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Dr Jereth Kok has spent the last half-decade barred from practising family medicine while awaiting a verdict on whether his memes and internet opinions were permissible under Australia’s medical regime.

Former Victorian GP Dr Jereth Kok, who was indefinitely suspended in 2019 for expressing Christian viewpoints online, will stand trial next month following a lengthy, five-year investigation into his memes and other social media posts.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) has scheduled Dr Kok’s trial date for a five-day period in late July, when legal and medical experts representing the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and the Victorian Medical Board will present their case against him.

Dr Jereth Kok, a family medical practitioner of 15 years, has spent the last half-decade barred from his profession while awaiting a verdict on whether his internet opinions were permissible under Australia’s medical regime.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Dr Kok is not a fit and proper person to practise medicine given his expressed belief in the biological difference between male and female, and his conscientious opposition to popular practices like sex change surgery, the killing of unborn children, and government use of lockdowns for a virus with an almost 100% survival rate for people under the age of 70.

Speaking with The Daily Declaration, Dr Jereth Kok explained, “Even though I’ve been forced out of medical practice, there are still thousands of Christian health practitioners in the Australian system. I fear that the decision the courts make about me will affect their ability to speak out in the future about destructive medical practices and sexual ideologies that contradict biblical truth.”

Australian GP Dr Jereth Kok had his medical license suspended in 2019 for posting memes and expressing Christian opinions on the internet.

After a half-decade investigation by Australia’s medical regime, Dr Kok’s trial date has finally been set for next month 🧵 pic.twitter.com/j4oHabRFhq

— Kurt Mahlburg (@k_mahlburg) June 25, 2024

‘Suddenly I Had No Job’

Dr Kok recently told the Human Rights Law Alliance (HRLA), which will be representing him in the case, that “the greatest difficulty at first was the sudden dislocation and uncertainty”.

“Suddenly I had no job, no income, and was cut off from my patients and workplace. I experienced tremendous grief on many occasions, thinking about my many patients who I’d gotten to know so well over so many years.”

The Victorian Medical Board originally used its emergency powers to suspend Dr Kok in the “public interest” while they pursued their investigation. With his trial date only recently confirmed, the indefinite freeze on his medical license over the intervening five years forced him to change vocations and retrain in order to support his wife and young family.

HRLA Solicitor Daniel Simon told The Daily Declaration that their firm “has identified Jereth’s as a vital case and has assembled a team of preeminent barristers and high-quality expert witnesses to assist Jereth in his defence”.

“Good doctors should not be removed from public practice because of their social media [activity],” Mr Simon affirmed.

Notably, the original complaints submitted to AHPRA came from anonymous tipsters, while none were received from the thousands of patients Dr Kok treated throughout his medical career.

As reported exclusively by The Daily Declaration in 2022, many of the social media posts in question were made in private forums or were shared with restricted privacy settings, suggesting that Dr Kok’s accusers had to search for the material or gain inside access to groups he had joined.

To date, AHPRA has not explained how their pursuit of social media posts not visible to the public is in the “public interest”.

When The Daily Declaration reached out to AHPRA about this matter and queried why Dr Kok’s social media posts have taken five years to investigate, they responded, “for privacy and security reasons, we are unable to release information” about the case.

A Shifting Consensus

In the years since the investigation against Dr Kok was launched, public opinion on child transgender treatments, Covid lockdowns and even same-sex marriage has begun to shift.

The WPATH Files scandal, followed by the UK’s recent Cass Review, has prompted calls across the Western world to halt the genital mutilation of children and the use of puberty blockers that are also used in the castration of sex offenders.

Denmark, Norway, France, Sweden, Finland, Italy, England, Chile and dozens of US states are among the jurisdictions where warnings have been sounded or legislation enacted to restrict the transing of children.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is likewise under growing pressure from medical groups to investigate the practice.

Covid lockdowns have also been in the spotlight in Australia with the release of three comprehensive reports documenting their harms. As previously reported by The Daily Declaration:

An independent review published in October 2022 found Australia’s response to Covid-19 to be excessive, particularly in regard to school closures, lockdowns and border closures. A separate cost-benefit analysis conducted by the Institute of Public Affairs found that 37 times more life-years were lost than were saved as a result of lockdowns, and that thus far, Australia’s Covid-19 response has cost almost $1 trillion. Another cost-benefit analysis, authored by UNSW economist Gigi Foster, found that the costs of Australia’s lockdowns have been at least 68 times greater than any benefits they delivered.

Additionally, last month Statista reported that “between 2021 and 2023, support for same-sex marriage declined in 14 out of 23 surveyed countries worldwide,” with significant drops seen especially in Canada, Germany and the United States.

How You Can Help

HRLA told The Daily Declaration that “a win in Jereth’s case will be a legacy win for medical practitioners and will establish a landmark precedent that will protect doctors from the risk of ideological policing of their speech by regulators”.

While HRLA will provide legal defence for Dr Jereth Kok on a heavily discounted basis, his court costs are still significant. A GiveSendGo fundraiser set up for Dr Kok’s case is still seeking $80,000 of a $210,000 target to cover his legal expenses.

According to the fundraising page, all money raised will be put into a legal trust account to fund the trial, while any leftover funds will be donated to the general work of HRLA.

Concerned members of the community have been encouraged to donate at this link.