom Treasure's article support that the increase in organ transplants is worrying, and that this caused two UN Special Rapporteurs to question the Chinese government.

Just make short mentions, since the argument is later expanded in the "Reception of the Kilgour-Matas report" part. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:11, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

A big problem with the increase in organ transplants as any corroboration that China does this to FLG is that it does not in any way indicate whose organs are being used. It is well known (and not disputed) that people who are executed through due process for crimes subject to the death penalty in China (murder, rape, kidnapping, treason and certain extreme financial crimes) have their organs harvested. What is disputed is that FLG worshippers are being systemically targeted or that, in fact, they are even being imprisoned based on their faith at all (as opposed to being jailed for political activism). The thing about China, and it is the thing that really bothers me about FLG accusations, is that China does lots of bad stuff that it could be valid criticized for. I am avidly opposed to the death penalty anywhere for any reason. However most of the accusations of the FLG are not among them. Instead the FLG has created the impression that they are a persecuted group of exercise enthusiasts being bullied by the authoritarian state in order to gain positive coverage for what would otherwise be perceived in the west as, at best, a variant on Raelianism.Simonm223 (talk) 16:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
All these claims of yours which is the straight opposite of what Reliable Sources tell us, have no relevance to wikipedia. You are ignoring the dozens of sources in making these claims. And your attempts to bracket what human rights organizations, scholars and sinologists all clearly state is a peaceful, traditional qi gong practice with stuff like "raelianism", only makes all the more apparent how extremely biased your viewpoint is. An encyclopaedia functions on Reliable Sources. Not on ridiculous claims someone may attempt to pass off for facts. And kindly stop abusing the NPOV tag.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 02:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
Apart from the validity of the claims themselves, what do you think of adding those paragraphs to solve those POV problems? I mean in a technical way, as simply a stylistic matter of balance when explaining theories. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:45, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
What you make above are certainly helpful suggestions. There is, in fact, more evidence available on this now, including from Ethan Gutmann. I'll add the material to the article soon.
Dilip rajeev (talk)
What would satisfy me is if undue weight was no longer given to the Matas / Kilgour study and if only information that actually corroborates that organs are being harvested specifically from FLG members because of their religious position was listed as corroborating the study.
Of course that will probably be enough to strip this down to a stub that could be merged into the persecution of Falun Gong article since there is really no proof of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simonm223 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, at least the article takes every pain to leave clear that they are allegations.... I can't help with what you are asking, I just want to make some balance changes. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:07, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
While I agree that there is heavy focus on the Kilgour/Matas report, this also seems to be the only real report on the allegations and has in turn been reference in other contexts, but it does not have any parallells. Which... I suppose... makes it a fringe view. But if we don't mention it, we don't have an article at all. Tricky. I don't know how to solve this. Ideas?
On a related note, what are Matas and Kilgour's ties to Falun Gong? PerEdman (talk) 10:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
A "fringe view" by which definition? Honestly, I can't understand the logic behind your comment at all. And what do you mean, "Matas and Kilgour's ties to Falun Gong"? Kilgour is Christian, Matas is Jewish, as far as I know. Neither of them practice Falun Gong, nor have they ever practiced it. ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 10:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
By the definition that the allegation suggests a conspiracy by the Communist Party of China to abduct and forcibly remove the organs of living Falun Gong members, a theory supported by one single report by two people who hardly represent the mainstream view in their field of study, of course. But, as I state below, the view has gained sufficient notability to be presented in a Wikipage of its own. (See WP:FRINGE, section "Identifying fringe theories").
I thank you for clarifying Kilgour and Matas dissociation with Falun Gong. I am just a little confused as to your choice of motivations: As I understand it, past or birth religion does not prevent anyone from participating in the cultivation practice, so why bring up the writers' christianity and judaism? PerEdman (talk) 11:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I did not say that past or birth religion would prevent someone from participating in cultivation practice. I said that Kilgour is Christian, Matas is Jewish, and neither of them are Falun Gong practitioners. Are you quibbling on purpose? ✔ Olaf Stephanos ✍ 11:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not arguing at all, I am asking you to explain in what way you though their religious affiliations were relevant to my question of their association with the spiritual practice of Falun Gong. You might as well have mentionend their nationalities for all the relevance that has, right? No need to be upset. PerEdman (talk) 12:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality Tags Going Back IN

