#FalunGongProtectionAct (H.R. 1540) passed the U.S. House of Representatives
1K Video Views·May 6, 2025
"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.
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."
https://www.ntd.com/house-unanimously-passes-falun-gong-protection-act-to-counter-ccps-forced-organ-harvesting_1065034.html
The clerk will report the title of the bill.
H.R. 1540, a bill to provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to forced organ
harvesting within the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.
Persuading to the roll, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mast, and the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Szczewski.
Each will control 20 minutes.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days
to revise and extend their remarks, and to include extraneous material on this issue.
Without objection.
Madam Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent to introduce into the record exchanges of
letters with other committees of referral on this bill.
Without objection.
Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1540, Mr. Perry's Fallen Gong Protection
Act.
For decades, the House of Representatives has been raising alarms about organ harvesting
perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party.
We spoke about it earlier.
As United Nations human rights experts stated in 2021, forced organ harvesting in China
appears to be targeting specific ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities held in detention
often without being informed of the reasons for their arrest, or being provided arrest
warrants.
Among those most frequently reported as targets are the Fallen Gong practitioners and Uyghur
practitioners and the Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang province.
These detainees, often imprisoned for their beliefs, are subjected to medical procedures
that other prisoners are not, blood draws, organ examinations, ultrasound scans.
These are not for their health.
These are the results, are then entered into a database, turning them into a human inventory
for a state-run organ harvesting system.
This is barbaric.
These crimes, they are abuses by the Chinese Communist Party, and I think we can all agree
that they have to come to an end.
The legislation before us today, the Fallen Gong Protection Act, takes long overdue action
to confront this horror.
It directs the U.S. government to identify and publicly name individuals and entities
involved in forced organ harvesting in China.
It imposes targeted sanction under the Global Magnitsky Act, including visa bans, asset
freezes against those responsible.
It strengthens reporting requirements for the State Department, ensuring that U.S. foreign
policy fully accounts for the scope of organ trafficking abuses.
Madam Speaker, I urge support of this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
The gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I yield myself as much time as I may use.
Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1540.
Like H.R. 1503, the Fallen Gong Protection Act also imposes sanctions on individuals
who knowingly and directly engage in or facilitate the involuntary harvesting of organs within
the People's Republic of China, while strengthening reporting requirements regarding this heinous
crime.
These steps are vital to address the forcible harvesting of organs, a grave violation of
human rights and bodily autonomy.
The PRC has been accused of forcibly harvesting organs from victims who range from prisoners
of conscience, including religious and spiritual adherents, to ethnic minorities.
Shining a spotlight on these crimes and the people that perpetrate them while advancing
accountability is essential.
The reporting requirements in this bill will help us better understand the scope of these
terrible abuses and allow us to address them more effectively.
This reporting relies on the very offices and experts at the State Department, the Department
of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health that are being gutted
currently by the Trump administration, a gift for traffickers and criminals that only
illustrates just how dangerous the administration's proposed reorganization and so-called streamlining
of government has been for United States national security.
The sanctions in this bill may help to hold perpetrators accountable and deter the practice
as well.
We cannot remain silent in the face of such cruelty.
We must stand with the victims, show them they are not forgotten, and ensure that perpetrators
face justice.
I thank my colleagues for their leadership on this effort and other efforts to tackle
this heinous crime.
I encourage my colleagues to join in supporting the measure, and I reserve the balance of
my time.
The gentleman from Maryland Reserves, the gentleman from Florida, the recognized speaker.
I am pleased to yield four minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, the sponsor of
this legislation, Mr. Perry.
The gentleman is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the chairman for allowing this bill to come to the floor.
I'm here today to urge support of and for H.R. 1540, the Falun Gong Protection Act,
a bill I have introduced to confront one of the most egregious, barbaric, medieval human
rights atrocities of our current time.
As we stand on the precipice of this vote, I ask you to join me in taking a stand against
the Chinese Communist Party's systematic persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
Since the early 1990s, the Falun Gong, a spiritual practice rooted in the principles of truth,
compassion, and tolerance, has been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party.
