Free Republic

An Arabic-language newspaper in the greater Toronto area published an article falsely accusing Israel of burying Palestinians alive and stealing their organs, a Jewish group said. The Feb. 28 edition of al-Meshwar dedicates a half-page to “The Abuse of the Martyrs and the Manipulation of Their Bodies Are Jewish Commandments and Israeli Directives” by Mustafa Yusuf al-Lidawi, B’nai Brith Canada wrote in a statement Tuesday. According to al-Lidawi’s Facebook page, he serves as a member of Hamas’ Department of Arab and Islamic Relations. In the article, al-Lidawi falsely accuses Israel and blames it on the country’s “ancient malice, and Talmudic...

Cass Sunstein, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken. Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done. Outlined in the 2008 book “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness,” Sunstein and co-author Richard H. Thaler argued that the...

ISRAEL has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families' permission. The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge. Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel's Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said: "We...

Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families' permission. The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel's Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper ... The Channel 2 report said in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers,...

The parents of an 18-year-old Ohio man who suffered a brain injury while snowboarding claim in a lawsuit that doctors at a northwestern Pennsylvania hospital intentionally killed him so they could harvest his organs. The lawsuit claims that Hamot Medical Center doctors and a representative of the Center For Organ Recovery and Education caused Gregory Jacobs' death by administering medication and by removing his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate. "But for the intentional trauma or asphyxiation of Gregory Jacobs, he would have lived, or, at the very least, his life would have been prolonged," the lawsuit said. The suit...

PRIŠTINA -- The Kosovo Albanian government will not investigate Carla Del Ponte's claims that Kosovo Serbs were kidnapped to have their organs removed. This was reported today in Priština by the Albanian language daily Express. The former chief Hague prosecutor, now Switzerland's ambassador to Argentina, wrote in her book "The Hunt" that she investigated allegations that after the end of the 1999 war in the province, some 300 Kosovo Serbs were kidnapped, transported to Albania, where they had their organs removed, after which they were killed and buried in mass graves. She also said the 2003 probe into the case...

CHINA'S military is harvesting organs from unwilling live prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners, for transplants on a large scale - including to foreign recipients- according to a study. The report's authors - Canada's former secretary of state for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas - implicated dozens of hospitals and jails throughout China in July, after a two-month investigation. Chinese officials denied those allegations. Mr Matas and Mr Kilgour's second report, released today, includes interviews with organ recipients in 30 countries and Canadian hospital staff who cared for more than 100 patients who had...

Four doctors are to appear in court today accused of killing a sick patient to steal his kidneys for sale to westerners willing to pay thousands of pounds for an illegal transplant. The trial follows a police operation in Russia which is said to have uncovered a ring of corrupt officials and doctors who routinely murder patients for cash. A television documentary claims that the murder of badly-injured or sick patients is widespread and senior health officials are pocketing huge sums as middle-men. Last April police raided an operating theatre following a tip-off and allegedly discovered doctors preparing to extract...

ISTANBUL - A 10-year-old Turkish boy shot in the chest during a melee at a circumcision party narrowly escaped with his life -- but left a hospital operating room later that day without his right kidney.His parents accuse three local surgeons of stealing the organ -- placing the boy, now 14, at the centre of a bizarre medical drama and acrimonious lawsuit that encapsulates the most controversial aspect of the global trade in human body parts.While Can Akan wishes his tormented father and mother would just forget about the incident, they have persevered, putting together a voluminous medical file in...