On December 16, 2021, Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) introduced the Falun Gong Protection Act (H.R. 6319), the first U.S. Congressional bill to address the 22-year-long persecution of Falun Gong. The bill specifically addresses forced organ harvesting, referred to by experts as a form of Cold Genocide, and includes asset blocking impositions and visa prohibitions on Chinese individuals determined by the U.S. President to have “directly or indirectly engaged in the involuntary harvesting of organs within the People’s Republic of China.” In addition, the bill includes a request for a Statement of Policy that the U.S. will “avoid any cooperation in the organ transplantation field while the CCP remains in power” and directs the Secretary of State to determine whether the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, whose numbers were estimated by Chinese officials to be between 70-100 million at the time of the crackdown in 1999, constitutes crimes against humanity or genocide under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act.
Co-sponsors of the bill include Mary E. Miller (R-IL), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Brian K. Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Tim Walberg (R-MI) and John R. Curtis (R-UT).
In response to being asked why he introduced H.R. 6319, Rep. Perry told The Epoch Times, “Within the unsurpassed cruelty of China’s Communist regime, the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners must rank among the worst, most debased demonstrations of evil to ever be coordinated by a government against a particular group of people…This particularly shocking lack of regard for the human person must be confronted. It must end.” He stated that China’s forced organ harvesting practice is an “unimaginably horrific and barbaric” act.
Representative Miller said the Chinese Government’s vicious persecution of Falun Gong fits into a larger pattern of suppression. “The Chinese Communist Party persecutes anyone who does not worship the Communist Party and tyrannical government as the supreme power in their life,” she told The Epoch Times in an email.
“The international community should not be embracing China’s oppressive government while China refuses an investigation into the origins of the Wuhan coronavirus and imprisons Christian and minority communities like the Uyghurs and Falun Gong,” Rep. Miller added.
Representative Perry expressed disappointment with the absence of Democrat support for this bill. “Do we stand with humanity? This should be an easy one in a divided nation where there’s not a lot of things we agree on. Certainly, I can’t imagine we don’t agree on that.”
Supporting Falun Gong practitioners, Rep. Perry noted, is not just about a “right and decent thing,” but carries broader implications. Standing up for the largest persecuted group in China and working to end forced organ harvesting in China, a crime which has drawn in the international transplant community as well as the financial industry in Western nations, is about defending democratic values that the regime “intends to do away with … one that is completely incompatible with China’s abuses,” he wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.
“The CCP’s alternative for a broadly accepted international order is a ‘might makes right’ system in which anything may be justified—even egregious violations of human dignity—if the perpetrator is strong enough to physically stamp out any dissent,” he said. “This is why we must continue to confront the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] human rights abuses and isolate them on the world stage wherever we can.”
“What affects China’s persecuted groups today could affect other people around the world tomorrow—and we cannot let that happen,” Perry added.
DAFOH has created an online petition for U.S. citizens and residents to urge their Congressional members to co-sponsor H.R. 6319.
