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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/30/2009 : 15:55:16
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Link
China's hi-tech 'death van' where criminals are executed and then their organs are sold on black market
By Andrew Malone Last updated at 11:14 PM on 27th March 2009
Comments (13)
Death will come soon for Jiang Yong. A corrupt local planning official with a taste for the high life, Yong solicited money from businessmen eager to expand in China's economic boom.
Showering gifts on his mistress, known as Madam Tang, the unmarried official took more than £1 million in bribes from entrepreneurs wanting permission to build skyscrapers on land which had previously been protected from development.
But Yong, a portly, bespectacled figure, was caught by the Chinese authorities during a purge on corrupt local officials last year.
He confessed and was sentenced to death. China executed 1,715 people last year, so one more death would hardly be remarkable.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2009 : 01:50:44 [Permalink]
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At least a criminally corrupt official got charged for corruption. Monstrous that he was put to death for it. With a less rigorous standard of the legal system, the death sentence may well be the more economical, though not humanitarian, alternative.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2009 : 05:11:08 [Permalink]
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| I heard about this a few years ago, much more effective than hangings on the football pitch. That said I feel bribery of public officials should be dealt with harshly, perhaps not quite this harsh though. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/31/2009 : 05:30:04 [Permalink]
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Well, it opens up a thriving organ trade. I'm sure that, by now, Jiang Yong's innards are scatered over a considerable area.
Sort'a raises some moral and ethical questions though, doesn't it?
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2009 : 13:24:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Sort'a raises some moral and ethical questions though, doesn't it?
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Well, it's an excellent opportunity for the criminal to at least somewhat re-pay his debt to society, as long as the organs are not actually sold to a highest bidder.
But from there, we have a steep slippery slope through "highest bidder" to "looking for bad excuses for offing people in order to harvest organs".
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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WarfRat
New Member
49 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2009 : 14:07:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Sort'a raises some moral and ethical questions though, doesn't it?
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Not really. It only depends on your view of ethics or morality. From a utilitarian concept, there is no issue. The society will reap the benefits of those who no longer serve. It's cold and may rub people the wrong way but you are making some good for the society.
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"I believe...that one benefits the workers...so much more by forcing through reforms which alleviate and strengthen their position, than by saying that only a revolution can help them." |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2009 : 18:12:49 [Permalink]
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The whole thing stinks, at the heart of it, in my opinion. First, that capital punishment is used at all, secondly that it is used for "economic" crimes, and third that the PRC state then harvests organs from its victims.
Now, if a condemned person freely wills his organs away, that part would be different. However, this procedure reminds me of the Larry Niven stories, in which "corpsicles" (people frozen before death in the hope they could be thawed, revived and cured of their maladies) were instead harvested for their organs.
As the Chinese are now doing this, they have an investment in killing their citizens. One has to ask: If crime goes down, but the need for organs by Party elites goes up, will minor criminals then be slaughtered for their organs? Even if that scenario doesn't present itself -- and how do we not know it isn't already happening? -- this is still wrong.
I'm with Filthy on this. What the Chinese are doing is unethical, obscenely so. The PRC tries hard to suppress news of its treatment of Tibet, but then it shoots itself in the foot by doing gruesome stuff like this.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/31/2009 18:13:21 |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2009 : 11:34:43 [Permalink]
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| I don't see what's wrong with capital punishment, but this is probably a bit harsh, although I wouldn't shed a tear over it. China routinely does things like this so really, if you can't do the time don't do the crime. It's not like a starving child stealing a loaf of bread. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2009 : 12:12:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
I don't see what's wrong with capital punishment, but this is probably a bit harsh, although I wouldn't shed a tear over it. China routinely does things like this so really, if you can't do the time don't do the crime. It's not like a starving child stealing a loaf of bread.
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The problem, one of them anyway, is the opportunity for corruption -- organs to highest bidder and so forth, with perhaps the way smoothed by a nice bribe. Indeed, one can imagine an prospective organ recipient going into a prison and picking out his liver while it's still in it's original packaging.
In 200,000 thousand years, human nature has changed little if at all.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2009 : 12:20:59 [Permalink]
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| Yes well it would be worse if they wasted the bodies. I don't know if you can criticise a system just because it might be exploited. Surely the criticism should be reserved for whatever authority is meant to be policing the process and not the process itself. |
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China takes a page from the Nazi book