And they will stay in until a third party comments. If an FLG member removes the tags (as they often do) I will put them back in with an RfC (as I have done previously). Please don't let it come to that. Just admit that non-FLG members dispute the neutrality and let the community make up its own mind.Simonm223 (talk) 16:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Why does this guy believe himself to be the ultimate arbiter of neutrality? Stop removing valid tags.Simonm223 (talk) 13:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Every single line in this article is well-sourced . If there are specific actionables, you may point them out and they can be immediately fixed. NPOV tags are not banners you put up when well-sourced material conflicts with your personal bias. And such editing is as "conducive" to improving articles as your edit proposing the entire page "Persecution of Falun Gong" for deletion :[12]. And I believe serious concerns with such an approach was even then( and has since been repeatedly ) pointed out to you.[13]
Dilip rajeev (talk) 14:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
The neutrality issues under discussion are referenced in the conversation thread immediately above this one they include specific, actionable requests. Do not remove the tags while that neutrality dispute is ongoing.Simonm223 (talk) 14:24, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
And yet again, as always, you have no actionables. See Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt#SCO_vs._IBM --HappyInGeneral (talk) 07:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Specific actionables are listed under the heading above this one. Please do not remove neutrality tags until these issues have been resolved to consensus. Dilip, you may already have expended your three reverts. Again. PerEdman (talk) 10:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a Wikipedia Article

how can this be a wikipedia article? It is based on a a third or fourth party report. This is the kind of article that turns rumor in to facts in people's minds. A story about something that someone said to someone else is not a sound basis for an encylopedia article. If this is an article, then every UFO siting deserves an article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elmmapleoakpine (talk • contribs) 23:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:NOTABILITY --HappyInGeneral (talk) 07:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Agree with HappyInGeneral. Despite the status of allegation, and the few sources for the claim, the allegation has gained sufficient notability that it deserves a wikipedia article on its own. Compare to the Loch Ness monster or Area 51 UFO allegations. I'm not saying they are just as BELIEVABLE (because they are not) but they are as NOTABLE. PerEdman (talk) 10:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Agree with H.I.G. and PerE. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 14:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Certainly warrants inclusion as a separate article. But suffering WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, and WP:V issues. Colipon+(Talk) 02:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
To be fair, the Kilgour & Matas report doesn't seem to be quite as independent as a 3rd or 4th party report, as it appears to have been requested by a Falun Gong official organ. From that perspective, it is a second hand source for the allegation. PerEdman (talk) 06:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

picture

I am skeptical about the picture. a) I checked the source - it's non-free from organharvesting.net and definitely a partisan source. b) Showing the victim isn't the problem to me (but only *1* such photo please!)-- the juxtaposition of "before and after" makes it a bad soap-opera. If we could crop it to get rid of that guy in the suit, and simply show an unknown body, that might be ok. Personalizing this reeks of either propaganda or looks like one of those magazines where I get my Brangelina-update. Seb az86556 (talk) 05:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

  • Yes. Only K&M (aka Organharvesting.net) got it from FG. I'm not inclined to tinker with this article by just removing the image when the best solution is to delete the whole article and start again. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Wait, what are you saying? Kilgour and Matas used materials given to them by Falun Gong? I was given the impression that Kilgour and Matas were a third party? PerEdman (talk) 12:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Answering my own question, from the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong article: "is an international lobby group established in the United States of America on April 5, 2006 by the Falun Dafa Association." So a Falun Dafa lobby group requested the investigation by David Kilgour and David Matas. I find it curious that so few sources exist and that so many of the quoted and referenced sources in this article, are actually third hand by referencing the Kilgour/Matas material, while being used in this article as if these sources too were second-hand or at least independent third-hand material. This borders on misdirection. PerEdman (talk) 12:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Kilgour and Matas are Kilgour and Matas; I don't see how the request from a Falun Gong group matters? Of course a Falun Gong group would ask them to investigate this. I don't imagine you and Martin would be on the phone, asking them to spend their time on this... that the Falun Gong group requested the investigation can be mentioned in the article, and where K/M indicate they used Falun Gong materials in their investigation (just as when they used CCP materials) can also be mentioned.--Asdfg12345 14:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

