“The killing of religious or political prisoners for the purpose of selling their organs for transplant is an egregious and intolerable violation of the fundamental right to life,” the resolution, passed on March 3, stated.
“When you harm people anywhere, it harms all of us. Anywhere someone is harmed, humanity as a whole is harmed,” Phyllis J. Randall, chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, said in an interview.
Because Dulles International Airport, located in the county, is a source of flights to and from China, it “presents a real opportunity for the unethical practices to occur in this area,” Randall said.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that originated in China. It consists of meditative exercises and spiritual teachings based on the principle of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
“This shouldn’t happen to the Falun Gong people, this shouldn’t happen to anybody, even if somebody was in one of our prisons. And even if they were guilty of whatever they were in there for,” Randall said. “This is murder.”
Tiny Tang, a Virginia resident and Falun Gong practitioner, said she was very grateful for the resolution.
“The practice of forced organ harvesting in China has been underreported in the U.S. media, and the Chinese Communist Party has been working tirelessly to hide the situation from the rest of the world,” she said.
Yang said that Falun Gong practitioners who fled to Virginia from China told her they had been forced to work in labor camps for up to 20 hours a day. They also said that most of the products they made were shipped to the United States.
Randall expressed hope the resolution could help in ending the “horrible practice” of organ harvesting.
“That’s not the proper way to treat other humans,” she said. “It’s a test for the international community.”
“If we stop it one day sooner, it’s worth it.”
