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FALUN GONG IN CHINA: REVIEW AND UPDATE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 18, 2012 

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov 
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

House Senate 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, 

Chairman 

FRANK WOLF, Virginia 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

TIM WALZ, Minnesota 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Cochairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

JAMES RISCH, Idaho 

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS 

SETH D. HARRIS, Department of Labor 

MARIA OTERO, Department of State 

FRANCISCO J. SA ́ NCHEZ, Department of Commerce 

KURT M. CAMPBELL, Department of State 

NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Agency for International Development 

PAUL B. PROTIC, Staff Director 

LAWRENCE T. LIU, Deputy Staff Director 

(II) 
(III) 

CO N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

Page 

Opening statement of Hon. Christopher Smith, a U.S. Representative from 

New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China ....... 1 

Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from Ohio; Cochairman, CongressionalExecutive Commission on China ........................................................................ 3 

Chung, Bruce, Technology Manager in Hsinchu, Taiwan; Falun Gong Practitioner Arrested in China ..................................................................................... 5 

Hu, Zhiming, Twice-Imprisoned Falun Gong Practitioner and Former People’s 

Liberation Army [PLA] Air Force Officer ........................................................... 7 

Cook, Sarah, Senior Research Analyst, Freedom on the Net in East Asia, 

Freedom House ..................................................................................................... 8 

Xu, M.D., Jianchao, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Mt. Sinai School of 

Medicine; Medical Director, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting ......... 11 

Lee, M.D., Charles, Spokesperson, Global Center for Quitting the Chinese 

Communist Party ................................................................................................. 22 

Tong, James, Associate Professor, University of California-Los Angeles ........... 25 

Ford, Caylan, Independent Scholar and Human Rights Consultant, Ottawa, 

Canada .................................................................................................................. 27 

Xia, Yiyang, Senior Director of Policy and Research, Human Rights Foundation ........................................................................................................................ 30

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

Chung, Bruce ........................................................................................................... 42 

Hu, Zhiming ............................................................................................................. 44 

Cook, Sarah .............................................................................................................. 48 

Xu, M.D., Jianchao .................................................................................................. 56 

Lee, M.D., Charles ................................................................................................... 62 

Tong, James ............................................................................................................. 99 

Ford, Caylan ............................................................................................................. 106 

Xia, Yiyang ............................................................................................................... 111 

(1) 

FALUN GONG IN CHINA: 

REVIEW AND UPDATE 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2012 

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA, Washington, DC. 

The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., 

in room 418, Russell Senate Office Building, Representative Christopher Smith, Chairman, presiding. 

Also present: Senator Sherrod Brown, Cochairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SMITH, A U.S. 

REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Chairman SMITH. The Commission will come to order. Good 

morning to all of you. 

In the early 1990s, the Chinese Government and the Communist 

Party welcomed the contributions of the Falun Gong spiritual 

movement: Its exercises and meditation had health benefits; its 

core teachings of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance promoted morality in a society increasingly aware of a spiritual vacuum. 

All that changed, however, in 1999, when several thousand 

Falun Gong practitioners peaceably assembled at Zhangnanhai 

Leadership Compound in Beijing. Chinese leaders were astonished 

that Falun Gong had grown so large and prominent outside of the 

Party’s control; so large that Falun Gong practitioners might outnumber the Communist Party’s 60 million members. 

In the year afterward, the Chinese Government and the Communist Party began the campaign of persecution against Falun 

Gong that now has lasted more than 13 years. The persecution has 

been amply documented by the Department of State, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and many other 

human rights non-governmental organizations [NGOs]. 

The campaign has been severe, brutal, ugly, and vicious. Many 

tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained 

and arrested. No one can count those sent to prison for long terms, 

and too many remain there. Many were sentenced to reeducation 

through labor, others just disappeared. 

Those released have told of long and brutal interrogations, beatings, sleep deprivation, and other forms of torture. Their captors 

demand statements and confessions. They demand that those in 

custody name other practitioners, better to roll up the movement. 
2 

Rights movements have documented more than 3,000 deaths of 

practitioners from torture and mistreatment, and doubtless there 

have been many more who have died in custody, their stories yet 

untold. 

Parallel to the treatment of practitioners was a comprehensive 

propaganda campaign designed to demonize the movement. From 

their radios and televisions, Chinese learned Falun Gong was a 

‘‘heretical cult organization.’’ The schools taught the same dictated 

talking points to the young and the impressionable. 

On September 12, Dana Rohrabacher of California and I cochaired a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee 

on Oversight and Investigations and my subcommittee, the Africa, 

Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations Subcommittee. We heard horrific testimony on the issue of 

organ harvesting in China. 

The witnesses touched on many issues: Transplants in Chinese 

medicine, transplant tourism, organ donors’ reliance on death row 

prisoners, and disturbing testimony that Falun Gong practitioners 

and other prisoners of conscience may have been involuntary victims. For those interested in reviewing the evidence in full, I would 

recommend the transcript of that hearing. One of our witnesses 

today, however, will review this issue. 

In addition to arrested practitioners’ imprisonment, sentences to 

reeducation through labor, and deaths, the Chinese Government 

and Communist Party have pressured Falun Gong practitioners to 

renounce their belief and practice. This ‘‘transformation’’ campaign 

has been documented by our Commission in its Annual Reports 

and by other human rights organizations. 

Amnesty International described the campaign as a ‘‘process 

through which individuals were pressured, often through mental 

and physical torture, to renounce their belief.’’ 

An extralegal Party-run security apparatus created in June 1999 

to eliminate the Falun Gong movement, the 6–10 Offices, spearheaded the campaign. The Commission observed this past year official Web sites providing education and training materials for local 

officials who continue to support their effort to suppress the Falun 

Gong. 

The Chinese Government and Communist Party have also continued to harass and detain persons who attempted to assist Falun 

Gong practitioners, including human rights lawyers such as Wei 

Liangyue, Wang Yonghang, and Gao Zhisheng. 

In the campaign against the Falun Gong, we see in high-relief 

so many features of governance in China. The Chinese people’s 

hopes are the ordinary hopes of mankind: To be free to work, to 

speak, to pray, to move, to enjoy healthy lives, to be free of poisonous pollution, to organize for better workplaces and better pay, 

and to find justice. 

What do they get? It is repression, unchecked police powers, prisons and labor camps, arbitrary courts, pressure against defense attorneys, punishment of family members as well as individuals, control of the media, blindness to the human cost of the Party’s policies, indifference to life, and demonization of those who dare to disagree or speak out. 
3 

We see this in the repression of believers, be they Tibetan Buddhists, members of house churches, or Falun Gong practitioners. 

We see this in the rough and brutal resort to forced abortions and 

involuntary sterilization of Chinese women who dare to hope that 

they could enjoy the same rights as the world’s other women to decide on their own how many children they will have. 

In this year’s 2012 Annual Report, the Commission urged the 

Chinese Government to permit Falun Gong practitioners to freely 

practice inside of China, to freely allow Chinese lawyers to represent citizens who challenge the legality of laws, regulations, rulings, or actions by officials, police, prosecutors, and courts that relate to religion; to eliminate criminal and administrative penalties 

that target religions and spiritual movements and have been used 

to punish Chinese citizens for exercising their right to freedom of 

religion. 

In the Annual Report, the Commission also called for the elimination of certain articles of law. Article 300 of the PRC Criminal 

Law criminalizes using a ‘‘cult’’ to undermine implementation of 

state laws. Article 27 of the PRC Public Security Administrative 

Punishment Law stipulates detention or fines for organizing or 

incenting others to engage in cult activities and for using cults or 

the guise of religion to disturb social order or to harm others’ 

health. 

Today we repeat those recommendations. The purpose of this 

hearing is to allow a panel of experts on China and Falun Gong 

to review the persecution of the Falun Gong by the Chinese Government and the Communist Party and to update members of this 

Commission and the general public on recent developments. 

