Is Sujiatun concentration camp allegation true? I believe it is a hoax.

While I agree China’s human rights abuse should be examined, as with all human rights abusers in the world including ourselves - making up story by lifting data from websites and writing allegory of "Schindler’s List" is not the way.

If we in the West can not be precise with our facts, only resort to nefarious indictment, who will take what we say seriousely?

First, it appears to be a story that is created by Epoch Times NY, and drummed up in cyberspace by googlebombing. Also the timing couldn't be better.

[I will address these later]

After noticing some blogs from other netters questioning this, I looked on search engines for information, and came accross this:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18669046-7583,00.html

"It appears the claims by Falun Gong have been at least substantially exaggerated. Initial investigations by researchers for a US congressional committee have identified the site at Sujiatun as a hospital, where it is suspected organ harvesting occurs but on nowhere near the scale claimed."

[FYI above article is also very critical of the Chinese government]

Above seems to be vetting other news that came from a Hong Kong newspaper that got its subsidy cut off by the Chinese government when they published harshily on the Tiananmen incident against the Chinese government:

[For translation help try world.altavista.com]

* Lanzhou University student registry doesn't have students named in Epoch's article; no students have been arrested as alleged:

http://www.takungpao.com/news/06/03/27/ZM-543827.htm

* Reporters investigating concentration camp at Sujiatun stroke clinic found no evidence; no incinirator, but a boiler for heating; only undergrond structure is the septic tank:

http://www.takungpao.com/news/06/03/31/ZM-545907.htm

Also, as other bloggers pointed out, components of the Epoch Times' story can be traced back to various unrelated news and facts from China.

* Pay attention to the 6000 victicm number published by Epoch. Coincidently this number also exists in the Sujiatun stroke clinic's webpage (2nd paragraph of the About page, part of the hospital's admission statistics):

http://www.thrombusres-cn.net/myjs/myjs.htm

Also, the stroke hospital is a joint venture with a company affaliated with the Malaysian government:

http://crc.gov.my/clinicalTrial/documents/Proposal/TCM_Stroke%20TrialProtocol%20synopsis.pdf

* The "underground concentration camp" element seems to be inspired by a WWII archelogical find at Sujiatun in August 2005.

A photographer was photogrphing WWII historical sites at Sujiatun when he discovered a 2000 meter long, 3 meter wide tunnel (half of it under water) built up by the Japanese army, and some relics including human remains from early 1900's:

http://news.sohu.com/20050812/n226651351.shtml

http://www.u-web.cn/PersonalPCSite/complex562_detail.jsp?itemid=175862&contenttype=TextImage&isindex=0&indexchannelid=-1



So how did a story like this ever got so big, the UN had to deal with it? First, appealing to our society's fear of anti-semitism was a brilliant ploy. And it doesn't hurt to drum it up in cybersapce by "googlebombing" the story. Below is a very simple test (I wonder if Google News holds its sources to a higher journalistic standard or ethics?)

* News search without Epoch Times' googlebomb:
http://news.google.com/news?q=Sujiatun+-Epoch+-Times,+-NY
(14 links)

with googlebomb:
http://news.google.com/news?q=Sujiatun
(put "Epoch Times, NY" back, about 72)

* Web search without Epoch Times' googlebomb:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Sujiatun+-Epoch+-Times,+-NY
(about 75,700)

with googlebomb:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Sujiatun
(put "Epoch Times, NY" back, about 173,000)

Like I said, the timing couldn't be better. Sujiatun is near Shenyang City, and it's about to unveil an international exposition:

http://www.expo2006sy.gov.cn

And is it a coincidence that Chinese leader is vising? Make a big stink about it, right?

http://news.google.com/news?q=hu+jintao+visit