I was struck by a news report yesterday from the Associated Press: “UK public tribunal to probe Uighur genocide allegations“. This will be an independent tribunal chaired by an experienced and highly reputable human rights lawyer, Sir Geoffrey Nice.
Yet when the identical Geoffrey Nice chaired an identical type of tribunal to look into allegations of forced organ harvesting in China, and ultimately issued a report with damning evidence – certainly enough to put the ball in China’s court to offer an alternative explanation of the facts – what was the media’s response? Basically, crickets. From the Associated Press specifically? Nothing. (At least nothing that a Google search <site:apnews.com Geoffrey Nice organ harvesting tribunal> turned up.)
It can’t be explained on the grounds of the story being trivial or uninteresting. It can’t be explained on the grounds that the type of investigation, or the person leading it, suggest that it’s unserious. The mere formation of such a tribunal under Nice is apparently newsworthy in this most recent case.
I can only think it’s a combination of the horror of the phenomenon, making everyone want to turn away, combined with its unfortunate association with Falun Gong, who as a group don’t have a lot of credibility. Last March I blogged about this issue; here’s just another bit of proof of the problem.
When Matthew Robertson’s report on organ harvesting came out, I had a very discouraging experience with a reputable journalist who is by no means a panda-hugger, useful idiot, CCP apologist, or whatever derogatory term you prefer. It was very clear he just didn’t want to know. I urged him again and again to just read Robertson’s report. Finally he agreed. Less than 30 minutes later, in which time he could not possibly have actually read the report, he called back to dismiss it on the grounds of some footnotes that were quite tangential to the main body of evidence. And this is a guy who was not hostile and was at least willing to listen to me argue at length about why he should read the report.
I urge people to get over your feelings about FLG (I won’t call them prejudices because they might be justified) and just look at the evidence and the plausibility of the various hypotheses that might explain it.
Hi Don,
This point is true but it wasn’t all journalists — Didi worked really hard to get good reporting on this into the paper, and also gave testimony to the Nice tribunal.
Yes, absolutely. I don’t of course mean literally *all* journalists, and I know about Didi’s efforts. But I think the obstacles she ran into support my point. I’d call it a conspiracy of silence, except that it’s not a conspiracy. It’s just a bunch of people who turn their eyes away.
Can you share some thoughts on Falun Gong? Or direct me to a link where you have written about them more extensively?
Sorry, I have not written about Falun Gong.