Again, I look forward to our witnesses and thank them in advance for being here. I yield to my good friend and colleague, the 

Cochairman of our Commission, Sherrod Brown. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM OHIO; COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL–EXECUTIVE 

COMMISSION ON CHINA 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Chairman Smith. It’s been a pleasure working with Chris Smith during this Congress. I so appreciate 

his leadership on this issue. I want to thank the staff of the Commission, Lawrence Liu and Paul Protic especially, the two staff directors, and all of you who helped to put together the Annual Report that came out of these hearings and the work that you all do 

for human rights. 

This is our last hearing for the 112th Congress. This Commission 

and others have well-documented the abuses committed by the Chinese Government and Communist Party against practitioners of 

Falun Gong. I would add to that my thanks for the work on the 

Annual Report and this hearing and other hearings, the work of 

the person on my staff, Doug Babcock, and the good work he has 

done on this. 

In this Annual Report we describe the 13-year campaign that 

Chairman Smith just discussed against Falun Gong as extensive, 

systematic, and in some cases, violent. It is indeed one of the 

harshest campaigns against a group of believers in modern times. 

Countless practitioners of Falun Gong face arbitrary detention, tor-
4 

ture, and psychiatric abuse, and in some cases death, simply for 

practicing their beliefs. 

Unfortunately, the Communist Party apparently believes that 

the only way it is to survive is to stamp out diversity of opinion 

and belief wherever it occurs. For Falun Gong practitioners, this 

means renouncing your beliefs and being transformed—they use 

the word ‘‘transformed’’—through reeducation. Those who seek to 

defend Falun Gong practitioners are harassed and detained. 

All of us are aware of these abuses because of the many Falun 

Gong practitioners, a number of them in my State of Ohio, who 

possess the courage to speak out. That is why we are lucky today 

to have Bruce Chung with us. Bruce flew all the way from Taiwan 

on short notice to be here today. He traveled here with his brother 

because he believes, as I believe, that the truth must be told. 

This summer—and Bruce will discuss this obviously in more detail as our first witness—Bruce was visiting relatives in the People’s Republic of China when authorities there detained him. They 

held him for 54 days. He was monitored around the clock while in 

custody. He was subjected to long hours of questioning without access to a lawyer. His interrogators sought to force him to sign a 

confession. 

For what? Authorities claim he threatened national security by 

trying to broadcast Falun Gong materials in China, but his real 

crime was trying to overcome China’s censorship and exercise his 

right—a human right—to free expression. I thank Bruce and other 

witnesses for being here today. I know it is a difficult decision to 

decide to speak out and tell your story, especially when the facts 

can be painful and sensitive. 

But know, too, that you’re doing something extremely important, 

for you are speaking out for the countless others who could not be 

here today and letting the world know what is happening inside of 

China. 

In the United States, we believe that our strength as a nation 

comes from the diversity of our people. China cannot keep responding to diversity as a threat to be suppressed. This is not an effective strategy. It’s not working on the Tibetan plateau, where a policy of repression has led to a series of terrible tragedies. Nearly 100 

Tibetans have committed self-immolation in protest of policies 

against their religion and against their culture. 

It’s not working on the Internet, where hundreds of millions of 

Chinese thirst for a place where they can share uncensored and diverse views about their society and their government. It’s not working against the Uyghur people either. The strategy won’t work in 

the case of Falun Gong, whose practitioners simply want to live in 

peace and freedom. 

In the United States, we fight for the right of our citizens to 

practice their belief. China seems too often to fight against those 

practices of its people. China must end all repression of Falun 

Gong practitioners, guarantee their freedom of belief, expression, 

and assembly, and release all political prisoners. 

Threats to freedom only strengthen people’s resolve, people like 

Bruce Chung. It makes them fight harder for what is right. The 

sooner China realizes this, the better off their people, and this 

world, will be. 
5 

So, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much for your excellent statement. 

I would like to now welcome to the witness table our first panel, 

beginning with Bruce Chung, who is a technology company manager in Taiwan and Falun Gong practitioner. He was arrested in 

June of this year after he visited relatives in China. He was detained and interrogated for ‘‘endangering state security and health’’ 

for 54 days, even though he was not indicted on any charges. His 

cause was taken up by family, Amnesty International, and many 

civil organizations in Taiwan. 

We will then hear from Mr. Zhiming Hu, who was serving as an 

Air Force officer in Beijing and began practicing Falun Gong. After 

the Chinese Communist Party began the persecution of Falun Gong 

in 1999, Mr. Hu joined many peaceful appeals calling for religious 

freedom. 

Bypassing China’s controls on the Internet, he downloaded information on the persecution from the Internet. For these activities he 

was imprisoned twice, for a number of years. He was accepted by 

the United States as a refugee in August of this year. 

We will then hear from Sarah Cook—we welcome her back—a 

Senior Research Analyst for Freedom on the Net in East Asia at 

Freedom House. She is a member of the China Media Bulletin and 

Weekly News Digest. Before she joined Freedom House, she co-edited the English translation of ‘‘A China More Just,’’ a memoir by 

prominent rights attorney Gao Zhisheng. 

Then we will finally hear in this first panel from, again, Dr. 

Jianchao Xu, who is currently Assistant Professor of Medicine at 

Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He received his M.D. 

from Shenyang Medical School in China and his Ph.D. from Yale 

University, where he also completed his post-doctorate research 

and was trained as a kidney specialist. 

We will also thank Helen Gao, who is our interpreter for today. 

STATEMENT OF BRUCE CHUNG, A TECHNOLOGY MANAGER IN 

HSINCHU, TAIWAN; FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER ARRESTED 

IN CHINA 

Mr. CHUNG. I want to thank Chairman Smith and Cochairman 

Brown for holding this important hearing and inviting me to testify 

today. My name is Chung Ting-Pang, manager of Intek Technology 

Company, Ltd., in Taiwan. 

Like hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese citizens, I practice 

Falun Gong. I traveled to Ganzhou City in China’s Jiangxi Province to visit some family members on June 15 this year. During the 

several days of visit I didn’t do any Falun Gong activities or contact 

any Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China. 

On June 18, I was on my way back to Taiwan as planned. When 

I was just about to board the flight from Ganzhou to Shenzhen, I 

was forcefully taken away by state security agents. I was then detained for 54 days under the vague accusation of sabotaging national security and the public safety until my release on August 11. 

I protested with a hunger strike. It wasn’t until the second day 

of my unlawful detention that I was allowed to see my family and 

make one supervised call to my home in Taiwan. It wasn’t until the 
6 

next month that I was able to see my attorney, Guo Lianhui, but 

they only let us meet once and not in private. 

Without the presence of my attorney, I was subjected to marathon interrogation sessions that drove me to deep fatigue. The 

main content of the interrogations was all about my activities in 

Taiwan, of which they seemed to know a great deal, suggesting 

that I had been monitored in Taiwan for some time. 

The points the interrogation concentrated on were as follows: 

(1) An incident in 2003 in which I mailed TV hijacking equipment to Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China; 

(2) I had once asked a Mainland China Falun Gong practitioner 

to provide me with government documents regarding the persecution of Falun Gong; 

(3) I tried to broadcast truth films regarding persecution of Falun 

Gong via satellite signals in Taiwan; 

(4) they wanted to know all the methods that Taiwan Falun 

Gong practitioners use to expose the prosecution of Falun Gong in 

Mainland China; and 

(5) they tried to force me to provide all names, phone numbers, 

email addresses, and participating projects of Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan. 

Throughout the interrogations, they threatened me that if I did 

not cooperate they would bring in the harsher team to handle me, 

that they would change my civil detention to a criminal detention, 

and that they would send me to judicial authorities to be sentenced 

to prison. 

What is most unacceptable to me was that the state security 

agents forced me to sign a ‘‘Confession Statement’’ and asked me 

to admit that I committed a crime to endanger national security, 

public safety, and sabotage public property. 

Three weeks before I went back to Taiwan, they began to threaten me to admit my ‘‘guilt’’ and ‘‘remorse.’’ I was forced to write and 

rewrite many times the statement and I was videotaped again and 

again. I was threatened not to be too outspoken after I got to Taiwan. 

