Kidney for sale onlineAn Indonesian Chinese man has placed an advertisement to sell his kidney on a free local classified advertisement site, reports Lianhe Wanbao.
The notice was posted on Sgadsonline on Dec 31 last year indicating that he had a "healthy kidney for sale". The man claims he is more than 40 years old and has no history of major ailments. He also says he is doing this to raise funds for his daughters' education.
He asks interested buyers to call his Indonesian handphone number, but did not specify a price.
The advertisement expires at the end of January and has already garnered views from a few dozen netizens.
Lianhe Wanbao attempted to call the seller several times but could not reach him.
Is this legal?
Lawyers that Wanbao spoke to say that advertising to sell your kidney is illegal.
Mr Leonard Loo, an experienced lawyer, said that according to the Human Organ Transplant Act (HOTA), advertising to sell one's organs or blood is illegal.
Offenders can be fined $10,000 and/or jailed up to a year.
The advertisement can be a print advertisement, flyer, notice or any other form of broadcast.
The website will also be responsible for taking down this notice.
Making the same point was Lawyer Foo Cheow Ming, who said that as long as the content of the advertisement includes the buying or selling of a human organ, it is against the law.
In a recent high profile case, CK Tang chairman Tang Wee Sung was sentenced to one day in jail and fined a total of S$17,000 for trying to buy a kidney from a living donor. The middleman who brokered the organ sale was jailed 14 months.
http://health.asiaone.com/Health/News/Story/A1Story20090108-113317.html
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