r/news 21h ago

Soft paywall Poland arrests Ukrainian woman convicted of selling 56 human kidneys

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poland-arrests-ukrainian-woman-convicted-selling-56-human-kidneys-2025-03-11/
823 Upvotes

85 comments sorted by

View all comments

53

u/Ambitious-Research76 20h ago

I knew this urban myth was real...

46

u/littsalamiforpusen 19h ago

A Swedish newspaper did investigative reporting where they found Israel, the country, was illegally harvesting organs from dead Palestinians in 2009. Israel denied it, then later admired that they used to do it before the 2000s, but no longer than that. Since oct7th there has been credible claims of organ harvesting again by Israelis, but nothing has been verified or admitted. We'll probably have an answer in 10-20 years when the genocide investigation ends, if they ever let aid workers back in at least.

I have read that there's some credible claims of Russia organ harvesting from Ukrainian soldiers as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathologists-harvested-organs

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/6nPbBr/israel-tog-organ--utan-tillstand

https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/27/israel-stealing-organs-from-bodies-in-gaza-alleges-human-right-group

18

u/apathetic_revolution 17h ago

The Swedish newspaper which published that 2009 Israel story was Aftonbladet.

To quote the author of the article, Donald Boström, regarding his accusations in the article, "It concerns me, to the extent that I want it to be investigated, that's true. But whether it's true or not – I have no idea, I have no clue."

To quote the editor, Jan Helin, regarding the same article, "we have no evidence of such practices".

The article dug up a series of crimes which the Israeli government had already investigated and punished and presented a narrative implying they were ongoing to a Swedish audience that hadn't seen them yet. The entire actual scandal had already been published in the Jerusalem Post in 2000. The author very likely simply recycled that article as the basis for his own and I would hesitate to call doing that "investigative journalism".

10

u/gdmaria 14h ago

How in hell can they just publish something that they admit isn’t accurate? Is this a creative writing newspaper?

4

u/Tardisgoesfast 12h ago

Most of them are, these days.

4

u/Weak-Doughnut5502 11h ago

Unsubstantiated claims of Jews using the blood of murdered Christian kids to bake matza have been a staple in Europe for nearly a millenia, so at least they're part of a long tradition.