Joint NGO Letter to US Senators to Support the Falun Gong Protection Act

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Dear Senator,

The undersigned civil society groups, religious freedom advocates, and human rights organizations urge you to act on S.4914, the Falun Gong Protection Act, which passed in the House (H.R.4132) with unanimous support this June.

S.4914 is a critical piece of legislation that specifically addresses forced organ harvesting crimes committed against Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience. The legislation would require the President to create an annual report on China’s organ transplant system and maintain a list of foreign persons that the President determines to be involved in the involuntary harvesting of organs within China and limit access to visas, passports, and financial transactions for such persons within the United States.

S.4914 is unique and essential because it specifically addresses China and ensures that effective annual reporting on the full scope of China’s organ transplant activities takes place, with all victim groups included in the reporting process.

Organ trafficking is a human rights abuse that occurs around the globe. For decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically harvested the organs of prisoners of conscience. The victims have been primarily Falun Gong practitioners (a spiritual qigong practice in the Buddhist tradition), though mounting evidence today shows that Uyghurs are also now killed for organs. Since 2015, China’s organ transplantation system has claimed to only source organs from voluntary donors, but evidence demonstrates that this data has been falsified and that claimed legal changes to ban the use of prisoners’ organs have not taken place. A close examination shows that Chinese hospitals have performed at least several times more transplants than even the largest estimates of death row prisoners can account for.

The China Tribunal, an independent, international people’s tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, concluded “unanimously, and [with surety] beyond reasonable doubt – that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.” The China Tribunal’s judgment presents the first-ever independent legal analysis of all available evidence regarding forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China. After reviewing multiple lines of evidence over twelve months and conducting public hearings, the China Tribunal concluded that state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China amounts to crimes against humanity.

In 2021, a joint correspondence issued by nine UN Special Rapporteurs called on China to “promptly respond to the allegations of ‘organ harvesting’ and to allow independent monitoring by international human rights mechanisms.” In 2022, the European Parliament passed a resolution on reports of continued organ harvesting in China and laws have been passed in the UK and Canada. The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) introduced a policy banning surgeons from China from presenting at ISLHT conferences and publishing in their journal. In addition, international law firm Global Rights Compliance published a legal advisory report and policy guidance that outlines the complicity risks of interacting with China in relation to organ transplantation medicine, research and training.

We urge you to support the Falun Gong Protection Act so the Senate can join the House in sending a clear message to China and the world that the United States is combating the heinous practice of forced organ harvesting and ensuring that U.S.-based businesses, universities, hospitals, and citizens are not unknowingly entangled in these unethical and criminal activities.

Thank you for your leadership and for swiftly considering this important legislation.

Respectfully,

Susie Hughes
Executive Director, International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC)

Dr. Bob Fu
Founder and President, China Aid

Dr. Jianli Yang
Founder and President, Citizen Power Initiatives for China

Thierry Valle
President, Coordination des Associations et des Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience

Dr. Gregory H Stanton
Founding President, Genocide Watch

Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett
President, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice

Honorable Irwin Cotler
Founder and International Chair, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

Dr. Eric Patterson
President and CEO, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Dolkun Isa
President, World Uyghur Congress

Dr. Ellen Kennedy, Ph.D.
Executive Director, World Without Genocide

Alan Adler
Executive Director, Friends of Falun Gong

Eleonora Mongelli
Vice President, Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU)

Hena Zuberi
Director of Advocacy, Justice For All

Jasna Causevic
Consultant for Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect, Society for Threatened Peoples (STP)

Omer Kanat
Executive Director, Uyghur Human Rights Project

Y Phic Hdok
Co-founder, Montagnards Stand for Justice (MSFJ)