"Bodies" expo closed in Caracas

[dllavaneras]

Original story (in spanish).

Translation:

The Seniat superintendent, José David Cabello, informed that the tributary entity temporarily closed the Bodies expo at the Sambil Mall. He explained that the necessary samples will be taken for analysis and to take the appropriate penal actions, on account of displaying human parts.

"We decided that a multidisciplinary team, the CICPC and the Seniat will truly determine what exactly this expo is about. Its assumed that they're human parts processed using a special technique where the polymer is extracted. They're corpses that are found on site, this will be determined by the forensic analysis and clashes with the advertising being made for the expo", he explained.

He said that the necessary samples for a complete analysis of the copses will be made and, depending on the results, the pertinent actions will be taken.

The Bodies expo has been shown in several countries, showing a group of 13 corpses and about 250 human body parts.

"Under what conditions are they carrying these corpses. We have our laws, we don't know how they presented in in other parts [of the world]. The law establishes that if a piece has to be extracted for the corresponding analysis, it shall be done", Cabello said.

(The translation is my own, and any mistakes are my own fault. The original article does have a few grammatical and structure errors, though.)

CICPC = A police force (Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Core)
Seniat = The Venezuelan equivalent of the IRS

Bodies Expo site link
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Really, what the heck? Closing the expo because they display corpses? That's the whole point!

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

Interesting. I guess they've received a lot of criticism because the suppliers of the parts/bodies (mostly based in China) have sketchy ways to get the parts and some people think that they may be from political prisoners/opposers. I have no clue but I know that has been a reputation the Bodies exhibits have received from some of the groups in the States.

 

[dllavaneras]

If that's the case, then why let them ship the expo 6,000 miles in the first place? If they had a problem with it, then a simple "No, we won't let you show it" would have sufficed.

 

[NT1440]

If that's the case, then why let them ship the expo 6,000 miles in the first place? If they had a problem with it, then a simple "No, we won't let you show it" would have sufficed.

Sometimes it seems that countries just WANT to waste their money after the fact.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

I think some countries/regions/people/organizations have different opinions as to what's acceptable. Maybe they were debating it and decided that they didn't want it after they saw exactly what they were displaying.

If you read the Criticism section in the link you'll see that it's been widely debated and closed in different places but not in others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BODIES..._The_Exhibition

 

[erickkoch]

I saw one of the Bodies exibits in Vegas a few years back. Awsome.

I wondered why they looked "Asian" then read where the bodies came from.
A Chinese coworker of mine said that they probably would not have volunteered to have their bodies displayed like that because it goes against their culture. She suspected they were most likely vagrants whose relatives would not claim the bodies to avoid paying medical bills. I seem to racal there was some questions as to the ethics used to obtain the bodies.