WASHINGTON—An estimated 1,500 people rallied near Washington’s National Mall on July 20 to call for an end to communist China’s brutal 24-year-long persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong.
At a rally held near the Capitol, U.S. rights advocates and experts voiced concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken its persecution well beyond its borders into the United States and other free societies.
“It is something that should strike concern, if not fear, in the heart of every single American and every single person living in a country where China has sought to repress, to spend to censor, to propagandize, to intimidate, to violently attack,” said Katrina Lantos Swett, president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice.
“We must recognize that if we don’t confront them if we don’t meet the challenge that they pose, they will continue to spread their tentacles and the threat that they pose far beyond the borders of China itself,” Ms. Swett said.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice composed of meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. By 1999, an estimated 70 million to 100 million people had taken up the practice in mainland China.
Abraham Cooper, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, expressed gratitude that U.S. authorities “are moving to charge and bring to justice those parties acting on behalf of the Chinese government to suppress the Falun Gong and other Chinese dissidents.”
The commission will continue to urge the U.S. government to “take more consequential actions to hold the Chinese government and its agents accountable for religious freedom abuses in China and here in the United States,” Mr. Cooper said.
Forced Organ Harvesting
Andrew Bremberg, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and current president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, especially condemned the Chinese regime’s killing of detained Falun Gong believers for their organs.“The grotesque practice of forced organ harvesting is one of the CCP’s most abhorrent acts of oppression,” Mr. Bremberg said at the rally.
He credited the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation for taking “a hugely important step” last year to ban Chinese transplant data or papers from its publications, and called on other medical institutions to follow suit.
“After 24 years of constant continual persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese Communist Party, it is important for Americans and people from free countries all around the world to know about and then take action to demand that the Chinese Communist Party stop its heinous human rights abuses,” he told The Epoch Times after the rally.
“At any time, human rights are violated anywhere we need to speak out, and demand that people take action.”
And even though U.S. institutions breaking off their relationships with Chinese hospitals might not end the practice, “it'll stop our complicity with those activities, and that’s the important step that Americans need to demand gets taken,” he said.
Piero Tozzi, a senior adviser to Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), shared a statement from the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional–Executive Commission on China (CECC).
“For the past 24 years, Falun Gong practitioners have suffered the most appalling human rights abuses imaginable, abuses that are ongoing. Falun Gong prisoners must be released and PRC officials held accountable for their crimes,” he said on behalf of CECC and Mr. Smith, who chairs the committee.
The bill would sanction anyone involved in forced organ harvesting and require annual government reporting on such activities taking place in foreign countries. Sanctions include a criminal penalty of up to 20 years in prison. The bill is currently awaiting markup with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Tozzi recommended people urge their senators to get the measure passed.
He noted that the CECC and Mr. Smith are now making targeted inquiries to U.S. companies to ask them to ensure that their technology isn’t implicated in the forced organ harvesting in China.
“They must make sure that their technology is not used for pernicious purposes,” he said.
Call to Recognize a Genocide
Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Hudson Institute, was recognized with an award from the advocacy group Friends of Falun Gong for her work in defending the faith group.“Transnational repression by the Chinese Communist Party on American soil that curtails the rights of religious freedom and freedom of speech for American citizens and American residents: this must stop,” Ms. Shea said at the rally.
Ms. Shea, holding a golden statue of a goddess bearing a trumpet and a lotus flower—a popular Chinese symbol of purity—said the award motivates her to want to do a lot more.
“This repression here, genocide there—it’s one of the world’s worst situations in terms of human rights,” she told The Epoch Times. “China is the biggest threat to religious freedom and free speech in the world today.”
“There is, and was a genocide 20 years ago. It needs to be recognized,” she said.
Darren Spinck, an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, echoed Ms. Shea’s sentiments. He said that it “was often convenient for U.S. officials to ignore what was happening to Falun Gong practitioners.”
“A lot of the persecution was taking place out of sight in China but now the problem has actually reached the shores of the United States,” he told The Epoch Times, noting the recent prosecutions involving the New York Chinese police station and alleged tax bribery.
“It is a direct threat to our constitutional rights of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly,” as well as a demonstration of the CCP’s ambition to supplant the U.S.-led value system embraced in large parts of the world, he said.
