US Puts Attention on Forced Organ Harvesting

Falun Dafa parade in Manhattan, New York City, on May 16, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The House passage of the bipartisan Falun Gong Protection Act marks new U.S. attention on a human rights abuse that many lawmakers have described as barbaric: Beijing’s state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting.

It was the first-ever such bill to directly address the abuse directed at practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation practice centered on the principles, truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the principal sponsor of the bill, said it’s the “first binding commitment by Congress to take strong legal action against the persecution and forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong, making Falun Gong the centerpiece of legislation—an action long overdue after 25 years.”

The bill calls for an “immediate end” to the 25-year long persecution of Falun Gong, while also providing sanction tools for the United States.

The president, under the act, would need to compile a list of foreign individuals deemed to have “knowingly and directly engaged in or facilitated the involuntary harvesting of organs” within China.

Anyone on the sanctions list would be unable to enter the United States or engage in U.S.-based transactions and would have their current visas revoked. The bill also carries a civil penalty of up to $250,000 and a criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison for offenders.

It would also require U.S. officials to determine whether the persecution of Falun Gong constitutes an “atrocity” under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.

The State Department, when asked about the act, called on the Chinese Communist Party to end the “depraved” practice.

“Researchers, activists, and organizations continue to compile information that could implicate PRC authorities in harvesting organs from nonvoluntary donors, including prisoners of conscience and members of minority groups such as Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghur Muslims,” a State Department spokesperson, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China, told The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet NTD.

“If these allegations are corroborated, they would be a blatant abuse of human rights and an egregiously unethical medical practice.”

The spokesperson said Beijing “should allow for independent and transparent investigations into the country’s organ transplantation system and should welcome independent observers to investigate the veracity of these reports.”

David Matas, a human rights lawyer who has investigated the issue, in June estimated Beijing may be getting as much as $9 billion a year from the abuse.

The Epoch Times first broke the story on forced organ harvesting in 2006. Since there, more evidence have continued to come out regarding the abuse—and the effort of the CCP to cover it up.

Multiple recent U.S. reports have highlighted the forced organ harvesting issue.

The State Department’s annual religious freedom report cited accounts of multiple Falun Gong practitioners to Minghui, a U.S.-based site documenting the persecution, saying the authorities forced them into medical examinations while in detention and took blood samples.

The human trafficking report also noted that Beijing “has been accused of systematically forcibly removing organs from political prisoners,” and quoted a statement fro the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights expressing alarm of the abuse targeting “specific ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities held in detention.”

Chen Shih-min, a political science professor at the National Taiwan University, said the bill is “justice late in coming.”

“Because of the silence, the CCP thinks there’s no consequence, so it can keep doing this,” he told The Epoch Times.

A human rights lawyer in China who asked for anonymity also sees the bill as a message.

For those who are clear-eyed within the Party system, it’s all the more reason they “stay away from the evil deed,” he told The Epoch Times. And for those who aren’t, it’s also a deterrent.”