NTD Television

This reporter won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a series of articles he wrote on China’s murky transplant system.

Matthew Robertson is a China specialist for the English edition of the Epoch Times Newspaper.

Being fluent in Mandarin, Robertson said, he was able to do more investigative research from Chinese websites. But even without a language barrier, the lack of reliable information made it difficult.

[Matthew Robertson, Journalist, Epoch Times Newspaper]:
“For the China ones, it’s much more difficult to find out what’s actually going on. Basically, the reporting you can do is, you scrutinize the documents you can find extensively, so scouring Chinese websites, Communist Party websites at different levels and you’re looking for whatever evidence you can find.”

In 2006, the wife of a Chinese surgeon revealed that her husband had removed the corneas from about two thousand practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual practice.

The Chinese Communist Party has persecuted Falun Gong since 1999. That year was when China’s organ transplants numbers drastically went up.

This prompted international activists to investigate. They concluded that evidence they found supported claims that the Chinese regime has been killing Falun Gong practitioners, and other prisoners of conscience for their organs.

Robertson says if these findings become widely known in China, it could threaten the legitimacy of the Communist Party.

[Matthew Robertson, Journalist, Epoch Times Newspaper]:
“And in the parts that have leaked out, the response from Chinese has been really strong. They’re outraged, they’re horrified, you know they can’t believe that they are living in a country whose government does this kind of thing, kills prisoners of conscience for their organs.”

Despite the seriousness of the allegations, there has been minimal coverage of forced organ harvesting in Chinese and western media. And Robertson says he’s not surprised.

[Matthew Robertson, Journalist, Epoch Times Newspaper]:
“If reporters in China were to cover this topic, I imagine that they would very quickly face repercussions. I imagine that no western media outlet would want to lose their whole bureau in China, which I suppose is entirely possible if they covered this heavily.”

Robertson will receive the Sigma Delta Chi award in the category of non-deadline reporting later this June.

Original article