Talk:Forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China

Quotation without attribution

The second sentence of the article currently reads:

According to the reports, political prisoners, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, are being executed "on demand" in order to provide organs to recipients.

If we're going to put "on demand" in quotation marks, shouldn't we cite the specific source from which we are quoting?

Citations in the lead

The information in the lead is cited in the body. If you believe a sentence is likely to be challenged, please pick one RS not five. Vacosea (talk) 19:36, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

According to MOS:LEADCITE, Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations. This topic fits all the categories so multiple citations would be needed. 2 or 3 citations in the lead for contentious pages are quite common. There are also leads where multiple citations are consolidated into one citation, which I can do. 23impartial (talk) 20:08, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

The first sentence already had four citations. Ask yourself what purpose does adding more to the lead serve, unless for something truly unique? There is also a distinction between controversial in wikivoice versus what this article's lead does, which attributes most of the information to its sources. It is not controversial to write for example that Kilgour or Matas claimed such and such as long as it is fully supported in the body. Vacosea (talk) 22:54, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I am aware of MOS:LEADCITE. It doesn't mean every sentence needs multiple citations. The guideline also says, "Because the lead usually repeats information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Although the presence of citations in the lead is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article, there is no exception to citation requirements specific to leads." Vacosea (talk) 23:44, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Info about tribunal chair in lead

My recent edit that added the chair of the China tribunal to the lead was reverted. I’d like to explain my reasoning here and hopefully we can come to a consensus. I added who chaired the tribunal to an existing line describing the tribunal and its initiating organization. Both the Reuters and Sydney Morning Herald reports cited there as well as other reliable sources (NBC, The Guardian, U.S. News & World Report, etc.) all pointed out that Geoffrey Nice was the chair. The SMH, NBC, Guardian articles also highlighted the fact that Nice was the prosecutor at the international tribunal for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia. As for the tribunal itself, it was the chair and his panel of experts, not the initiating organization, that reviewed the evidence and delivered the final judgment. If we have to select what information to include for the tribunal, I would think that the chair is more relevant than the initiating organization WP:DUE. So if we decide to keep background information about the tribunal in the lead, I think both the chair and initiating organization should be kept. 23impartial (talk) 16:23, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

Compared to other names in the lead, Nice's involvement with the topic of this article is minimal. A summary of this article mentions the China Tribunal, but only a summary of China Tribunal mentions Nice. This seems to be a good case of Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion.

I don't know what the best way to handle the initiating organization is, but this entire situation with Matas and Gutmann co-founding ETAC which convened the China Tribunal which cited a lot of research conducted by Matas and Gutmann looks like a big circle of conflicts of interest, especially for this article which cites all of them heavily as reflected in the lead. Vacosea (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

I see your point. As this is a people’s tribunal rather than a government court, its public identity in coverage is closely tied to its chair—so one brief identifying mention of Geoffrey Nice in the lead is due and informative. For example, the SMH article, the 2022 Telegraph article, this Guardian article, and Independent article are about organ harvesting in general, not just about the tribunal. They all pointed out Nice as the chair of the tribunal, and often highlighted him as a former prosecutor of international criminal court. WP:VNOT doesn't apply here, as no policy prevents the inclusion, and identifying the tribunal with its chair improves the article.

If we remove such identifying information about the tribunal and highlight the initiating organization instead, we risk inserting our own view and interpretation of “conflict of interest” into the article. That would be editorializing. WP:YESPOV. We should stick to how RSes reported on the tribunal.

As for your other point about Gutmann and Matas, although some of the evidence used by them overlapped with the evidence reviewed by the tribunal, their report came out a few years before the tribunal. According to the submissions that the tribunal reviewed, it considered much more evidence than the Kilgour/Matas/Gutmann report, including the counterarguments to their report. 23impartial (talk) 01:53, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I don't know why you keep citing policies and guidelines but only in part. The onus on inclusion is higher, so saying no policy prevents inclusion makes no sense, especially in the lead. The articles you cited are not reviews of the entire topic and its history like this article is. They were published to cover news events such as the 2019 tribunal so emphasize at the time recent developments. Nice should not be included as he has almost zero presence elsewhere in this article, which makes him undue in the lead. Most of the sources mention ETAC despite calling the tribunal independent .

While the submissions contained additional items, the KMG reports are much larger than the rest. You can't simply count the number of items without factoring in the volume of each submission.. Vacosea (talk) 17:16, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

I moved most of this to the footnotes. Vacosea (talk) 18:02, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for some of the changes you made. I just want to be clear: I am not trying to push for inclusion of new information. The info about Geoffrey Nice had been in the lead for a long time until you removed it recently. The Reuters article you cited mentioned both ETAC and Nice. The Forbes article you cited has no mention of ETAC, but dedicated a paragraph on Nice and his background. Most sources mentioned Nice more than ETAC when referring to the tribunal. The 4 sources I cited above that mentioned Nice include the tribunal as part of the bigger picture of organ harvesting, but they are not news coverage of the tribunal’s judgment. I just hope we don’t insert bias into the article that is not in RSes. 23impartial (talk) 11:00, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

There were numerous talk page discussions and templates criticizing issues with the state of this article. I meant to link the BMJ article which describes ETAC as a pressure group. Reuters describes it as a campaign group. So calling it an advocacy group should be fair. Considering its founding by KMG who are the main individuals in the lead, it should be indicated. Vacosea (talk) 16:01, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Contemporary Moral Issues

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 October 2025 and 8 December 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): AMR1316 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by AMR1316 (talk) 01:02, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

ISHLT Policy Statement

Added a paragraph under the International Response / Medical Associations section regarding a 2022 policy statement issued by the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT). Prophylax (talk) 18:54, 20 December 2025 (UTC)