Reuters News on Friday withdrew a four-minute video containing an exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussing the possibility that humans can live to 150 years old, after China state TV demanded its removal and withdrew the legal permission to use it.
The footage, which included the open mic exchange from the military parade in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, was licensed by the China state television network, China Central Television (CCTV).
The clips were edited by Reuters into a four-minute video and distributed to more than 1,000 global media clients including major international news broadcasters and TV stations around the world. Other news agency licensees of CCTV also distributed edits of the footage.
Reuters removed the video from its website and issued a “kill” order to its clients on Friday after receiving a written request from CCTV’s lawyer. The letter said the news agency exceeded usage terms of its agreement. The letter further criticized Reuters “editorial treatment applied to this material,” but did not specify details.
Reuters said in a statement that it withdrew the videos because it no longer held the legal permission to publish this copyrighted material.
[…]
I’ve always wondered why Chinese ex-pats were so adamant at discrediting this minor cult I’ve never heard of.
The people making the claims of organ harvesting are not solely Falun Gong themselves. They’re advocacy groups like End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC).
It’s not minor. Public estimates of the practice run as high as 70M at the peak of it’s popularity. Their leadership command billions in revenue, with significant real estate holdings both in the US and globally.
It’s on par with Mormonism.
A lot of the allegations are recycled through right wing groups in the US.
Get into the organization’s members and you’re going to find a bunch of British and American anti-Communists. David Matas, for instance, is an outspoken Zionist. Arthur Waldron works directly for the American Enterprise Institute, an American right wing think tank, and co-signed an open letter to Donald Trump in support of the Trump Administration’s China policy. Businessman Nick Vetch is just some British billionaire self-storage tycoon.
None of these folks are actual Chinese ex-pats.
See this is exactly how Chinese propaganda operates. They don’t attempt to address the actual allegations themselves, rather they try to discredit the people proposing them.
I don’t care if the people who found out about organ harvesting are so-called “anti-Communists” if they’re right.
If you want direct categorical rebuttals, you can go straight to the Chinese government itself, or any of the nonpartisan investigations that have failed to turn up actual evidence of facilities where these organ thefts are taking place.
But at some point, there’s little to actually refute. The “proof” is a set of demographic data that implies China is doing too many organ transplants relative to their Western counterparts, combined with a handful of dubious testimonials from partisans making third hand accounts.
It’s the same line of argument RFK Jr made, linking Tylenol to autism.
And if they’re wrong?