Undeterred, I called for a press conference on the third day after 

I landed in Taiwan, openly stating that: 

(1) What I wrote in that so-called ‘‘Confession Statement’’ and all 

the interrogation records were not done with my free will. All the 

details I provided were made up by me to deal with their threats; 

(2) I will continue to spread the truth to the Chinese public until 

the day the persecution ends; and 

(3) as an individual living in free and democratic Taiwan, it is 

an appropriate and just action for me to help the Chinese public, 

who have been deceived and persecuted by the Chinese Communist 

Party. 

Not until I returned to Taiwan did I realize that the people of 

Taiwan had put in tremendous efforts to rescue me. About 200,000 

people in Taiwan signed a letter campaign that urged President 

Ma Ying-jeou to gain my release. Over 30 NGOs came together to 

organize activities and on three occasions accompanied my family 

during their petitions at the Office of the President. 

Additionally, I wish to make two points clear. First, the Chinese 

Communists do not only prosecute Falun Gong practitioners in 
7 

China. According to the Taiwan Falun Gong Association, I am the 

17th Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner subjected to persecution 

from the Chinese Communist Party. Second, the Chinese Communist Party has hired spies overseas to illegally collect Falun 

Gong practitioners’ personal information and information on their 

activities. 

Finally, I would like to thank Members of the U.S. Congress and 

the European Parliament for their efforts to secure my release. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Chung, thank you so very much. Like 

Chairman Brown, we are very grateful that you made the trip here 

to be here to convey this very powerful testimony to us. So, thank 

you so very much. 

Mr. CHUNG. Thank you. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Professor Hu? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Chung appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF ZHIMING HU, TWICE-IMPRISONED FALUN 

GONG PRACTITIONER; FORMER PEOPLE’S LIBERATION 

ARMY [PLA] AIR FORCE OFFICER 

Mr. HU. First, I wish to express a heart-felt thank you to Chairman Smith and Cochairman Brown for holding this important 

hearing. 

I came to the United States as a refugee in August of this year. 

I witnessed the popularity of Falun Gong before 1999. I saw the 

horrors of the persecution between 1999 and 2010. I also have seen 

how the peaceful and valiant grassroots efforts of so many in China 

are turning back tyranny. 

I’ll start at the beginning. 

My brother told me about Falun Gong in 1997. I loved it right 

away. My nasal problem that bothered me all of my life was gone 

after practicing Falun Gong for two weeks. The teaching also made 

me full of joy and peace. Falun Gong gave me a renewed outlook 

on life and on human society. 

In 1997, I was an officer in the Air Force. I lived and worked on 

a base in Beijing. We had an exercise practice site at the Air Force 

Command University. I went almost every morning along with 40 

or 50 other Air Force officers or professors. We helped each other 

to be more ethical in our behavior, more responsible in our work, 

and more noble in our actions. I cherish these memories immensely. 

But on July 20, 1999, former Communist leader Jiang Zemin 

started a violent campaign to eradicate Falun Gong. The situation 

around the entire country was extremely tense. At first, we were 

confused. But then I began to use a proxy server to read reports 

on Minghui.org, the main Falun Gong Web site. I read how many 

practitioners were being tortured and killed. I had to act. 

By early 2000, many of us had a proactive attitude. We wanted 

to help, so I decided to leave the Air Force compound so I had more 

time and freedom. 

Within a week, however, the Air Force found me. They detained 

me for more than two months. But they couldn’t transform me. Instead they forced me to retire from military and took me back to 

my hometown in Liaoning Province, in May 2000. 
8 

I returned to Beijing to continue the work of peacefully exposing 

the persecution. We made a plan to travel the country, and train 

practitioners to get around the Internet blockade and share information on the Minghui Web site. We were successful in seven 

major cities. But in Shanghai, in October 2000, police raided my 

hotel room and arrested me. They put me in a detention center and 

prison for four years. I could easily have died from mistreatment 

there. 

I was released in October 2004. But in 2005, a plainclothes policeman saw me give a copy of the Nine Commentaries DVD to 

someone on the street in Beijing. 

They put me through a show trial and sent me to four more 

years of prison. For more than three of these years I was very close 

to dying. Hunger strikes, force-feedings, and injections of poisonous 

chemicals made me an immobile and skeletal whisper of a man. 

During this time they often conducted blood testing and comprehensive physical exams. But they never gave me treatment that 

helped me get better. When I later learned of organ harvesting, I 

can’t help but wonder if I might have been a candidate. When I 

was released in 2009, doctors told my family that I would probably 

die. If I didn’t, I would be disabled. 

At home, I resumed my Falun Gong practice and was able to 

walk in two months. Soon I could take long walks outside. 

My experience of recovery is similar to how Falun Gong is still 

being practiced in China. The prisons failed to transform me and 

the Communist Party has failed to wipe out Falun Gong. 

In 2000, I saw no signs of Falun Gong practitioner activity in my 

hometown. But when I left China in 2010, I saw many Falun Gong 

posters hung in public for a long time. More and more people see 

through the once-widespread lies and are refusing to be accomplices in this persecution. 

Because of hearings like this, awareness is spreading and pressure on the Communist regime is mounting. I believe this persecution will end soon. Please do all that you can to help the persecution end more quickly. 

Thank you for your time. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Ms. Cook? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hu appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF SARAH COOK, SENIOR RESEARCH ANALYST, 

FREEDOM ON THE NET AND EAST ASIA, FREEDOM HOUSE 

Ms. COOK. Good morning, Chairman Smith and Cochairman 

Brown, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for convening 

this hearing. 

I’ve been asked to address the origins of the campaign that led 

to the arrest of these two men on my right. Today, as we have just 

heard, Chinese citizens who practice Falun Gong live under constant threat of abduction and torture. The name of the practice, 

and various homonyms, are among the most censored terms on the 

Chinese Internet. 

Any mention by Chinese diplomats is inevitably couched in demonizing labels. But this was not always the case. Throughout the 

early and mid-1990s, Falun Gong, its practitioners, and its founder, 
9 

Mr. Li Hongzhi, were often the subject of awards, positive media 

coverage, and government support. 

In an occurrence almost unimaginable today, Mr. Li gave a series 

of lectures at the Chinese Embassy in Paris in 1995. Chinese from 

every strata of society—doctors, farmers, workers, soldiers, some 

Communist Party members—began taking up the practice. 

Students of Falun Gong would gather in groups to perform its 

meditative exercises, but many saw the discipline as a personal, 

rather than collective, endeavor to enhance their health, mental 

well-being, and spiritual wisdom. 

There were no signs of a political agenda, or even the kind of 

criticism of the Communist Party that appeared in Falun Gong literature after the persecution began. By 1999, according to government sources, Western media reports, and Falun Gong witnesses, 

tens of millions of people were practicing. 

So what went wrong? The answer lies in a combination of ideological fears, institutional factors, and an individual leader’s fateful 

decision. As you all know, Falun Gong is a spiritual practice. Its 

key features are qigong exercises and teachings reminiscent of 

Buddhist and Daoist traditions that have been part of Chinese culture for thousands of years. 

But for decades the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] has displayed a low tolerance for groups or individuals who place any authority above their allegiance to the Party. For Tibetans, this is the 

Dalai Lama. For Falun Gong practitioners, it is spiritual teachings 

centered on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. 

Falun Gong’s emphasis on these particular three values as part 

of its theistic world view appears to have especially attracted the 

Party’s ire. The concepts seem to conflict with Marxism and other 

ideas that have been a source of legitimacy for the Party’s authoritarian rule, like materialism, political struggle, and xenophobic nationalism. 

In fact, Xinhua, the state-run news agency, hinted at this in one 

of its articles in 1999 after the ban: ‘‘In fact, the so-called truth, 

kindness, and tolerance principle preached by Li Hongzhi has nothing in common with the Socialist ethical and cultural progress we 

are striving to achieve.’’ 

The Communist Party also feels threatened by independent civil 

society entities. In 1996, the state-run Qigong Association instructed the establishment of Party branches among Falun Gong 

followers and wished to profit from the practice, so Li Hongzhi 

parted ways with it. Falun Gong’s spiritual independence was then 

coupled with a loosely-knit organizational network. 

From 1996 to 1999, many in the government and the Party held 

favorable views of Falun Gong and publicly cited its benefits for 

health, and even social stability. But as Falun Gong’s popularity 

and independence from Party control grew, several top cadres 

began viewing it as a threat. This translated into repression that 

showed its first signs in 1996, not 1999. 

