‘Sanctioning perpetrators of forced organ harvesting is a moral imperative,’ a co-sponsor of the bill said.
The House of Representatives, by voice vote with no objections, passed a bill on May 5 aimed at ending Beijing’s persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong.
The bill, the Falun Gong Protection Act (HR 1540), passed with broad bipartisan support and includes provisions to sanction individuals implicated in the forced harvesting of organs of Falun Gong practitioners.
The sanctions would apply to a list of foreign nationals “who the President determines to have knowingly and directly engaged in or facilitated the involuntary harvesting of organs within the People’s Republic of China,” the bill states.
Sanction penalties include blocking an offender from entering the United States, invalidating the offender’s visa, and imposing criminal punishment of fines of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison, among others.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), lead sponsor of the Falun Gong Protection Act, said “there has to be some consequence to this barbaric and horrific behavior.”
“The United States should be a leader and show the world the way,” he told The Epoch Times. “We must do it and force the rest of the world to acknowledge it.”
Falun Gong, a spiritual practice involving meditative exercises and teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, has faced harsh repression in China since 1999. The Chinese regime views Falun Gong’s popularity as a threat and has subjected its 70 million to 100 million practitioners to arrests, prolonged jailing, forced labor, and various other kinds of torture.
The Falun Gong Protection Act directs the United States to work with allies and multilateral institutions to raise awareness about the persecution and coordinate targeted sanctions and visa restrictions with the international community.
It instructs the United States to make it a policy to avoid cooperating with China on transplantation while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in power.
The act also requires the heads of the State Department, Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health to submit a report within a year that details China’s organ transplant policies and practices.
The report is expected to include how the regime’s policies apply to Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience, as well as assess the annual transplant volume, time needed to obtain the organs, and the organ source. It is also expected to list the U.S. grants provided over the previous decade that have supported Chinese research in the organ transplantation field or in collaboration between a Chinese and U.S. entity.
The report would also make a determination on whether Beijing’s persecution of Falun Gong constitutes an “atrocity” under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.
“HR 1540 is a historic step forward—the first binding commitment by Congress to take decisive legal action against the persecution and forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners,” Perry said in a floor speech.
“This bill paves the way for accountability, sanctions, punishment and acknowledgement—acknowledgement of those complicit in these atrocities.”
Perry said an investigation will mean that the United States will no longer be looking away.
“We know that the numbers don’t add up,” he said. “Everything points to what they’re doing, but it’s been too easy for all countries, including the United States, to just turn a blind eye to what we’re pretty confident is happening—which is horrific.”
The bill “ends that,” he said.
“This says no more ignoring it, no more just letting it go while you continue to buy communist Chinese goods and services. No more of that.”
‘Moral Imperative’
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), a co-sponsor of the bill and member of the House Select Committee on the CCP, said he considers the legislation “particularly important, given the CCP’s horrific human rights record and ongoing treatment of Falun Gong and other religious minorities.”
“Sanctioning perpetrators of forced organ harvesting is a moral imperative,” Bilirakis told The Epoch Times. “In doing so, we can take a powerful stand against a horrific crime that violates the sanctity of life and human dignity.”
Bilirakis said he hopes that the bill will help to “change the CCP’s abhorrent behavior and offer greater protections to those who have been oppressed and so gravely abused.”
“By holding those responsible accountable, we not only protect the most vulnerable, but also affirm the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and the shared values of humanity,” he said.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), also a co-sponsor, said he is “proud to see such wide bipartisan support for this effort.”
“I’m doing everything in my power to hold organ traffickers accountable for their unspeakable crimes,” he told The Epoch Times.
“I will continue to speak out unwaveringly against the restriction of human rights and the persecution of religious groups, wherever they occur.”
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) said it is important to hold the regime accountable.
“The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, including torture and forced organ harvesting, is barbaric,” he told The Epoch Times. “The U.S. must not tolerate these atrocities.”
Other lawmakers similarly spoke with horror about how much suffering the regime has inflicted.
“For 25 years, the Chinese Communist Party has waged a brutal campaign against Falun Gong practitioners—marked by torture, imprisonment, murder, and the abhorrent practice of forced organ harvesting—all for peacefully exercising their religious beliefs,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) told The Epoch Times. “This is not only a staggering assault on religious freedom, but also one of the most pressing human rights crises of our time.”
