Image: afp

“In the 1990s a very special form of lethal injection, called slow lethal injection, was perfected in China by Chinese officials as a way to preserve the organs so that the person is basically anesthetized, they don’t die right away, it gives the surgeons the time to take out as many organs as they would like to and then the lethal injection is finalized. So, it’s done in a way that actually allows this very, very unsavory mix of execution and medical care and treatment to be done by the same team of doctors. It’s horrific, really.” Source: Maria Fiatarone Singh, Professor of Medicine, Sydney University

In April 2013 Sydney University was coming intense international pressure to strip the honors it bestowed upon Doctor Huang Jiefu, a former Chinese health (sic) minister, following concerns that that he presided over the removal of organs from executed prisoners without their consent. Details here

Image: archivenet

Activists within Tibettruth were at the forefront of action in exposing this issue and challenging the University to withdraw its award to Doctor Huang, who now oversees the organ transplant committee in China. Apart from some noises that suggested that a review would be made of his honorary professorship, he retained support from some academic colleagues with Sydney University.

Fast forward to November 2014 and it is hard to find across the Internet or other media the published conclusions of such a inquiry, indeed it appears as if the matter has been brushed beneath a very thick carpet. Meanwhile suspicions remain that a man who “….as recently as November, 2012 that he continues to perform about two liver transplants every week – so that would be 100 organs a year, and using his own figures, 90 to 95 per cent of those would have come from executed prisoners.” Source

In the absence of any formal statement, it is probably safe to conclude that Sydney University has not removed its award from Doctor Huang Jiefu and as far as we can determine has not issued any comments condemning China’s medical atrocities.

Image: screenshot from SFT Facebook posting

In light of this, and considering the exposure generated we are puzzled at the decision by Students For Free Tibet (SFT) to use the venue of Sydney University for its November 7 meeting on Tibet, when that institution employs and honors China’s former ‘Minister Of Forced Organ Extractions’! We can only hope that this entirely unwise and misguided choice is relieved by SFT issuing a statement making clear its position on the matter and adding its voice to call for Sydney University to withdraw its honorary professorship to Doctor Huang.