As per the discussion above I will now take this sensationalistic picture off of this page. If there are any objections, please discuss without resorting to disruptive reverts. Colipon+(Talk) 19:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I've never questioned that Kilgour and Matas are themselves. But if their work is based on a request by a Falun Gong organization, there could be a WP:COI behind the report. I hope you don't mind if I use your excellent template from another part of Wikipedia:
"Was it published in an academic publication? Are they experts on Falun Gong and/or organ harvesting? Are the forums in which they published their work academic? Is the work based on fieldwork or extensive research, or is it a summary of their own thoughts about the subject? Were it published in a reliable source, has the work be superseded by later research? Is this something that two guys got together in their spare time and wrote, on their own? The corollary question is, has it gone through a peer-review process?"
These are all excellent checkpoints. Could you go through them with me? PerEdman (talk) 21:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Wait, what's this about "me and Martin"? When serious allegations are made, organizations such as Amnesty are usually first on the scene, demanding an investigation while the EU or UN or even government organization fund the investigation and send people to probe. It's rather unusual for an cover organization for a specific spiritual movement to request such an investigation from two more or less independent researchers, as a first step. Wouldn't you agree to that? PerEdman (talk) 21:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
In my opinion, Kilgour and Matas's report is filled with so many flaws I am surprised it ever got published. There is a definite Conflict of Interest issue here. If K-M were commissioned on request, it says volumes about the report's aims. A report whose aims are clearly to paint an incriminating picture of the Chinese gov't by selecting a bunch of circumstantial evidence, pieced together into a document, is not "third-party", definitely not neutral, and may possibly even fall short on WP:RS. Colipon+(Talk) 21:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure you can call pro-bono work "a commission", but I'd have to look that up to be sure. It's the fact that they were asked by the movement to investigate the movement's allegations against Chinese organ transplants that makes it... seem like a conflict of interests, to me.
As to WP:RS, please see the above "checkpoints" originally formulated by Asdfg12345. PerEdman (talk) 22:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I do not want to speculate for Kilgour and Matas' reasons for doing this. In any case FLG borrows the bulk of their legitimacy from these two and their weight in these articles seriously violate WP:UNDUE. There is no debate there. Colipon+(Talk) 22:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The string started with two arguments, one of which seems to have gotten lost here: the impact on the viewer. It doesn't so much matter where the two photographs came from. Their juxtaposition is clearly intended for partisan purposes. That's why I suggested cropping or non-inclusion. Seb az86556 (talk) 22:50, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Why The Chinese state sanctioned video piece fails WP:RS

Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as extremist should be used only as sources about themselves and in articles about themselves or their activities, or where they are necessary to explain other groups or events; any information used must be directly relevant to the subject. The material taken from such sources should not be contentious, and it should not involve claims made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources. Articles should not be based primarily on such sources. - WP:RS

  • Firstly, the video is something, the entire content of which, has Chinese state sanction.
  • The environment in which the video was aired being a strictly controlled one where only the communist party's line on the topic could have been aired constitutes a central reason why the video entirely fails WP:RS
  • The authority involved in propagating the video and in whose sanction and control the material was broadcast is widely documented as engaging in a large-scale media propaganda campaign against the subjects of the video.
  • As another editor also noted - the sole reason for notability of the video arises from its notoriety which was established by David Kilgour and David Matas
  • David Kilgour and David Matas establish based on voice analysis that the interview with Lu Gopin is orchestrated and the person in question is lying so by logical extension this pertains to other "interviews" in the video. You may also have noted that the sole reason Kilgour and Matas refer to the video in their website is to bring attention to its notoriety.
  • To be noted, again, that the most prominent analysts in the subject matter bring attention to the video solely for the purpose of demonstrating its notoriety and also to present publicly verifiable evidence showing that a main interview in it is an entirely orchestrated piece.
  • Further, the video attacks widely acknowledged authorities on the topic such as Kilgour and Matas. Note that WP:RS states, any material from such a source "should be used only as sources about themselves and in articles about themselves or their activities" and also that any such material used "should not be contentious" and "should not involve claims made about third parties." All these policies are violated in the manner in which the content has been recently added to the article.

