A court in Saint Petersburg ruled that references to DAFOH, which documents the horrific practice of harvesting organs in China, are a criminal offense in Russia.
by Massimo Introvigne
While some occasionally funny but not particularly bright anti-cultists associated with FECRIS, the European anti-cult umbrella organization, claim that organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China is a myth spread by “Bitter Winter,” the European Parliament on May 5, 2022, passed a resolution expressing its “serious concerns about the reports of persistent, systematic, inhumane and state‑sanctioned organ harvesting from prisoners in the People’s Republic of China, and, more specifically, from Falun Gong practitioners and other minorities such as Uyghurs, Tibetans and Christians.”
Leaving aside from a moment the question whether the European Parliament is also controlled by “Bitter Winter,” we note that the friends of FECRIS in Russia have found a much more effective way of closing the discussion about organ harvesting in China. They just asked the courts to declare it illegal.
With the full support of the anti-cult group of Alexander Dvorkin, whose organization was part of FECRIS until March 2023, a case has been filed in Saint Petersburg against a Falun Gong website for having published an article about the well-known and excellent organization DAFOH, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting. DAFOH’s research has been crucial to persuade governments and parliaments in democratic countries that organ harvesting needs to be seriously investigated.
On November 16, a court in Saint Petersburg declared that reporting about DAFOH and linking to its website is a criminal offense in Russia, and punished the owners of the website with a fine.
It was both an egregious example of the “prohibition of questions,” which according to philosopher Eric Voegelin defines the totalitarian regimes, and a FECRIS dream that came true. However, courts in democratic countries are happily different from their Russian counterparts. FECRIS should find some other way to silence “Bitter Winter”—and perhaps the European Parliament as well.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