The publication of Falun Gong books by state printing presses 

was banned shortly after these were listed as best-sellers. Sporadic 

articles smearing Falun Gong appeared in state-run news outlets. 

Security agents began monitoring practitioners and occasionally 

dispersing meditation sessions. 
10 

It was in this context that in April 1999 the escalated harassment culminated in several dozen practitioners being beaten and 

arrested in Tianjin. Those calling for their release were told that 

the orders had come from Beijing. 

On April 25, over 10,000 adherents gathered quietly outside the 

National Petitions Office in Beijing, adjacent to the Zhongnanhai 

Government Compound. They asked for an end to abuses and recognition of their practice. 

Some observers have pointed to this incident as taking Party 

leaders by surprise, and triggering the suppression that followed. 

But such an interpretation is flawed when one considers that it 

was escalating harassment led by central officials, including then 

security czar Luo Gan, that sparked the appeal in the first place. 

Rather, the event was pivotal because of how individual leaders 

responded to it. Premier Zhu Rongji adopted an appeasing stance 

and met with several of the petitioners’ representative. The practitioners in Tianjin were released and those in Beijing went home. 

But Party Secretary Jiang Zemin overruled Zhu. He called Falun 

Gong a serious challenge to the regime’s authority, in fact one of 

the most serious challenges since the founding of the People’s Republic. 

In a circular dated June 7, he issued his fateful order to ‘‘disintegrate’’ Falun Gong. Indeed, several experts have attributed the 

campaign in part to Jiang’s personal jealousy. He reportedly disliked the sincere enthusiasm Falun Gong inspired, while his own 

standing in the eyes of the Chinese public was weak. 

But whatever the specific event of the late 1990s, the repression 

of Falun Gong in China cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Rather, it 

is one episode within the Communist Party’s long history of arbitrarily suppressing independent thought and launching political 

campaigns against perceived enemies. 

The Party’s tactics have become more subtle and sophisticated 

over time, but the underlying dynamics remain the same. The decision of what is approved or forbidden is made arbitrarily by Party 

leaders and the institutions, like an independent judiciary, that 

might curb their excesses are kept within the Party’s realm of influence. We see this with daily censorship directives, and it is the 

same when it comes to spiritual movements like Falun Gong. 

Once Jiang made his decision, there was little to stop what came 

next. In July 1999, a full-scale campaign reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution was launched. The full weight of the CCP’s repressive apparatus was turned on Falun Gong. 

The Communist Party and Chinese officials typically assert that 

Falun Gong needed to be banned because it was ‘‘an evil cult’’ that 

was having a nefarious influence on society. But these claims have 

not held up to scrutiny when investigated in China, nor when one 

considers Falun Gong’s spread in other parts of the world, including democratic Taiwan. 

In fact, it was only several months after Jiang had already initiated the campaign that the Party apparatus zeroed in on this very 

effective term for its propaganda purposes, a manipulated English 

translation of the Chinese term ‘‘xiejiao.’’ Zhao Ming, a former 

Falun Gong prisoner of conscience, summed up the dynamics as fol-
11 

lows: ‘‘The Party’s machinery of persecution was there, Jiang 

pushed the button.’’ 

Thank you very much. In my written testimony you will find 

comments on some of the long-term consequences this campaign 

has had, both for Falun Gong and for the rule of law in China. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. Ms. Cook, thank you very much. 

Now, Dr. Xu? 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cook appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF JIANCHAO XU, M.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR 

OF MEDICINE, MT. SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE; MEDICAL 

DIRECTOR, DOCTORS AGAINST FORCED ORGAN HARVESTING 

Dr. XU. Good morning. Honorable Chairman Christopher Smith 

and Cochairman Mr. Brown, Members of Congress, and distinguished panelists, my name is Jianchao Xu. As a kidney specialist, 

I am also a tenured staff physician at James J. Peters Veterans 

Administration Hospital in New York. I am also Assistant Professor of Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. 

In addition, I serve as Medical Director for the nonprofit organization, Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, DAFOH, which 

is comprised of medical professionals from around the world who 

investigate the practice of illegal organ transplantation. We are 

particularly concerned about the reports of organ harvesting from 

Falun Gong practitioners in China who, we believe, have been victimized on a very large scale. 

The medical community has known about unethical organ transplantation in China since the 1990s. At a congressional hearing in 

2001, it forced their hand and direct evidence of unethical organ 

transplant practices in China surfaced. 

Dr. Wang Guoqi, a Chinese medical doctor, testified to the House 

of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights. Dr. Wang testified that prisoners receive blood tests in prison to determine their 

compatibility with interested donors. On execution day, the prisoners who are to become organ donors are the first to die. That was 

over a decade ago. Since then, things have gotten worse, much 

worse. 

There are vastly more transplants in China today than the identifiable source of organs. The government of China has openly admitted to using the organs of executed prisoners. But even if we 

were to assume that every single execution results in organ transplant, there is still not enough to account for the vast discrepancy 

between organ donations and the transplant operations. 

Falun Gong practitioners are the most likely source of many of 

the organs used in transplant procedures in China over the past 

decade. There was an enormous increase in transplants after 1999, 

with no reported changes in the organ donation process. 

The one thing that did occur in 1999 was the beginning of the 

persecution of Falun Gong, which now stands as the alleged explanation for the 41,500 official transplants from 2000 to 2005 and 

would explain the donors. Even if we use the Chinese Deputy Minister Wang Jiefu’s own data, there were approximately 30,500 unexplained source organs from 1997 to 2007. 
12 

Mr. Ethan Gutmann, an adjunct Fellow of the Foundation for 

Defense of Democracies painstakingly interviewed the victims who 

were imprisoned in China, as detailed in his chapter in the book, 

‘‘State Organs.’’ His estimate is that 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for their organs. We have every reason to 

believe that organ harvesting is ongoing in China to this day. 

According to a report from NTD–TV [New Tang Dynasty TV], a 

patient this year traveled from Taiwan to Mainland China, to 

Tianjin First Central Hospital and received concurrent liver and 

kidney transplantations. It only took one month to find a matching 

liver and kidney, while he had waited for years in Taiwan. Organ 

harvesting is an ongoing problem and it remains widespread. Fortunately, the movement to stop this gruesome practice is gaining 

momentum. 

The Taiwan Government is now requiring citizens to provide details of the transplant from the surgeons and donors if they go 

abroad to have an organ transplant, and subsequently seek health 

insurance coverage for their post-operative treatments. 

Starting in May 2011, instructions from the American Journal of 

Transplantation state that the publication will not accept manuscripts whose data is derived from transplants involving organs obtained from executed prisoners. 

In the January 2012 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, an editorial stated that the practice of transplanting organs 

from executed prisoners in China appears to be widespread. They 

have vigorously condemned this practice and effective immediately 

will not consider manuscripts on human organ transplantation for 

publication, and so on and so forth. 

As you can see, there has been progress, but more needs to be 

done. Membership in an international professional society by Chinese transplant professionals must be conditioned by acceptance 

that no organs will be used from executed prisoners. 

Insurance companies must ensure that no executed prisoners are 

the source of organs used in their studies. I urge the U.S. Government and anyone with any knowledge of organ harvesting to publicly release all evidence they have with regard to China’s use of 

prisoners as a source for organ donation. 

Those are the steps we can take. Some of them are underway. 

Let us strive further and even faster. I would like to express my 

deepest gratitude to the CECC for holding this hearing, and especially to the honorable chairman, Christopher Smith. You have 

been a true champion in advocating for Falun Gong and human 

rights. 

I particularly applaud your recent effort, the Dear Colleague letter, expressing concerns about China’s forced organ harvesting 

from prisoners of conscience, particularly from Falun Gong detainees, and asking the Department of State to share any information 

they have received about unethical organ harvesting in China, including anything that Wang Lijun, a Chinese police chief who met 

with the consulate officials in China might have divulged to U.S. 

consulate officials. 

