Dozens of Doctors From US and Brazil Declare Support for Falun Gong Protection Act

Thirty-four doctors in the U.S. and Brazil signed a declaration supporting the Falun Gong Protection Act in São Paulo, Brazil, on Sept. 8, 2024, amid the third edition of the "Doctors for Life" conference. Pedro Dalvi/The Epoch Times

Thirty-four physicians from the United States and Brazil recently signed a declaration in favor of the U.S. Falun Gong Protection Act.

That bill, currently in the U.S. Senate after a companion bill already passed a House vote in June, aims to impose sanctions on individuals involved in the Chinese Communist Party’s brutal practice of harvesting organs from detained Falun Gong practitioners in China.

The international doctors’ declaration came during the third annual World Medical Congress for Life in Brazil’s capital city of São Paulo. The event, which took place from Sept. 6 to Sept. 8, was held in partnership with the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. It was attended by doctors, health professionals, and journalists.

The Falun Gong Protection Act would make it U.S. policy to avoid cooperation with China in the organ transplantation field.

If passed, the law would apply nationwide, and foreigners who participate in the involuntary extraction of organs in China would be barred from entering the United States and prohibited from carrying out transactions in the United States. Any visas they hold would be invalidated.

The measure also provides for a civil penalty of up to $250,000 and a criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison for perpetrators.

The declaration signed in São Paulo reads:

“GIVEN that:

“Falun Gong has been brutally persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 20, 1999;

“Falun Gong practices the values of ‘truthfulness, compassion and tolerance’, is a peaceful practice, and the massive repression of adherents inside and outside China is unjustified;

“The evidence of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China is complete, credible and remains unrefuted;

“Third parties can and should act according to their abilities to stop the crimes hereby described;

“The Falun Gong Protection Act is a worthy initiative in this regard;

“Those who sign this document RESOLVE to support the approval of the Falun Gong Protection Act in the US Congress and support similar legislative initiatives, as seen in the European Parliament, the UK Parliament, and state legislatures in the United States.”

Practitioners of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, have been brutally persecuted in China since 1999. They have been arrested, imprisoned, killed, and become the target of forced extraction of their organs for profit by the Chinese Communist Party.

The crime has been documented in investigative works, including “Bloody Harvest” by lawyers David Kilgour and David Matas and “The Slaughter” by Ethan Gutmann.

In 2019, an independent tribunal in London concluded after reviewing evidence that forced organ harvesting had been taking place in China on a significant scale, with Falun Gong practitioners as the main targets.

Legislatures in Europe, the UK, and the United States have previously condemned the practice of forced organ harvesting from religious minorities in China.

Marcos Schotgues contributed to this article.