The author of a book on live organ harvesting, Ethan Gutmann, denied that he had alleged that independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was an “organ broker,” adding that the accusations were likely caused by a misunderstanding.
“We take Dr Ko’s concerns very seriously and we have reviewed the relevant pages in his [Gutmann’s] book together with our own records of interviews and notes on which those pages were based,” Clive Ansley, Gutmann’s attorney, said in a letter to Ko. “We have concluded that the entire misunderstanding and the reckless accusations which have appeared in the Taiwan[ese] media would appear to be based on language and cultural differences between the English in Mr Gutmann’s book, on the one hand, and the understanding of the relevant pages when the latter have been rendered into Chinese.”
The letter was written in response to allegations by Chinese Nationalisty Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) that Gutmann’s book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting and China’s Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem says that Ko agreed to purchase human organs from China.
Ko immediately rebutted the allegations, saying that while overseeing post-transplant care at the hospital he had not conducted transplants, nor bought or sold human organs in China, adding that he merely told Gutmann in an interview in 2007 that there were some doctors in Taiwan who had been involved in the buying or selling of organs for transplant, but that he was not one of them.
Ansley backed Ko in his letter.
He wrote that, after a careful review of the relevant pages, he concluded that “no English-speaking reader has understood the caption or the text to mean anything other than that Dr Ko was being given information, rather than making a statement about the availability of Falun Gong organs in some sort of personal ‘organ broker’ deal.”
“No English-speaking reader to date has understood for one moment that Dr Ko was acting as an ‘organ broker,’” Ansley said. “No English-speaking reader to date believes that Dr Ko was trying to purchase organs himself or was in any way involved in any sort of profit-making venture.”
“We believe that language, translation and the heated environment of the political campaign for the mayoral race in Taipei may be playing a role in misconstruing the author’s intentions and clouding the issue,” he added.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
RSS