One is believed to have been intimately involved in organ harvesting and has received an award for innovation in organ harvesting by the government. Also, as a police chief who directly 
13 

oversaw the persecution of Falun Gong in his jurisdiction, which 

included the hospital. Thus, this information may hold the key to 

unlock the mystery of organ harvesting in China. Revealing this information may put an end to this horrific crime against humanity. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Xu appears in the appendix.] 

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Xu, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Without objection, all of your full statements will be made a part 

of the record because they are very detailed and very chilling in the 

information they convey to this Commission. 

Dr. Xu, if I could just ask you first, I would note parenthetically 

when I held a hearing back in the mid-1990s on organ harvesting, 

Harry Wu, the great survivor of the laogai, actually helped smuggle 

out a man who was a guard who gave expert testimony and eventually got asylum, because he obviously could not go back, about 

executed prisoners. He showed how they would execute the prisoners, take their organs, the pain and the suffering often accompanying that because anesthesia was not given to the prisoners. 

Hearing your testimony talk about how much worse this has gotten and the numbers that you have in your testimony is absolutely 

numbing. You point out, for example, that Ethan Gutmann has estimated that 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for 

their organs. 

I remember reading a book some years ago about the Japanese 

Unit 731, which did horrific experimentation on especially Chinese 

but also on others—he was the Josef Mengele, of the Nazis, but in 

this case for the Japanese, a horrifying war crime and crimes 

against humanity. Yet, this is being replicated today. 

As you pointed out, Dr. Wang was so upset—tormented is the 

word you used—after he followed orders to remove the skin of a 

still-living prisoner in October 1995. The incident prompted him to 

alert the international community to the inhumane practice of 

organ harvesting in China. As you and others have pointed out, it 

has only gone from bad to worse. 

So I thank you, and I thank all of you for bringing one abuse 

after another that is imposed upon the Falun Gong to the attention 

of this Commission, but this practice and the widespread nature of 

it begs correction. Actually, we need to do far more than we have 

done to combat it. 

So my question to you is: Are we doing enough, the United 

States, the President, the Congress? How is the United Nations 

doing on this? I mean, they have the Human Rights Council that 

is supposed to be taking up these issues. It seems to me that very 

often if it’s not Israel that’s in the crosshairs, very little is done 

human rights-wise by the Human Rights Council. So if you could 

speak to that as well. 

You also point out, Dr. Xu, about the monitoring at a national 

level. When someone goes and gets an organ transplant, there 

needs to be a filing as to who was the provider of that organ, and 

under what circumstances. Because when they do come back, as we 

all know, they’re going to need anti-rejection drugs like CellCept 

and other things that are very expensive, but they work. 
14 

But for all of that after-care, if the organ has been procured in 

a totally inhumane way, we need to know it and people need to be 

held accountable. So if you could speak to what we could do legislatively as well, and others who would like to join in on that question. 

Dr. XU. Thank you, Chairman Smith. The persecution [inaudible] 

just to give you an example [inaudible] Dr. [inaudible] effort to expose [inaudible] and the Israeli Government has implemented legislation on this that they will not cover patients for their medical 

care if they got the organ from tourism overseas. 

In our country, I think what we can do is institute similar legislative changes to expose the truth of what is going on in China, to 

expose what organ trafficking involves, to expose the live organ 

harvesting especially going on in China. If our citizens know that 

if you go to China to receive an organ that another person has to 

die, I think our citizens would stop going there, and so other citizens around the world would do the same. 

We can also, at the economic level, implement legislative 

changes, such as, we can have a witness protection program so that 

doctors, who I believe are the most powerful witness to stand in 

front of you to testify against the crimes against humanity—if we 

don’t offer such protection, I think it’s very difficult to have a doctor to come forth and who is involved in this crime to testify. 

Other things, like we could—at the government level, as I mentioned, we can have—for example, as you mentioned, when patients 

get organ transplantation overseas often the operation is a butchered operation and less than our standards. 

When they come back home—like Dr. Gabriel Danovitch, my 

dear colleague who is an expert in transplantation—when he sees 

patients who have high complications and whose mortality and 

morbidity are much higher than our standards, and they spend 

much money and impose a bigger economic burden to our country 

to take care of these patients post-operatively. I think that is how 

I can answer your question. 

Chairman SMITH. Could you tell us what kind of profit is derived 

per organ? Who gets it? What are the countries where the recipients are coming from? Is it the United States, Japan, South Korea, 

Taiwan? Is there any kind of breakdown? Do we have any detailed 

information concerning who they are? 

Dr. XU. I cannot give you the exact number or precise number 

offhand. 

Chairman SMITH. Sure. 

Dr. XU. But what I can tell you, like, Taiwan has recipients on 

the order of the hundreds and thousands. Saudi Arabia, the richest 

countries, richest states, they can afford this kind of tourism. They 

are a large portion of the recipients. Certainly the United States, 

but because anecdotally my colleagues have seen patients returning home getting an organ from China who received post-operative 

care. 

In terms of the price for each organ, I think it’s on the order of 

$60,000, for example, for a kidney. For a heart, it’s over $100,000. 

For a liver, it’s on the order of $80,000 to over $100,000. The precise number is advertised in China’s hospitals’ Web sites. This 
15 

number I can provide to you, to precise numbers, but it appears to 

be in that range. 

Chairman SMITH. Now, in a parallel way, I never visited it, but 

I did look at it on the Web when it was in this area—The Bodies 

Exhibition. What struck me was how unbelievably healthy the people look—there was some East German doctor that perfected this 

method of preserving those people. 

There have been suggestions that they are Falun Gong and that 

they are incredibly healthy, they’re prisoners, and then they are 

killed for these exhibitions. It’s not the same as organ harvesting 

obviously, but it’s the same macabre genre. Do you know anything 

about that? 

Dr. XU. I focused my study on organ harvesting, but I also was 

told of such body preservation of young people that were killed and 

they are Falun Gong practitioners. I understand, because when 

Falun Gong practitioners are detained, some of them are afraid of 

their family, friends, and relatives being persecuted if they disclose 

their name, so some of them don’t even tell the police their name. 

So those people are subject to being a very vulnerable group of 

prisoners. I would not be surprised—in fact, there is some evidence 

to suggest—that those bodies come from Falun Gong practitioners. 

Chairman SMITH. Cochairman Brown? 

Senator BROWN. Well, thank you, Chairman Smith. 

Dr. Xu, one more question on that and then I want to ask Mr. 

Chung some questions and others. You had mentioned membership 

in international organizations and pharmaceutical companies. 

What do you suggest we do, how can we help, and how can those 

two groups, membership in international physician organizations, 

in allowing Chinese or not allowing Chinese physicians into those 

organizations, and the role of pharmaceutical companies. 

There are a number of U.S. companies that do a lot of production 

of pharmaceuticals in China. I know that’s not related to this, but 

there is certainly a connection between our countries and the pharmaceutical industry that way. 

Do you have thoughts on how we can, perhaps in terms of hope 

to answer some of the issues that Chairman Smith brought up, 

how to stop this practice by working with international organizations and international physician organizations and with the drug 

companies? 

Dr. XU. We are not opposing the pharmaceutical companies from 

setting up their shops to manufacture their goods to serve the patients. However, I think if they do a clinical trial to develop new 

drugs and if they use the organs which are from executed prisoners, living prisoners, Falun Gong practitioners, the international 

community should condemn and should oppose such a practice. If 

they manufacture a drug, let’s say you order whatever anti-rejection medicine for FDA-approved use, I think that is standard practice and we have no objection to that. 

In terms of what the international community, medical community, can do to end this horrific crime, one thing we propose is to 

have the membership to ask the training centers, the hospitals, to 

stop taking trainees from China who will not sign the affidavit that 

they will not participate in organ transplantation involving executed prisoners. 
16 

I think that’s a step we can take. Until the international community is satisfied that Chinese law on organ transplant is effectively 

implemented, like foreign funding agencies, medical organizations, 

or individual health professionals should not participate in any 

government—China—meetings on organ transplant research. 

Foreign companies that currently provide goods and services for 

China’s organ transplant program should stop if they know their 

services and goods are involved in organ transplantation which is 

coming from executed prisoners. 

Foreign governments should not issue visas to doctors, to trainees, to medical professionals who are involved in the organ or body 

tissue transplantations involving executed prisoners. I think that’s 

a step we can take. 

