Falun Gong advocates say legislation passed by the U.S. Senate could mark a significant change in Washington’s response to allegations of forced organ harvesting in China, moving from congressional condemnation toward government investigation, accountability, and targeted sanctions.
On Sept. 28, the Senate passed the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act (S.4009). The measure would require sanctions against foreign individuals determined to have knowingly and directly participated in or facilitated forced organ harvesting in China and mandate a U.S. government assessment of the country’s transplant system.
Because the Senate text differs from legislation previously approved by the House, further congressional action is required before the measure can become law.
RELATED: Surviving the Unspeakable: One Man’s Fight Against CCP-Sanctioned Organ Harvesting
From resolutions to sanctions
Wang Zhiyuan, head of the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, said the bill differs substantially from previous congressional actions addressing the persecution.
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Past resolutions, he said, largely expressed condemnation and called for investigations. S.4009, by contrast, would require the president to identify foreign individuals found to have directly participated in or facilitated forced organ harvesting and subject them to measures including asset blocking and restrictions on entry into the United States. “This marks a move from moral condemnation to investigation, naming names and actual sanctions,” Wang said.
The bill defines forced organ harvesting as removing organs through coercion, abduction, deception, fraud, abuse of power, or exploitation of vulnerability. It would also require the State Department, working with health and intelligence agencies, to assess China’s transplant system and determine whether systematic forced organ harvesting has occurred and, if so, whether it constitutes an atrocity under U.S. law.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice rooted in the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Despite being peaceful in nature, the CCP launched a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice in July 1999 after seeing its rapid rise in popularity as a threat to its authoritarian regime. Since then, thousands of practitioners have perished at the hands of Chinese police, with many today still undergoing routine monitoring, arbitrary travel bans, and arrests.
‘An evil never before seen by humanity’
Wang described forced organ harvesting as “an evil never before seen by humanity,” adding, “Never has a regime so systematically and for so long turned living people into a bank of organs for sale,” he said. “This is not ordinary political persecution. It is a challenge to human conscience, law and civilization.”
Wang’s organization says it has accumulated hundreds of investigative reports, recorded telephone calls, and other materials over two decades, including calls it says involved Chinese medical and political officials. He argued that the rapid growth of China’s transplant industry after 2000 warrants greater scrutiny because it occurred before the country had developed a mature voluntary donation system.
He said bringing U.S. government investigative resources to bear could make a substantial difference because private investigators have limited ability to obtain records or compel cooperation.
Two decades of investigations
Falun Dafa Information Center spokesperson Zhang Erping traced the allegations to 2006, when witnesses publicly accused Chinese hospitals of harvesting organs from detained Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience.
Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas and former Canadian cabinet minister David Kilgour also conducted an independent investigation and published findings alleging that large-scale organ harvesting had occurred in China.
The issue received further international attention in 2019, when the independent China Tribunal, chaired by British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice, concluded after public hearings that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China “for years” on a significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners had been “one, and probably the main, source of organ supply.”
The tribunal also found evidence sufficient to establish crimes against humanity, while saying it could not conclude that the specific intent required to legally prove genocide had been established. The tribunal had no formal judicial authority, but its hearings included testimony from more than 50 witnesses, experts and investigators.
Increased government oversight
Zhang said the importance of S.4009 lies partly in moving the question into formal U.S. government channels. Under the Senate-passed text, federal agencies would be required to examine transplant numbers, sources of organs, waiting times and other indicators while assessing allegations involving Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience.
For advocates, that is a meaningful distinction from earlier congressional resolutions. Wang said sanctions could also have a deterrent effect on doctors, officials and others who might believe participation in abuses carries few consequences abroad.
Zhang argued that international scrutiny could also affect individuals inside China’s political and medical systems who have not personally participated in abuses. “The net of heaven is vast; though its mesh is wide, nothing escapes it. I hope more people will stand up and come over to the side of justice and the right side of history,” he said.
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