Rory Karsten

Chinese State’s Reply to UN Organ Harvesting Concerns Slammed

In mid-June, a joint correspondence issued by nine United Nations special rapporteurs and human rights working groups raised alarm over reports of forced organ harvesting in China. The UN human rights experts said they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged organ harvesting targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians, in ...

Rory Karsten

Surgeons performing organ harvesting.

How Photographers Change the Way You Feel About War

The use of cameras during the American Civil War began to shift the public’s perception of what such horrific conflicts were like beyond illustrations or dramatized paintings. Soon, governments knew the evocative power that photographic images could hold, and all sides censored them during the two world wars as they felt appropriate. It was the unbridled and ...

Rory Karsten

D. R. Howe (Glencoe, MN) treats the wounds of Private First Class D. A. Crum (New Brighton, PA), Company H, 2nd Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, during Operation Hue City in the Vietnam War.

Organ Harvesting in China: Hard to Believe, but It’s Happening

When I initially heard that the Chinese state was killing large numbers of prisoners of conscience for their bodily organs, I was like most people — I was in a state of disbelief. The idea of innocent people being butchered to supply a lucrative illegal organ transplant industry was a crime too horrific to be ...

Rory Karsten

Surgeon and his assistant performing surgery in hospital operating room.

Defectors Describe Why North Korea is Hell on Earth

If you commit a political crime in communist North Korea, such as watching a foreign film, you won’t be the only one who gets severely punished. Your family, including your siblings, your parents, and even your children, will also pay a heavy price — one of the many reasons North Korea is hell on earth. This is the ...

Rory Karsten

North Korea.

5 Atrocities Committed by the CCP

The history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is marked by the massive use of violence against the Chinese people as a means of total control. This may appear like a line from a cold war propaganda film, but it’s based on historical events, of which five of the worst atrocities committed by the CCP ...

Rory Karsten

Female Falun Gong practitioner meditates wearing a white top with heart, liver, and kidney drawn on with price tags showing how much money the Chinese Communist Party makes when they kill someone and use the organs for a transplant surgery.

‘A Sorrow Too Deep for Tears’: Persecution of a Chinese Woman

As part of the persecution she has suffered, Li Qun was fired from her position as a military lecturer at the Nanjing PLA University of Science and Technology in the coastal province of Jiangsu just north of Shanghai when she was 30. Her military officer husband, who holds a Ph.D., also worked at the university, ...

Rory Karsten

A shadow of a woman in jail.

Authoritarian State to Control Karaoke Songs in China

Authoritarian regimes want maximum control over their population, especially in China. That now includes what karaoke songs in China are allowed at a karaoke venue.   Singing karaoke songs in China is a massive pastime and the country’s so-called ministry of culture is preparing to limit what people can sing during a night out with ...

Rory Karsten

Two girls singing karaoke in China.

Little Global Respect for Ruling Chinese Communist Party, Pew Report Finds

Many aspects of traditional Chinese culture are treasured and admired around the world. Art. Cuisine. Philosophy. Architecture. Kung Fu. These are a few examples. Yet there’s no such worldwide esteem for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), no matter how the Party, and its massive propaganda machine, would like it to be otherwise. Recently, the ...

Rory Karsten

An undated photo of a Chinese police officer in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.