By 1999, Mr. Speaker, an estimated 70-100 million people, roughly 5-7% of China's population,
were practicing Falun Gong.
This popularity triggered a brutal response from the CCP, unleashing a campaign of illegal
detentions, forced labor, torture, and most horrifically, forced organ harvesting, a practice
that amounts to mass murder.
On July 20, 1999, the CCP detained hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners and
banned their practice outright.
Since then, the persecution has only intensified.
Multiple studies, including the 2020 report from the Independent Tribunal into Forced
Organ Harvesting, have exposed an incomprehensible gap between the number of organ transplants
performed in China and the number of registered donors.
Mr. Speaker, the math simply doesn't add up, and we all know why.
Just think about it.
An Independent Tribunal into Forced Organ Harvesting, an organization literally had
to be set up to look into this because China is a closed society and regardless of what
people might think we're allowed to travel to China, they're not showing you this part.
The CCP's secrecy ensures that China remains closed to scrutiny, but the evidence is clear.
Falun Gong practitioners are the primary victims of this barbaric organ harvesting system.
The Tribunal's findings are staggering.
They concluded that forced organ harvesting has been committed for years on a massive
scale with Falun Gong practitioners as the main source.
The report states that the CCP and its leaders have actively incited the persecution, imprisonment,
murder, torture, and humiliation of these individuals solely to eradicate their beliefs.
This is not just a violation of human rights, it's a crime against humanity.
Now, here far away in the United States, many in the organ transplant community are unaware
of China's illicit practices shielded by the CCP's repressive control of information and
global propaganda.
But the truth is undeniable.
The Chinese Communist Party has built an infrastructure to persecute millions.
Not only Falun Gong practitioners, but also Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, and others
it deems a threat.
The CCP's utter disregard for human life shocks the conscience.
This barbaric practice must end and it must end now.
H.R. 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.
This bill imposes sanctions on those who would participate in or facilitate forced organ
harvesting in China.
It directs the Secretary of State to investigate whether the CCP's actions constitute crimes
against humanity or genocide and to report on China's organ transplant policies.
It also establishes U.S. policy to reject any cooperation with the PRC's illicit organ
transplant industry while the CCP remains in power.
Colleagues, this bill paves the way for accountability, sanctions, punishment, and acknowledgment
of those complicit in these atrocities.
Thirty seconds.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The United States cannot continue to stand idly by.
We must use our authority, we must use our position as leaders in the world to curb these
practices and send a clear message to everybody that not only we will not tolerate this assault
on human dignity, on humanity itself, but that no country, that no people should.
That is why I urge a vote in favor of H.R. 1540.
Let us stand together, not just for Falun Gong practitioners, but for the millions suffering
under the CCP's oppression, the tyranny.
Let us affirm that the United States will always, will always champion truth, compassion,
and tolerance.
And I thank the Chair again for bringing the bill to the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance.
The member from Florida Reserves.
General from Maryland, you are recognized.
No further requests at this time.
Prepare to close.
Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers and will reserve until the gentleman yields his time.
The gentleman from Maryland is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume for the purpose of closing.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1540 will help Congress better understand the scope of organ harvesting
and will enable for the sanctioning of individuals who knowingly engage in or facilitate this
horrendous crime.
I hope my colleagues will join me and support this bill, and I yield back the balance of
my time.
The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
Mr. Speaker, this bill signals that the United States will not tolerate the use of state
violence to extract profit from the bodies of the persecuted.
I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, along with his bipartisan
co-sponsors for their leadership on this critical human rights issue.
I urge strong support of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The question is, will the House suspend the rules and pass H.R. 1540?
Those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
All opposed?
It's in the opinion of the Chair that two-thirds being affirmative, the rules are suspended.
The bill is passed.
Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid to the table.
For what purpose is the gentleman from Florida seeking recognition?
Mr. Speaker, I move that the House suspend the rules and pass H.R. 1724 as amended.