The House, by voice vote with no objections, passed a bill on May 5 aimed at ending Beijing’s persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong.
The bill, the Falun Gong Protection Act (H.R.1540), passed with broad bipartisan support and includes provisions to sanction individuals implicated in the forced harvesting of organs of Falun Gong practitioners.
The sanctions would draw from a list of foreign nationals that the president would supply to the relevant congressional committee within 180 days of the bill’s enactment into the law. The prescribed penalties include a civil fine of $250,000 along with criminal punishment of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison.
The sanctions would block an offender from entering the United States, invalidate their visa, and stop any immigration benefits the individual might otherwise enjoy.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), lead sponsor of the Falun Gong Protection Act, said he considers the issue as one in which “we can all be in agreement,” even in a divided political world.
“It’s incredibly important there has to be some consequence to this barbaric and horrific behavior,” Perry told The Epoch Times. “The United States should be a leader and show the world the way. We must do it and force the rest of the world to acknowledge it.”
Falun Gong, a spiritual practice involving meditative exercises and teachings based on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, has faced harsh repression in China since 1999. The Chinese regime viewed Falun Gong’s popularity as a threat and subjected its 70 million to 100 million practitioners to arrests, prolonged jailing, forced labor, and various other kinds of torture.
The Falun Gong Protection Act directs the United States to work with allies and multilateral institutions to raise awareness about the persecution and coordinate targeted sanctions and visa restrictions with the international community.
It further instructs the United States to make it a policy to avoid cooperating with China on transplantation while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in power.
The Act requires the heads of the Department of State, Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health to submit a report within a year, detailing China’s organ transplant policies and practices.
The report is expected to include how the regime’s policies apply to Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience, as well as assess the annual transplant volume, time needed to obtain the organs, and the organ source. It is also expected to list the U.S. grants provided over the previous decade that have supported Chinese research in the organ transplantation field or in collaboration between a Chinese and U.S. entity.
The required report would also need to include “a determination as to whether the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners” in China constitutes an “atrocity” under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.
‘Moral Imperative’
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), a cosponsor of the bill and member of the House Select Committee on the CCP, said that he considers the legislation “particularly important, given the CCP’s horrific human rights record and ongoing treatment of Falun Gong and other religious minorities.”
“Sanctioning perpetrators of forced organ harvesting is a moral imperative,” Bilirakis told The Epoch Times. “In doing so, we can take a powerful stand against a horrific crime that violates the sanctity of life and human dignity.”
Bilirakis said he hopes the bill will help to “change the CCP’s abhorrent behavior and offer greater protections to those who have been oppressed and so gravely abused.”
“By holding those responsible accountable, we not only protect the most vulnerable but also affirm the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and the shared values of humanity,” he said.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), also a cosponsor, said he’s “proud to see such wide bipartisan support for this effort.”
“I’m doing everything in my power to hold organ traffickers accountable for their unspeakable crimes,” he told The Epoch Times.
“I will continue to speak out unwaveringly against the restriction of human rights and the persecution of religious groups, wherever they occur.”
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) said it’s important to hold the regime accountable.
“The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, including torture and forced organ harvesting, is barbaric,” he told The Epoch Times. “The U.S. must not tolerate these atrocities.”
The bill is now heading to the Senate.
A Duty to Act
Shortly before the passage of the Falun Gong Protection Act, the House debated a related bill on forced organ harvesting abuse.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the primary sponsor of the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (H.R.1503), said the Chinese communist leader and his regime must “bear culpability for one of the most horrifying human rights atrocities of our time—trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ harvesting and butchering and murdering them in the process.”
“Forced organ harvesting is murder masquerading as medicine,” he told The Epoch Times. “Just think what thoughts would be going through your head if you were a young Uyghur or Falun Gong practitioner strapped to a gurney, wheeled to a sterile killing chamber of death. Of all the unconscionable atrocities committed by the CCP, this has to be the vilest.”
The Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act has a broader scope to combat international organ trafficking. Its policy objectives include promoting voluntary organ donation systems with “effective enforcement mechanisms” in bilateral diplomatic talks and international health forums, as well as to punish responsible individuals, “including members of the Chinese Communist Party,” for the illicit act.
It would require U.S. authorities to assess, in each foreign country, “forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs,” a scenario that could involve coercion, abduction, deception, fraud, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, and using money to buy consent, according to the bill.
On the House floor, Smith cited Sir Geoffrey Nice, who conducted the world’s first independent legal analysis on the abuse in China and found forced organ harvesting to have taken place “throughout China on a significant scale.”
“These crimes against humanity are unimaginably cruel and painful; between two to six internal organs per victim are extracted,” Smith said, noting that such victims could include Uyghurs under the ongoing genocide in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region and Falun Gong practitioners, “whose peaceful meditation and exercise practices and exceptional good health make their organs highly desirable.”
Multiple colleagues rose to support Smith’s bill on Monday afternoon.
“This is a billion dollar black market built on murder,” Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “It’s a direct assault on every principle of human dignity and decency.”
To the perpetrators in “this depraved industry,” he said, the bill sends a message: “We are coming after you.”
“A human body is not a currency. It’s not a commodity. It’s never for sale,” he later added.
“Forced organ harvesting is pure evil—if we don’t act, we will be considered complicit.”
Rep. Johnny Olszenwski (D-Md.) urged other lawmakers to join him in support of both bills.
“Shining a spotlight on these crimes and the people that perpetrate them, while advancing accountability, is essential,” he said in a speech.
He added that the reporting requirement in the Falun Gong Protection Act will help Congress understand “the scope of these terrible abuses” and address them more effectively.
While the two bills passed the House during the last Congress, the Senate didn’t take action.
Perry and Smith have been speaking out for years about forced organ harvesting, and both have found it vexing how long it has taken for the measures to get through both chambers.
“In this same period of time, it’s unknown to us how many people have been affected by this forced organ harvesting program by the Communist Party of China. We will probably never know that,” Perry said.
“This isn’t going to be the complete answer to it, but the United States has to speak loudly about this issue, and this is a step in that direction.”
It takes time to educate people about what’s happening, he said.
However, each time he brings up the bill, some more colleagues become aware of the issue.
“Your first reaction is horror, that this is actually happening. And then, your second reaction is, why isn’t somebody doing something about this? Like, how can this be? And so, it becomes your duty, I think, at some point,” he said.