Mr. Spinck urged the U.S. government to restrict outbound investments to China. “U.S. funds cannot be allowed to fuel the CCP and its authoritarian policies toward religion.”
Bearing Witness
After the rally, about 1,500 Falun Gong adherents marched down Pennsylvania Avenue holding banners and signs highlighting the persecution and calling for action.Among the participants was 83-year-old An Rongfen, a Falun Gong adherent who traveled from Canada to participate in the event. Ahead of the march, she recalled her escape from China to Toronto nearly two decades ago.
Originally from Beijing, Ms. An was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in a labor camp after police broke into her home in the middle of the night.
While detained, she thought she might be able to survive the cruel conditions. In exchange for food, guards would force detained adherents to utter insults against their faith. She was deprived of sleep and forced to make large quantities of products such as disposable chopsticks, candles, pet apparel, and sweaters for export—often until 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. If just one person failed to reach her quota, the entire prison unit wouldn’t be allowed to sleep.
Even now, seeing those products in shops makes her want to cry, Ms. An said, pausing a moment to compose herself.
“You weren’t living like a human being,” she told The Epoch Times.
After going through that, “no hardship feels like suffering anymore,” she said.
She pointed to her right leg, where a dimple is visible. Her time at the labor camp caused her to suffer heart problems and high blood pressure. Afterward, her legs would often swell, and even light pressure by her hands would cause pits to appear in them.
What she’s been through shows the evil of the CCP, Ms. An said. And in attending the event, the survivor wants the world to “wake up” to the true nature of the regime.
This is Zhang Hongru’s second year attending the July 20 rally in Washington since joining her daughter in Dallas in 2021. Ms. Zhang said she was looking forward to the march, which always brings her to tears.
Before she escaped China, the former accountant was sentenced to three years in Jinan Women’s Prison for hanging up a poster about the persecution of Falun Gong in her hometown of Qingdao, a port city in China’s eastern Shandong Province, in May 2016. Ms. Zhang said she was humiliated and subjected to brainwashing every day there.
Coming to the United States was like night and day.
“The difference is so drastic. Falun Gong practitioners don’t have a voice in China. People could be sentenced to jail for just unfolding a banner,” she told The Epoch Times before the rally.
“Here, we can hold a banner and walk in a march with dignity. And the police are there to keep order. I feel very honored and happy.”
The difference reminds her even more of the lack of freedom of her fellow adherents in China.
Strength and Courage
Advocates and experts commended the persistent effort by Falun Gong believers in China who risk persecution themselves to raise awareness about the CCP’s crimes.“Believers have responded to CCP persecution with tenacity, nonviolence, and creativity,” said Sarah Cook, senior adviser at Freedom House. “And they have helped secure the release of detainees and saved lives.”
The faith group has been “one of the strongest communities speaking out on the extreme levels of persecution,” the details of which “people find very difficult to believe,” Sean Nelson, legal counsel for global religious freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Epoch Times.
Around the world, a shift has begun in people’s perceptions of the Chinese communist regime, Mr. Nelson said, noting that the spy balloon that transited through the U.S. airspace earlier this year has “really hit a lot of people in America who were not aware of just how far the Chinese Communist Party ... was interested in stopping anybody who speaks out against it.”
Faith McDonnell, director of advocacy at Katartismos Global, like other speakers at the rally, shared her admiration of the spirit of Falun Gong adherents.
“Your strength and courage is making an impact. Courage is contagious, and light dispels darkness,” she said.
Wendy Wright, president of Christian Freedom International, first came to know Falun Gong at another July 20 rally held on the National Mall 20 years ago, she told attendees.
She said she was able to rescue a group of underground church Christians from China recently, partly thanks to Falun Gong adherents’ efforts in exposing the CCP’s atrocities. Because of the increased awareness, lawmakers, U.S. officials, and average American citizens lent a hand.
“The reason why they know, why we all know, is in part because of what the Falun Gong is doing by exposing the atrocities of the Chinese communists. Your efforts are making a huge difference,” Ms. Wright said.
“Your gentle, persistent witness is critical to opposing the evil of the Chinese Communist Party. You are pricking the consciences of people.”