The legislation, Gooden said, will “confront these atrocities head-on.”
“No faith group should be persecuted and treated as an organ bank for a totalitarian regime,” he said. “The United States must lead with moral clarity and stand firmly against the CCP’s crimes against humanity.”
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) called the human rights abuses targeting the faith group “horrific and truly evil.”
To co-sponsor and vote in support of the act, he told The Epoch Times, is to “stand up for religious freedom and human dignity,” which he said he is proud to do.
The bill is now heading to the Senate.
A Duty to Act
Shortly before the passage of the Falun Gong Protection Act, the House debated a related bill on forced organ harvesting abuse.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the primary sponsor of the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (HR 1503), said Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping and his regime must “bear culpability for one of the most horrifying human rights atrocities of our time—trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ harvesting and butchering and murdering them in the process.”
“Forced organ harvesting is murder masquerading as medicine,” he told The Epoch Times. “Just think what thoughts would be going through your head if you were a young Uyghur or Falun Gong practitioner strapped to a gurney, wheeled to a sterile killing chamber.
“Of all the unconscionable atrocities committed by the CCP, this has to be the vilest.”
The Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act has a broader scope to combat international organ trafficking. Its policy objectives include promoting voluntary organ donation systems with “effective enforcement mechanisms” in bilateral diplomatic talks and international health forums, as well as punishing responsible individuals—“including members of the Chinese Communist Party”—for the illicit act.
It would require U.S. authorities to assess, in each foreign country, “forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs,” a scenario that could involve coercion, abduction, deception, fraud, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, or using money to buy consent, according to the bill.
On the House floor, Smith cited Sir Geoffrey Nice, who conducted the world’s first independent legal analysis of the abuse in China. That analysis found that forced organ harvesting had taken place “throughout China on a significant scale.”
“These crimes against humanity are unimaginably cruel and painful; between two to six internal organs per victim are extracted,” Smith said.
He noted that such victims could include Uyghurs under the ongoing genocide in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region and Falun Gong practitioners, “whose peaceful meditation and exercise practices and exceptional good health make their organs highly desirable.”
Multiple colleagues rose to support Smith’s bill on the afternoon of May 5.
“This is a billion-dollar black market built on murder,” said Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It’s a direct assault on every principle of human dignity and decency.”
To the perpetrators in “this depraved industry,” he said, the bill sends a message: “We are coming after you.
“A human body is not a currency. It’s not a commodity. It’s never for sale.
“Forced organ harvesting is pure evil—if we don’t act, we will be considered complicit.”
Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-Md.) urged other lawmakers to join him in support of both bills.
“Shining a spotlight on these crimes and the people that perpetrate them, while advancing accountability, is essential,” he said in a speech.
He noted that the reporting requirement in the Falun Gong Protection Act will help Congress understand “the scope of these terrible abuses” and address them more effectively.
While the two bills passed the House during the last Congress, the Senate did not take action.
Perry and Smith have been speaking out for years about forced organ harvesting, and both have found it vexing how long it has taken for the measures to get through both chambers.
“In this same period of time, it’s unknown to us how many people have been affected by this forced organ harvesting program by the Communist Party of China,” Perry said. “We will probably never know that.
“This isn’t going to be the complete answer to it, but the United States has to speak loudly about this issue, and this is a step in that direction.”
It takes time to educate people about what is happening, he said. However, each time he brings up the bill, more of his colleagues become aware of the issue.
“Your first reaction is horror, that this is actually happening,” he said. “And then, your second reaction is, why isn’t somebody doing something about this? Like, how can this be? And so it becomes your duty, I think, at some point.”
Perry and Smith urged the Senate to take up the measure immediately.
“What are you waiting for?” Perry said. “What’s the reason for being against it? Is there some good reason? If you’re worried about the relations of America with the Communist Party of China, are you then telling everybody in the world you’re OK with them killing people and taking their organs out just because they can?”
If the Senate passes his bill, Perry said, he is confident President Donald Trump will sign it and “create the environment for the discussion that it’s worthy of.”
“He’s going to understand that forcibly taking a person’s organs out is unacceptable at any level,” he said. “There’s no possible explanation that can justify it.”