Senator BROWN. Do you have evidence that U.S. or Western companies are doing clinical trials in China using either living prisoners doing clinical trials or using organs from executed prisoners? 

Dr. XU. In fact, there was at least one company I know of, however, I cannot recall the name of the company. If I do, I should 

probably give it to you in a private manner. Because of our effort 

to expose the truth at different meetings, international meetings 

such as World Transplant meetings, that company has stopped and 

withdrew their status using the compound of chemicals to test the 

efficacy of their organ donations—organ transplants. In addition to 

this company, whether there are more companies involved, I do not 

have an answer to that. I don’t know. 

Senator BROWN. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Chung, thank you, again, for being here. This commission 

has done a series of hearings that Chris Smith has convened on all 

kinds of human rights abuses. Talk to us if you would about if you 

believe the campaign by your family, by organizations in Taiwan 

and outside of Taiwan, and just international human rights organizations, if those efforts, you think, moderated the treatment you received, that the treatment was less harsh as a result of those efforts, were they or not, and do you think those efforts play a role 

in being freed as you were, after far too long in confinement? 

Mr. CHUNG. Sure. I believe that I safely came back to Taiwan because of those people supporting me, many Taiwanese people in 

public supporting me. Everybody knows my case. That is the main 

reason that I can safely go back to Taiwan. 

Senator BROWN. The other side of that is that Chinese authorities—I mean, nobody likes being preached to or told what to do by 

people, by outsiders. Nobody does. We don’t like it when other 

countries criticize our behavior, and the Chinese Government 

doesn’t like it when we do that, understandably to a point. 

Is there some chance that authorities dig in when we are critical 

of their practices and we speak out, when this commission or individual elected officials or human rights advocates like Ms. Cook 

speak out for you against the kinds of practices aimed at you, that 

it causes the Chinese officials to dig in more and resist and make 

the treatment worse in some cases? 

Dr. XU. I think they do everything to hide their ugly things. They 

are afraid that what they’ve done, those ugly things, will be exposed. So we have to let everybody know what they have done, 

those ugly things. 
17 

Senator BROWN. Okay. 

What lessons from your experience should you tell this country, 

should you tell people in this country that pay attention to Chinese-American relations and Taiwan-American relations, and Taiwan-Chinese relations? So what lessons would you take from your 

experience? 

Dr. XU. The most important thing is to let everybody know what 

they have done. They hide everything. They control the media, they 

control Internet access for their citizens. They hide everything. 

They control any media they can. So the most important thing is, 

the things they hide, to expose. That’s what I think is the most important thing that we can do to stop the persecuting or anything. 

Senator BROWN. Do you think your family members in China 

face persecution for your speaking out today or face persecution for 

your speaking out on human rights for the last several weeks? 

Dr. XU. Yes, including my family in Taiwan. We are potentially 

in some kind of unsafe condition. But in my case, I think everybody 

is watching so I think basically we are safe just because everybody 

is watching. 

Senator BROWN. Okay. 

Mr. Hu, you were one of many—I thought Ms. Cook’s history was 

very good, the sort of documentation of how Falun Gong was—I’m 

not sure you used the word ‘‘celebrated,’’ but close enough, in the 

1980s and into the 1990s, and then what happened in the mid-late 

1990s. 

So many military personnel were practitioners of Falun Gong, 

apparently. Mr. Hu, did most of the personnel in the Chinese military who were practicing Falun Gong, did they cease to be practitioners? Did they stop practicing? And those that did and those 

that didn’t, what happened to them? 

Mr. HU. First, if I can correct one of the time issues. Falun Gong 

started in 1992 in Mainland China. 

Senator BROWN. Oh, in 1992? Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. HU. As far as I know, starting in 1992, a lot of military personnel, just like a lot of civilian people, started to practice Falun 

Gong. In 1999, the Communist Party started to persecute Falun 

Gong and we learned about the 7–20 [July 20th] incident. From 

that date on, we were prohibited from connecting with each other. 

So we could only communicate with each other in private. I could 

only connect with less than 10 military officials who formerly practiced in the same practice site with me. When I left China, I could 

only make contact with two of them, they were still practicing. 

When you ask the question, what happens to these people, for 

those who continue to practice like myself? We would be dismissed 

from the military. For those who do not want to give up but still 

want to remain in the military, they will receive forced transformation. 

Actually, in fact, China, under the rule of the Communist Party, 

within that realm, all the military officials, government officials, 

and the public are banned from practicing Falun Gong. That’s my 

answer. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much, Chairman Brown. 

Just a few final questions. Mr. Hu, what was your rank in the 

military? You talked in your testimony about how the soldiers re-
18 

spected you because you were an officer, but you were subjected to 

endless hours of brainwashing. What does that brainwashing look 

like? Do they try to say that it is a psychological disorder to be 

Falun Gong? 

I read the People’s Daily frequently and I am amazed that the 

propaganda is so intense almost on a daily basis, at least in the 

American version of the People’s Daily, and I’m wondering what 

that brainwashing looked like. 

Second, earlier in the year I was visited by a number of high 

school students, the equivalent of high school from China. None of 

them spoke English. They were here on some visitor’s program. We 

had about a two-hour meeting and I asked them very specific questions about Falun Gong. 

The prejudice and the bias against the Falun Gong, a direct result of the propaganda and what’s being taught in the schools, was 

mind-boggling. I challenged every one of their views and they had 

no answers, other than that Falun Gong is wrong and horrible, and 

went on and on. 

I am wondering, since there are so many college students, and 

some high schoolers, here in the United States, what effort is the 

Falun Gong undertaking to educate them as they sit on U.S. campuses and European campuses about the big lie that they have 

been fed by Beijing with regard to the Falun Gong? Hate radio 

works. Hate TV works. We saw that in Rwanda, where it led to 

genocide. So if you could speak to that. 

Charles Lee, in his testimony, talks about how China is facing 

an unprecedented moral crisis and is going overboard in trying to 

destroy Christians, Buddhists, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong. Is it because of the moral crisis? Is the dictatorship that fragile? 

Finally, are Falun Gong in any way singled out for even worse 

persecution under the one-child policy as a means of eliminating 

Falun Gong children? I mean, Rebiya Kadeer testified some time 

ago that forced abortion is being used as a means of genocide, that 

systematically the Uyghurs are being eliminated at birth or immediately prior through these programs and it’s part of a planned 

elimination of the Uyghur people. That’s not all to Mr. Hu, but if 

you could about the brainwashing. 

Mr. HU. The degree of the brainwashing that is experienced in 

the military compared to prison was different. In my testimony I 

mentioned that when I was detained in the military compound the 

soldiers were respectful to me because I was still an officer within 

the military. 

Compared to the other Falun Gong practitioners, I did enjoy a 

certain level of respect. Whereas, the other practitioners would be 

scolded and tortured every day. I didn’t experience that when I was 

still in the military. 

What the soldiers did to me is that they would prohibit me from 

learning what was going on in the outside world; the window, for 

example, was blocked by a cotton quilt. I was monitored 24 hours 

a day and they needed to have two shifts of people monitoring me. 

So I would have four people watching me at any given time. 

Even while I was asleep, they would be standing right by me. 

Each morning after I woke up, they would play a video at very 

high volumes. This video defamed Falun Gong. For most of the 
19 

time, they would find people from other agencies to attempt to 

brainwash me. They would tell me bad things about Falun Gong. 

You asked what rank I held when I was with the military. I was 

mainly conducting administrative work in an office. My rank was 

equal to a major level. 

I would say the level of brainwashing in prison was much more 

severe. I was imprisoned in Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai. One 

Falun Gong practitioner was locked with two criminal prisoners in 

a three-square-meter cell. The two criminal prisoners chosen to 

stay with us were usually the more vicious criminals and they were 

ordered to ‘‘transform’’ us. If their transformation was not successful, they would not be let out earlier. But if they could transform 

us, their sentence would be reduced. 

This is a method that the authorities have been using for a long 

time. Many Falun Gong practitioners, if they were put into detention centers or prisons, like myself, would face a long time of scolding and torture. I was forced to do labor. I was subjected to brainwashing sessions where I was forced to sit inches from a video 

monitor with deafening speakers blaring hateful messages. Under 

such circumstances, I spent two years at Tilanqiao prison in 

Shanghai. 

