Activists Highlight Persecution in China During CCP Leader’s Trip to Europe

French Sen. Olivier Cadic (L), member of the French Parliament Constance Le Grip (R), and Ding Lebin (2nd R) pose for a photo after a press conference in Senate House at the Luxembourg Palace, in Paris, on May 6, 2024. David Vives/NTD

Activists and rights groups highlighted the Chinese regime’s systemic forced organ harvesting as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping began his first European trip in five years.

More than a dozen rights advocacy groups called for the protection of European citizens and institutions “from complicity in aiding and abetting forced organ harvesting,” in a letter addressed to Josep Borrell, the bloc’s top diplomat, ahead of Xi’s visit.

Activists requested that European leaders introduce legislation on “mandatory reporting by health professionals for extra-territorial organ transplantations, with subsequent public transparency about transplant tourism volumes outside the EU by country visited.”

In China, the waiting time for the transplant of a vital organ can be as short as a few weeks, something unheard of in countries relying on a voluntary donation system. The short waiting time has attracted people worldwide to travel to China for life-saving operations.

An independent people’s tribunal in London concluded in 2019 that the Chinese regime had been killing prisoners of conscience “on a significant scale” to supply its transplant market. The main victims, according to the tribunal’s findings, are detained adherents of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that’s been the target of brutal persecution by the CCP since 1999.

Europe “risks being complicit in aiding and abetting forced organ harvesting” if they continue to support medical institutions and professionals engaging with their Chinese counterparts in the organ transplant sector, the activists said in the letter.

The letter, first made public on May 6, came as Xi began his week-long European tour. His first stop is France, where French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen held three-way talks with him at the Elysee Palace in Paris on May 7.

CCP ‘Very Afraid’ of International Attention

Rights groups and activists, meanwhile, held rallies in Paris, calling on French and European leaders to bring up the CCP’s human rights abuses against ethnic minorities, adherents of religions and spiritual practices, and journalists during their engagement with the Chinese side.

Among them was Ding Lebin, a Chinese rights advocate, who urged the French President to raise the plight of his father, who is serving a three-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is a traditional spiritual discipline involving meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

The practice gained significant popularity in the 1990s, with an estimated 100 million Chinese adopting it over six years, surpassing the CCP’s membership at the time. Viewing this as a threat to its control, then-leader of the CCP Jiang Zemin initiated a brutal persecution against the practice and its practitioners in July 1999.

Mr. Ding said there was no legal basis for the persecution of Falun Gong and of his father, in a petition letter addressed to President Macron.

He pointed to a resolution adopted by the European Parliament in January that condemned the CCP’s ongoing persecution of the group. It stated that his father and other Falun Gong adherents should be released unconditionally and the persecution ended.

Over the past 25 years, millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been thrown into forced labor camps, brainwashing centers, and jails across China, where they have been subjected to torture and abuse in an attempt to force them to renounce their beliefs. A large yet undetermined number of adherents are believed to have been tortured to death or killed for their organs.

Falun Gong practitioner Ding Lebin holds a sign appealing for global attention to the persecution to his family in China over their spiritual practice, beside the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, on May 6, 2024. David Vives/NTD

Speaking at a press conference later on May 6, Mr. Ding called the European resolution “good protection” for his parents in communist China, “because the CCP is very afraid of some kinds of international attention.”

He also expressed concerns about the regime’s extensive efforts to silence its targets abroad, saying Chinese agents targeted him during his international campaign to free his father.

Mr. Ding asked lawmakers at the briefing how the French government would combat the CCP’s transnational repression against Falun Gong practitioners in France.

In response, Constance Le Grip, a member of the French Parliament with President Macron’s Renaissance party, said they would examine the possibility of adopting a resolution defending the freedom of belief, speech, and expression, which she described as “a very, very important topic.”