Magic Statistics

Unlike most non-Canadian reporters, London Telegraph Beijing correspondent Richard Spencer takes note of the report by David Kilgour and David Matas on China’s trade in organs harvested from executed prisoners for transplant.

Outside Canada, no newspaper seems to have picked up the story, The Daily Telegraph included. There is a simple reason for this, of course. The uncontroversial, and verifiable bits of the report are old hat: we all know that foreigners are coming in significant numbers to China for transplants, and paying a lot of money to hospitals, and that nearly all such transplants are from executed prisoners.

There is periodic outrage, and now the Chinese government promises something will be done about it. The bits that haven't been widely reported are based on testimony originally acquired from falun gong, the exercise and meditation group, or cult -depending on where you stand - which was banned in China by President Jiang Zemin in 1999 and pretty ruthlessly persecuted.

Claims by falun gong that their members have been specifically targeted by Chinese authorities for imprisonment, mass killing, and organ harvesting were widely investigated last year and found to be unproven.  That angle is apparently based on hearsay evidence from a single reporter.

The most important points have previously been reported widely.

Yet the most recent report highlights things which are undoubtedly true and important, and increasingly admitted by the Chinese government itself:

• there is a substantial business in selling executed prisoners' organs
• many of the consumers are foreigners
• the organs are provided suspiciously quickly, indicating that either prematched prisoners are being executed to order or that there must at any time be a substantial pool to choose from
• much of the work is being done by military hospitals, or in civilian hospitals by military surgeons
• there is a total lack of transparency about everything to do with this issue: the numbers of people executed every year; their names; which have their organs removed; the documents in which they are supposed to have signed their agreements; the numbers of falun gong prisoners incarcerated; their names, and sentences.

Western governments should discourage companies from selling organ transplant-related drugs and supplies to China, and they should discourage citizens from traveling there for such procedures.

Previous related post: Albertans buying body parts in China: David Kilgour

That would be surfing the net.

Browsing the internet has overtaken DIY and gardening to become the favourite pastime of older people, according to a survey.

The current generation of "silver surfers" spends an average of six hours online each week, research by the insurance company AXA found.

Six hours a week?  That’s nothin’.

So say two knowledgeable and respected church figures who serve on the front lines where Christians are being persecuted for their faith.

The first is Baroness Caroline Cox, author, humanitarian, director of charity efforts on behalf of the oppressed in many parts of the world.  She spoke in the British House of Lords earlier this week.

Islamic extremism poses the greatest threat to the Western World, and endangers the very essence of democracy, a British baroness said Tuesday.

"The threat of a militant and totalitarian form of Islam poses the greatest threat to our cultures today, and Israel is standing at the front-lines of this struggle against militant Islam which would destroy the values of our societies," Baroness Caroline Cox said in an address at the House of Lords.

The other is Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, Anglican Primate of the Province of Uganda.  Speaking in New York City recently, he said that much of the church is asleep or in denial about Islam.

“As I look forward into the 21st century, it seems to me the great global conflict will be between Christianity and Islam,” the Ugandan leader said. “In the seventh and eighth centuries, the churches of North Africa and the Middle East did not acknowledge the theological and social economy and political traits of Islam and they were overrun. We must learn from those who have gone before us. Their blood cries out to us. Let them not have died in vain.”
. . .
Orombi also said that in Uganda, Muslims are attempting to conquer “not so much by the sword but by the dollar.” There, Libyan dictator Muammar Gadafi built a national mosque as a “gift” to the people. Newly discovered oil resources in Uganda are finding their way into Muslim hands, and Muslim financiers are pouring money into the country — despite the fact that only 12 percent of Uganda’s population is Muslim. Muslims also are offering vocal opposition to laws that protect women’s rights because, Orombi said, “these are not in the Koran.”

“At the same time, the church is generally ignorant about Islam, its doctrine, its ideology and its expansionist strategy, the Anglican leader said. Most churches have no plan or vision about reaching Muslims and even shy away from evangelism out of fear and the prospect of retaliatory violence.”

Abp Orombi and Peter Akinola, Archbishop of the Province of Nigeria, were named WORLD magazine’s Daniels of the Year for 2006.

h/t for Jerusalem Post link: Archbishop Cranmer
h/t for Baptist Press News link: titusonenine

Previous related posts:

• Uproar over Anglican ministry in Turkey
• Peter Akinola and Henry Orombi: Daniels of the Year
• Witness and advocate for persecuted Christians

Several teenagers have been arrested in connection with a rash of church burglaries in and around Anchorage, Alaska.  The thieves took the processional cross from Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, Eagle River, during their crime spree.  The Rev Bob Young thought it was gone for good, but then a reporter suggested he take a look at a certain web page.

[H]e was directed to a MySpace.com Web page, where a bare-chested teenager posed with a handgun among drifting marijuana bongs. In his other hand, the youth held a cross that Father Bob instantly recognized. When the priest looked closer, he saw the boy also was wearing a cross necklace he wore while leading Sunday mass.

"Oh, jeepers," the 65-year-old priest said in a telephone interview this week.

Police say it's not the first time they've found clues on MySpace — teenagers are increasingly using the Web site to brag about their exploits.

Moisae Martushev, 18, appeared in an Anchorage court this week, charged with 34 counts of burglary, theft and criminal mischief. He and three others are accused of breaking into a string of Anchorage churches.

While police can't prove the items Martushev is posing with on his MySpace page belong to the church — they haven't yet recovered the objects — for Father Bob there is no question.

Holy Spirit Episcopal was broken into twice within a few days.  In the first break-in, the church suffered considerable damage from vandalism.  The second time around, the processional cross and cross necklace were stolen.

The teenagers were picked up after trying to unload some of the stolen items at a pawn shop.

Previous related post: Wave of church burglaries in Anchorage area

SoConBlogs.com is a web aggregator featuring blogs that comment on marriage and family issues from a traditional and conservative perspective.  The site is an initiative of the Family Coalition Party of Ontario which supports pro-life and pro-family social and political policies.

Click here to go to the site, where you’ll find many posts promoting a “Culture of Life” viewpoint.  Check it out!

Bloggers who support the Family Coalition Party and its objectives can apply to join the soconblogs.com roster.  You don’t have to live in Ontario to join.  (I live about as far from Ontario as it’s possible to be and remain within Canada, and they accepted me.)

The collect for today, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, commonly called The Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty and everliving God, we humbly beseech thy Majesty, that, as thy only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in substance of our flesh, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts, by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Epistle: Malachi 3:1-5
The Gospel: St Luke 2:22-40

Painting: Rembrandt, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 1631. Mauritshuis, The Hague.