In view of the WP:RS policy I point out and quote above, I am removing the para in which the material from source has been used in a manner violating the outlined WP policy.

Dilip rajeev (talk) 18:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Go away. Go dispute it on WP:RS/N if you want. Right now we have confirmation from WP:RS/N in addition to 2 person majority consensus, so you are being disruptive in repeatedly trying to remove this. --antilivedT | C | G 07:28, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
FYI, I've put up a note about this incident on WP:AN. Please stop removing it against consensus and the verdict by WP:RD/N. --antilivedT | C | G 07:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with Dilip removing the source, but I more strongly disagree with the "go away" comment. Can everyone, when they get a minute, please read WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. It is quite important to keep these two pages in mind when we write to each other exchanging our ideas about the best way to do the article. --Asdfg12345 10:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Well what else could I say? He's already ignored my suggestion a section above, and from previous experience it's generally not a good idea to use subtleties with him :p. --antilivedT | C | G 08:11, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Another personal attack. But this time, very well disguised, I must say.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 09:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The video doesn't fail WP:RS. The government of China is the most reliable source concerning claims it makes about its own policies and operations. The government of China is the most reliable source for examples of its own propaganda. As long as this video is used in that context, I fail to see the objection here. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:20, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

So you say that is should be presented as a clear piece of propaganda? --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
No, it should be presented as the Chinese government's position, no more, no less. Let the reader decide if it's propaganda, that's not Wikipedia's place to say, unless we have another reliable source saying it's propaganda. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
That the Chinese government is engaged in propaganda against Falun Gong - aimed at covering up its violation of human rights is well documented: by Amnesty, Kilgour Matas, HRW, David Ownby, Danny Schechter, US Department of State, RSF etc. The reader must be provided with appropriate context of the associated propaganda lest he be mislead into thinking the material is legitimate. Misuse of such propagandistic material is what I disagree with - for instance, the August 22 update from Kilgour Matas, which is corroborative in nature, was added to the "Doubts" section - under pretext of this propagandistic piece being a neutral source. Problems with the commentary has been more or the less fixed - but the two paragraphs still remain in the wrong section.
Dilip rajeev (talk) 06:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
And may I add: reliable source saying this particular video is propaganda. A blanket statement calling Xinhua involved in propaganda is as relevant as Reuters distributing fake photos on [insert major media outlet here]'s page. --antilivedT | C | G 05:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
Give readers some credit for having a bit of intelligence. If you state that X is China's official position on a controversial subject, then I think most readers would suspect that X amounts to spin control or propaganda. Wikipedia guidelines don't allow us to to flat-out characterize X as propaganda, and we are also not allowed to synthesize that conclusion for readers. It is fine to quote some reliable source as saying it's propaganda, but that source must be specific to this video. Otherwise, it is sufficient simply to state what China's official position is. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
K&M are not universally accepted as a reliable source.Simonm223 (talk) 16:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Current issues with article

There are some immediate issues that I see with this article.

First, the article's title is not NPOV. It should be named to "allegations". They are largely based on circumstantial evidence, and most of the article rely on either Kilgour-Matas and the CIPFG as legitimacy or simply borrow from several Falun Gong websites with clear agendas. I propose the article be moved.

Secondly, a massive re-write is in order. Much of the material is given undue weight, many of the charts irrelevant, and overall it just needs general clean-up. I would suggest cutting down at least half of this content. As I am currently not bold enough to do this massive overhaul of the article myself, I would like to ask other editors for suggestions. Colipon+(Talk) 04:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

phone transcripts?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Since we're putting everything under "re-review"...

