Aftonbladet Silent on Jordan's Organ Trafficking

Andrea Levin
CAMERA
23 December 09

Given the apparently intense interest of Sweden's Aftonbladet in the subject of organ trafficking and Palestinians when it allegedly involved Israel, editor Jan Helin and culture editor Asa Linderborg have been strangely silent about an October 21, 2009 AFP story recounting the arrest and extradition of 11 Jordanians from Egypt to Amman for illegal organ activity related to impoverished Palestinians.

CAMERA sent a query to the editors on October 23, 2009 asking if the paper would be reporting the story, but received no answer. It's notable, indeed, that Aftonbladet seems unconcerned about a news story reporting a recent government study in Jordan found "of 130 cases in which kidneys were sold, nearly 80 percent of 'donors' were Palestinians from Baqaa in northwest Aman, the largest refugee camp in the country." Why no interest in the AFP account about lamentable treatment of vulnerable Palestinians?

Can it be the editors are not intrinsically interested in the plight of Palestinians and eager to report on their circumstances whenever and wherever they're victimized by anyone, whether Jordanians and Egyptians — or any other group? Is it possible Aftonbladet is only interested in Palestinians when Israel can be invoked, attacked and castigated, however absurd the charges?

Below is the October letter to Jan Helin urging coverage of the Jordan story:

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October 23, 2009

Dear Mr. Helin,

I write to bring your attention to an AFP story this week concerning organ trafficking in Jordan. Palestinians, it seems, are chief among those targeted. As the Oct 21 piece in the Kuwaiti Arab Times paper linked here notes [ed: the link to the Kuwaiti paper has been removed. The AFP original remains] :

According to a recent government study of 130 cases in which kidneys were sold, nearly 80 percent of 'donors' were Palestinians from Baqaa in northwest Amman, the largest refugee camp in the country.

We're wondering if you'll be covering this story — which is a current one, verifiable and not from 1992 as Donald Bostrom's was — about organ abuses. We assume, on the basis of Aftonbladet's August 17 story that the paper has a particular interest in organ trafficking issues, as well as the concerns of Palestinians in this regard.We look forward to your informing your readers about the trafficking reported here and the reference to Egypt, India and Pakistan as venues for harvesting organs from various vulnerable peoples.

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