During the last two months of my time in prison, because I was 

not transformed, the level of persecution actually increased. Each 

day they would forbid me from sleeping. As soon as I fell asleep, 

they woke me up in a very violent way. 

In this situation I had no way but to make a hunger strike. After 

two days of hunger strike, I was almost in a coma. In that situation 

they sent me to a hospital, but I did not receive any medical treatment. They stretched out my limbs and bound me to a bed. 

At the same time, they injected a kind of substance that gave me 

a severe headache. They also force-fed me. I spent the entire month 

bound to the bed. I had to relieve myself in bed, too. 

It was a situation that human beings really cannot stand. But, 

I did survive that period. 

Let me go back to the brainwashing activities of the military. At 

first, they said bad things about Falun Gong. They fabricated some 

stories and examples, trying to persuade me to give up my belief. 

When I argued back with them, they had nothing to say. When 

they had nothing to say, they started to show me a report that the 

government did at that time. 

From that report, I saw two sets of statistical data. The first 

data, I don’t remember the precise time over which it was collected, 

told at that time there were over 80 million Falun Gong practitioners in China. A second survey was conducted after this first one 

because by that time the government had already began to think 

there were too many people practicing. The survey team thought 

too high a number would cause a negative impact, so then they 

came out with a new number, which was 60 million practitioners. 

They asked me, ‘‘How could the government be happy with so 

many people not being atheist? How could they allow this many 

people to practice Falun Gong? ’’ This is what I experienced in military detention. 
20 

From these personal experiences, I learned that the persecution 

the Chinese Communist Party used against Falun Gong practitioners was based lies and violence. 

In the beginning, they used lies to deceive the Chinese public 

and the people in the international community. As a result, the 

general public would be deceived by all these lies when they were 

not really aware of the truth of Falun Gong. 

But they could not deceive people like us who knew the truth of 

Falun Gong. To people like us, they would use violence to try to 

transform us. That is why, when I was in the military, I refused 

the transformation. They dismissed me and then later put me into 

prison. However, to those in the public who were not aware of the 

truth of Falun Gong, the lies did take effect. 

That is why, when you might have talked to the Chinese students who were visiting this country, they would give you some 

negative comments about Falun Gong. That is the result of this 

lies-based education. For people like us who are practitioners now 

in the United States, we have tried our best to tell the people in 

China and in the world the truth of Falun Gong. 

So I sincerely hope that the U.S. Government, the U.S. Congress, 

could provide us with more support and address the serious persecution of human rights. Thank you. 

Senator BROWN. One last question. Ms. Cook, his comments 

about the college students coming here and their beliefs about 

Falun Gong. Do you find in your extensive kind of travels and studies and observations with human rights, do you find in China that 

neighbors and colleagues at work, or relatives of persecuted Falun 

Gong practitioners sometimes rise up, speak out, show support? 

What do you see in Chinese society sort of around the practitioners’ 

social networks when they are persecuted? 

Ms. COOK. I haven’t had such conversations in China with people, but speaking with people who have come out it’s interesting 

because it seems that there has been a change over time. Initially, 

quite a few people, especially after the incident of the supposed 

self-immolation in 2001 and some of the other propaganda, a lot of 

practitioners talked about how their own family members would be 

afraid of them. Their brother was worried that they were going to 

do something to them or to their children. 

To the credit of individuals like Mr. Hu, they have spoken to 

their family members about the lies told about Falun Gong, but increasingly a lot of Falun Gong literature also touches on the lies 

and the propaganda of the Communist Party more broadly. And 

they have managed to convince those they speak with. Many talk 

of their family members’ attitudes changing. 

What you see happening is things like family members going to 

hire lawyers, so you have the human rights lawyers then going to 

defend Falun Gong practitioners, despite the risks, in part because 

the family members of those Falun Gong practitioners who may not 

be practitioners themselves have gone to seek out the lawyers to 

get their help. 

Increasingly, you’re seeing these cases of petitions, that family 

members have started, to rally villagers who will then actually sign 

petitions calling for the release of a Falun Gong practitioner. 
21 

But in other ways I think a lot of the change happens more 

quietly. So in conversations even with people from some Chinese 

Government think tanks, in private, they’ll admit that the campaign against Falun Gong was a mistake. It’s just that they can’t 

say that publicly because of their own position and that they may 

be put at risk. 

So when you speak to people publicly, there are a lot of people 

who still have very negative views of Falun Gong. But you also see 

people who are aware, even on the inside of the system, who have 

started to change their views. 

I just wanted to make one more comment also with regard to the 

organ harvesting issue. There is a two-prong approach that can be 

taken. One aspect is to respond to what is very clearly happening 

and the question of where these organs are coming from, because 

clearly China does not have a voluntary organ donation system. 

Whether they’re coming from executed prisoners, or increasingly 

the evidence that they may be coming from Falun Gong or also 

from Uyghurs, there’s the element of what we can do with regard 

to transplant tourism. 

But Ethan Gutmann’s research also showed that some of these 

organs, originally in the Uyghur case, were going to high-ranking 

Chinese officials. So you also have a market for these things within 

China. The other prong would be to seriously investigate and create some kind of mechanism, I would think, to really look into 

these questions about whether it’s pharmaceutical companies, 

whether it’s medical exchange programs and mechanisms of accountability, not just with regard to the transplant tourism but 

also with regard to the whole industry itself. Because one could see 

a situation where, besides the tourism, people within China, including possibly Party officials, may be the recipients of these organs. 

So I just wanted to mention, in terms of looking into that investigative side, to follow up on some of the research that individuals 

like Ethan Gutmann or others have done. As you saw, there are 

still a lot of questions about how this is actually playing out and 

how it may be spreading to other groups. 

We have seen generally with the campaign against Falun Gong, 

that tactics and entities like the 6–10 Office have started to be 

used to target other individuals, whether they’re spiritual groups 

or ethnic minorities. There are a lot of Uyghurs who have disappeared as well, so there’s a real question of what the actual current scope is of these organ transplant abuses. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much to all of you for your 

very detailed testimony. It certainly helps our Commission do a 

better job, and hopefully our government. Thank you so much. 

I would like to now welcome our second panel. But as you go, Dr. 

Xu, you mentioned Dr. Wang. I think it’s worth noting very briefly 

from his testimony back in 2001, and I would just quote the pertinent part. He says, 

Before the execution I administered a shot of heparin to prevent blood clotting 

to the prisoner. A nearby policeman told him it was a tranquilizer to prevent 

unnecessary suffering during the execution. The criminal responded by giving 

thanks to the government. 

At the site, the execution commander gave the order to go and the prisoner 

was shot to the ground. Either because the executioner was nervous and aimed 
22 

poorly, or intentionally misfired to keep the organs intact, the prisoner had not 

yet died but instead lay convulsing on the ground. 

We were ordered to take him to the ambulance anyway, where the urologist 

extracted his kidneys quickly and precisely. When they finished, the prisoner 

was still breathing and his heart continued to beat. The execution commander 

asked if they might fire a second shot to finish him off, to which the county 

court staff replied, ‘‘Save that shot. With both kidneys out, there’s no way he 

can survive.’’ 

That is brutality beyond comprehension. 

Thank you for your testimony, and thank you to this panel. 

I’d like to now ask our second panel if they would proceed, beginning with a medical doctor by training. Dr. Charles Lee pursued 

his medical studies at Harvard Medical School in the mid-1990s. In 

1999 when the Chinese Communist Party began persecuting Falun 

Gong, Charles decided to go to China to help. 

He was arrested unlawfully and sentenced to three years in prison. He returned to the United States in 2006. I would say parenthetically that no one has done more and been more tenacious 

in defending Falun Gong than Charles Lee, so thank you for being 

here today. 

We will then hear from Professor James Tong, who is a Scholar 

of Comparative Politics, specializing in Chinese politics and political violence. He is currently director of the Center for East Asian 

Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. 