I'm used to seeing phone-transcripts in The National Enquirer (The Sun... Aftonbladet... pick your local poison), but not in an encyclopedia... Seb az86556 (talk) 09:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The phone transcript is not the source, Kilgour & Matas is. If their paper is unreliable or their conclusions irrelevant, they should not be on the wikipage. It might be best taken to the Reliable Sources noticeboard. PerEdman (talk) 10:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm really wondering if we should be giving all this space to the stuff contained within K&M, rather than relying on third party secondary sources, of which there are plenty. Their report is clearly a primary source, and anything in it which has not been published by a reliable third party source should perhaps be deleted. The transcript falls within that scope, so that would disappear too if we applied that thinking. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not talking about the source primarily. I'm taking about the dramatic box in glossy color, the lengthy ad-verbatim quote, The mysterious "M." instead of a name... the whole drama... You can give it a mention in one sentence, but this style is over the top. Seb az86556 (talk) 10:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Sure. I removed it some months ago. Anyway, I have replaced all references to the 'Bloody Harvest' report with {{cn}} tags, leaving the link at the bottom of the article. My next step will be to look at all the articles cited to try and replace these tags with legitimate reliable secondary sources where I can; where I cannot, text will be deleted per WP:RS. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
From a scientific point of view, the phone transcripts are raw data of doubtful source-critical quality. They don't belong in an encyclopedia entry. When I read the article about the blue whale I don't want it to contain a database of skeletal measurements of the creatures. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 11:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
What third-party secondary sources? On first view there appear to be a few of them, but on closer examination (for example of the Congress and UN hearings) their arguments are extremely dependent on the Kilgour & Matas, which is also reflected in the fact that Congress and statements to congress urge an independent inquiry rather than immediate action. PerEdman (talk) 12:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure I quite understand. I was specifically thinking about the content of the K&M report which only appears in the report being used in the article, and which dominates it. If congressional hearings and inquiry statements refer to particular aspects of the K&M report, these would also be acceptable. News articles and peer-reviewed academic articles can be relied on to fill the gap, and those parts not referred to anywhere should probably be deleted. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I think PerEd's point is to say that these "third-party secondary sources" don't actually say much. They're saying that the report exists, and want "additional inquiry", but don't conclude anything at all. Therefore their inclusion in the article is questionable. Colipon+(Talk) 15:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
True -- but it looks like that's all there is... Seb az86556 (talk) 15:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
My point was that there aren't many third-party sources and many sources touted as third-party are simply retelling the contents of the Kilgour and Matas reports. Technically that's a tertiary source, but it's only tertiary because it feeds off a secondary source already used in the article. PerEdman (talk) 16:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
(undent) See, that's the thing, we are asked to accept, on faith, that the transcripts are a valid source despite much in the way of third party critique. And without these transcripts there is no evidence that the FLG has been targeted for organ harvesting by the PRC. This has been one of my big issues all along.Simonm223 (talk) 16:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
So 'tis basically a single-source article. Not to jump the gun, but that might call for deletion... or a definite merge. Seb az86556 (talk) 16:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I would personally prefer deletion but I will strongly support a merge, provided that the US congress critique of the report (they found the claims to be largely baseless) is included.Simonm223 (talk) 16:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, congress recommended an independent inquiry. They at least did not act on the report itself, but requested more information. (As an aside, this is standard behavior in many political assemblies: Request more information, form a committé, repeat.) PerEdman (talk) 16:36, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Chart

What are other editor's opinions on this chart?

File:AdultKidneyTransplantWaittimes.jpg
Comparison of average wait-times, in days, for an adult kidney transplant, in different countries[2]

And a bunch of other charts of circumstantial evidence on this page? Colipon+(Talk) 21:33, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

That particular one is irrelevant. It says nothing about the issue at hand. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 21:37, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
a) I don't see a major issue with leaving it here. I would trust the intelligence of wikipedia-readers. I looked at it for a few seconds and could tell it was bullsh*t to put it here. Any sane person with even half a brain will notice it is. There's no use breaking your neck over it. It's abstract enough not to appeal to emotions (as opposed to the the corpse picture), and it's junk enough for anyone to notice it's junk. This only appeals to the illiterate.
b) As a minor issue, it should probably be kicked out. Seb az86556 (talk) 22:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure. If the data is sourced and accurate I suppose it could be included, but I'd have to question the relevance. Sure it's from the Kilgour/Matas report, but what of it? It can't possibly be included to mean that shorter wait times for transplants in China is some sort of evidence for forcible organ transplantation from specifically Falun Gong victims?
I suppose I agree with Mrund that the particular chart isn't the problem, it's the abudance of charts that gives the impression that some point of view is being pushed with colorful charts and I don't think anyone stands to gain from that impression. PerEdman (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I was the one who said it was not a major problem. It should be removed as a minor problem. Might be well sourced, but so is the Mars-exploration and the vanishing Amazon rain-forest. All of them have nothing to do with this. My point was that even half-illiterate people can see the irrelevance. Seb az86556 (talk) 22:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

As a minor issue, I'd almost say this is an embarrassment for this encyclopedia. It's constructed crudely probably using early versions of Microsoft word's default chart template, and doesn't serve much relevance to the subject matter at all. I will now boldly delete this chart. Colipon+(Talk) 22:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

How is this irrelevant? One of the key arguments of Kilgour and Matas is that such short wait-times would be impossible without a pool of live 'donors' ready to get organs from. This is an illustration of the wait times of various countries based on data from the Kilgour/Matas report (a reliable source); it shows how small China's is compared to other places, which is the point K/M are making. What is the problem?--Asdfg12345 15:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
For one thing, it's a chart of a correlation, not evidence of the implied causation. I know you are aware of this, as you have mentioned it before. For another, only four nations are listed. I know very well what Kilgour and Matas believe this shows, but it does not. PerEdman (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Furthermore it isn't that people are disputing that China participates in Organ Harvesting. Black market organs aside, the Chinese state is quite open about harvesting organs from murderers, rapists, kidnappers, drug traffickers, etc. Kilgour and Matas fail to demonstrate that the FLG is being targeted by the state for organ harvesting. Even their so-called evidence of FLG targeted organ harvesting would, at best, suggest that black market organ traffickers were targeting the group and I have serious doubts about the veracity of that supposed evidence.Simonm223 (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
If Asdfg12345 meant to ask how it is relevant that the data is presented in a "default chart template", I agree that it is not relevant. The visual appeal of the graph is not contested. PerEdman (talk) 15:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
(undent)His question was not asking how relevant the "default chart template" is. It's asking how is this chart "irrelevant". And I see he did not notice the arguments presented above. In any case it's just a minor issue anyway. Colipon+(Talk) 16:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I gather that it's because we already know that China takes organs from death-sentence prisoners. The graph doesn't demonstrate that the organs were taken mostly from Falun Gong prisoners, or that Falun Gong prisoners are being sentenced for death to get their organs over other types of prisoners. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Your casual reader might not realize without this graph that there is a live organ bank in China. And that aspect, correlated with a 32 more give a clearer picture on what is the relation between this graph and Falun Gong. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 20:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Chinese gov't reponse

I have also removed the entire section about the Chinese government's "rebuttal". It is addressed already in the article, and the entire section was unsourced. Colipon+(Talk) 21:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Was there nothing in there that could be used to flesh out other parts of the article? Not objecting, just wondering. / PerEdman 21:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Probably, but PRC's denials on this issue is covered under "international response". Colipon+(Talk) 21:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Ownby says No Evidence FLG targeted

Many of the pro-FLG folks like to cite Ownby. Well... I just found Ownby's response to K&M's report: on Page 11 and 12

He says "Organ harvesting is hapening in China, but I see no evidence proving it is aimed particularly at Falun Gong practicioners."

Considering that Ownby has been put forwarded as an accepted expert on the FLG I am sure this should constitute notability on the credibility on the inexpert K&M report.

As an aside, that entire report is VERY interesting.Simonm223 (talk) 21:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

  • Indeed, Colipon is right that the FG editors are engaged in cherry-picking from David Ownby, who does indeed have critical things to say about FG (principally about their transparency), but for some peculiar reason never makes it into the article. No paradox here.

    The report also shows that by lodging their complaint in the terms they did, Kilgour and Matas have the very same blinkers on as all the FG advocates. Their complaint can now be seen as a Falun Gong statement candy-coated by some quasi-respectable Canadian politicians. From now on, I would take the term "independent" when used to describe them with the liberal amount of sodium chloride it deserves. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Falun Gong's media strategy strikes me as very interesting. They somehow try to distance themselves from their own media outlets and go out of their way to describe them as "independent" and "privately-owned", as though it would lend them more legitimacy. Not only does this imply that Falun Gong itself has an obvious political agenda, but also it understands that promoting it under the plain banner of Falun Gong is not presentable, nor believable. So they do it thru other weasley ways, like getting the Epoch Times to become a "general-interest" newspaper, getting a "cultural show" on display for Chinese New Year, getting Canadian politicians to come up with circumstantial findings to extend their 'plight', and disrupting Wikipedia. Ownby, Rahn, Chang, Wall Street Journal etc. all specifically mention this fact and goes into very detailed analysis, and it certainly deserves mention in the article. Colipon+(Talk) 03:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Finding themselves under scrutiny and not liking it, they create front organisations and media outlets, 'cultural events', and Divine Dance Troupe etc, which try to pass on their message by stealth, knowing full well it will be dismissed if people know the truth of the sources. Their nebulous organisational structure lends to this objective very well, because by definition, Falun Gong practitioners are all independent of each other, they merely share ideals and a manner of exercising. This is another example of an overtly partisan source being referred to as an independent website in the article. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You guys are welcome to your views; since the discussion has already wandered off topic, I might just throw in a few words. Falun Gong practitioners are about as organised as chess players; i.e., not. A lot of those that grew up in China and moved to western countries after the persecution (or even before it) are rather used to a CCP-style MO. When writing news they splice in opinions, they go for big propaganda-type slogans, they go for telling people what they think rather than what they know, and so on and so on. They even want to make front organisations and expect people not to figure out who is behind them. I practice Falun Gong and these tactics are as transparently silly to me as they are to any other informed observer. They aren't inherent aspects of Falun Gong practice, but they're elements of different peoples' cultural backgrounds and ordinary ways of thinking, not being upfront, worrying people will misunderstand them, and so on. A lot of such people may not have university educations and have not been exposed to liberal institutions or ways of thinking. They don't understand neutrality, objectivity, transparency, and so on, because they never grew up with these things in mainland China. (Look at Chinese media, for example; this is all they've got to go on when starting their own media. They are evaluated by us with Western standards, however.) These are mostly people who started practicing Falun Gong as a metaphysical/spiritual pursuit, or even because they were sick back then and stumbled across this qigong school. Years later they find they are attacked and persecuted because of this, by the world's biggest totalitarian government, and they need to respond. They've made a lot of mistakes and done a lot of stupid things. They've also done a lot of good things, and their hearts are in the right place. Ultimately they are trying to stop an inhumane persecution. I have read and agree with (some of) what you guys say. What I think is, of course it's true, but there's no need for the kind of disgust that you seem to exhibit. Colipon, in particular, says some rather worrying things in this regard. I'm sure the practitioners will get over it in time, and realise that this kind of stuff just doesn't work, and that they should act like any other NGO type group in society, and do things in that sort of upfront and transparent way. New Tang Dynasty TV, for example, now notes that it was founded by Falun Gong practitioners in the history section of its website. Here are some articles related to all this which you may like to read: [14][15][16][17]. In terms of wikipedia, it would be quite valuable to have a neutral and objective analysis of these issues.--Asdfg12345 21:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I read the Ombudsman's document. The remarks in it don't change the reliability or independence of K/M; in the appropriate contexts, that they write these kind of letters should be mentioned. That they write these kind of letters (and there were excerpts of them in that doc) doesn't make them any less qualified to comment on HR abuses in China. I had not read this document before and was not aware of Ownby's remarks in it before.--Asdfg12345 21:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Asdfg, with all due respect, I made it perfectly clear the relation between what I said and what should be done about content in my last comment. There is no use giving an extremely lengthy reply that borders on advocacy. I think we should focus on content. Colipon+(Talk) 21:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I would appreciate it if you followed the same standards you set for others, then.--Asdfg12345 18:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't he? He does. / PerEdman 18:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Please, asdfg, this line summed up my earlier arguments: Ownby, Rahn, Chang, Wall Street Journal etc. all specifically mention this [Falun Gong's unusual media strategy] fact and goes into very detailed analysis, and it certainly deserves mention in the article. My oversight was presenting this comment on the "organ harvesting" article instead of the "media of Falun Gong" article, but that article does not exist, not to mention Falun Gong frequently wants to distance itself to its media mouthpieces. Colipon+(Talk) 03:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ "Beijing Olympics: Is U.S. Support the Anaconda in the Chandelier?". The Huffington Post. 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2009-03-31.
  2. ^ Beyond The Red Wall - Documentary on the Persecution of Falun Gong
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