We will then hear from Caylan Ford, an independent scholar and 

human rights consultant currently residing in Ottawa. She holds 

honors in World History from the University of Calgary, and a 

master’s degree in International Security and Chinese Politics from 

George Washington University. 

She has authored numerous publications, including academic papers and op-eds in publications like the Washington Post and the 

Christian Science Monitor. Most recently, she co-authored a manuscript on the current status of Falun Gong in China, which is now 

under review with a leading China journal. 

Then we will hear from Mr. Xia, Senior Director of Policy and 

Research at the Human Rights Law Foundation. He’s an expert on 

Chinese politics, the structure and functioning of the Chinese propaganda and judicial systems, and a range of extralegal Communist 

Party entities involved in human rights abuses in China. 

Over the past decade, he has overseen research and investigations contributing to numerous analytical reports. He has presented his research and analysis at the European Parliament, the 

United Nations Human Rights Commission, and academic institutions in the United States and Southeast Asia. He has a rich and 

multifaceted Chinese cultural background, including work with 

military personnel, a university lecturer, and medical research here 

in the United States. 

Dr. Lee? 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES LEE, M.D., SPOKESPERSON FOR 

GLOBAL CENTER FOR QUITTING THE CHINESE COMMUNIST 

PARTY 

Dr. LEE. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith and Cochairman Brown, and all the distinguished members and staff members 

of the CECC for giving me this opportunity to testify today. 
23 

Falun Gong actually had members from 70 to 100 million people, 

practicing at the end of 1998, according to government sources. 

Since the persecution started, the severity is tremendous. According to the 2006 U.N. Special Rapporteur Report, two-thirds of the 

torture cases in China were against Falun Gong practitioners. The 

torture methods include sexual assaults, beatings, shocks with electric batons, and violent force-feedings with feces and salt solutions. 

The cruelty of this persecution is unprecedented. We have heard 

of these organ harvesting issues for a long time. What is more, 

Chairman Smith mentioned about the Body Exhibit. We have this 

investigative report from the World Organization to Investigate the 

Persecution of Falun Gong, which confirms that those body exhibits, most of them were of Falun Gong practitioners. So I can give 

this report to you later. 

Chairman SMITH. Actually, I would like to make that, or at least 

a major part of that, part of our record. 

Dr. LEE. Okay. That is good. I will give that to you. 

What we have heard, the Nazi’s, after the gas chamber was used 

on those Jews, they used their hair as pillow stuffing and their 

skins for lampshades and gloves, and their bones were ground for 

fertilizer. What the Communist Party has been doing to the Falun 

Gong practitioners is very much comparable, sometimes even more 

horrific. They harvest organs when people are alive and then use 

the body’s remains for the body exhibits—to maximize their profit. 

For the deaths of Falun Gong practitioners, there are three levels 

of evaluations. The first one, is that we have 3,627 reports of 

deaths which have been well documented and confirmed by Falun 

Gong practitioners inside China, but there are still a lot of people 

missing. 

The organ harvesting—deaths—estimates by David Kilgour and 

Matas—50,000 people, and 65,000 by Ethan Gutmann. But the actual number could be much, much bigger than this because the 

CCP has always been manipulating the numbers. When they feel 

like the numbers are not good for them, they can just scale it down. 

Another thing is that China is a big country. They have about 

a 300 million transient population in China. These include the migrant city workers from the countryside, and tens of millions of appellants who constantly appeal to the government for their injustices, and also millions of unyielding Falun Gong practitioners who 

have lost their jobs, school, and families and they left their hometown to escape the persecution. In the past decade, many of them 

have disappeared or vaporized and nobody can trace them down. 

Also, in March 2006 there was a retired military doctor that revealed that there were 36 concentration camps for Falun Gong 

practitioners in China. The biggest one he claimed was in Jilin 

Province called 672–S Camp, which held 120,000 Falun Gong practitioners. On the other side, there are tens of millions of Falun 

Gong practitioners who have recovered from their illnesses, including terminal diseases, and benefited from improved health. 

The persecution on Falun Gong in the past 13 years has forced 

many of them into giving up the practice and, as a consequence, 

facing deteriorating health and eventually dying. My mother actually is one of them. So the death caused by the persecution should 

have reached several millions if all types of death are included. 
24 

What is outlined here is only part of the clues on this heinous 

crime to humanity. It is extremely important for governments and 

people, both in the West and the East to know and find out the 

scale and the severity of largely undisclosed persecution. 

Much more efforts are needed to stop this crime against humanity and to fully investigate and lay down the framework for the 

long-overdue justice to be served. I would say that the persecution 

of Falun Gong is comparable to the Nazi’s holocaust and genocide. 

It’s a very big issue and we really need much more efforts. 

On the other side, Falun Gong practitioners have been peacefully 

resisting in the persecution. In the last 13 years, even though they 

have had so many people tortured to death, there is no single case 

in which Falun Gong practitioners used violence against the perpetrators. 

Practitioners have been trying their best to reveal the truth in 

China and overseas. Also practitioners outside of China have developed media outlets as well as firewall circumvention software to 

help people in China. 

I am one of those people. I went to China to bring true information to the Chinese people and I was detained and later arrested 

in 2003. When I was unlawfully imprisoned, they also tried everything possible to brainwash me and intimidate me in addition to 

the physical torture and the forced slave labor. The brainwash sessions lasted for all three years. 

They forced me to watch TV programs defaming Falun Gong and 

praising the Communist Party. Very often they have cut off all of 

my information sources for weeks on end, not even letting me talk 

with anybody. After those periods of isolation they would subject 

me to intensive brainwashing sessions in the hope that my resistance would be reduced. 

If I weren’t an American citizen whose case was internationally 

known, the treatment I experienced would have been much worse. 

I am thankful very much for this strong support from friends 

around the world, especially the U.S. Congress, that allowed me to 

come back to this country with my body intact and my will unbroken. 

Another thing I want to emphasize is the awakening of the Chinese people during this decade. While I was imprisoned I wondered 

to myself how it was that people could so readily abuse and torture 

their own compatriots, and I wondered to myself how they allowed 

themselves to be deceived and how they came to be so full of hatred. 

At the end of 2004, the book titled, ‘‘Nine Commentaries on the 

Communist Party,’’ published by Epochtimes, has given answers to 

these questions and truly led to a historic awakening of the Chinese people. In the past 60-plus years, the Party distorted the Chinese people’s sense of right and wrong and taught them to really 

view each other as enemies and to struggle against each other. The 

Party’s ideology is so pervasive that people are even unaware of 

their inability to think independently. 

What is more, from a young age, Chinese people are taught that 

the Party and the country are the same concept, so whenever someone criticizes the Party they fear that it is an attack on the Nation 

of China and on themselves as Chinese. 
25 

What has happened in the last eight years is that more and more 

people are quitting the Communist Party membership and other 

organizations affiliated with the Communist Party. There are many 

people who have stood out, like attorney Gao Zhisheng. He quit the 

Communist Party in 2005 and announced that it was his happiest 

day because he denounced the Communist Party and he was no 

longer part of the Communist Party. 

These people are making the choice to live according to their own 

conscience. That is really an awakening of the conscience and not 

according to the will of the Party, and they are refusing to participate in further violations against human rights. The process of denouncing the Party known in Chinese as ‘‘Tuidang’’ is thus a deeply spiritual, personal, and moral process and a method of reconnecting with traditional Chinese values of human-heartedness and 

compassion. 

To date, there are 129 million people in China renouncing and 

quitting the Party, taking this important step. More and more people’s consciences are free from the CCP’s control. The broad social 

and political environment is changing. The CCP is losing the battle 

for the hearts and minds of the Chinese people. This is a process 

that will ultimately lead to the CCP’s disintegration. 

Today, Chinese people are becoming unafraid of suppression and 

crackdowns by the CCP regime, and more and more people are taking a public stand to support Falun Gong and oppose the persecution. 

I would like to conclude my testimony by thanking the leadership 

of Congressman Smith and Congressman Andrews, along with the 

other 106 Members of Congress from 32 States for their bipartisan 

‘‘Dear Colleague’’ letter to Secretary Clinton explaining the serious 

concerns over China’s forced organ harvesting from prisoners of 

conscience and asking the Department of State to release all information about organ harvesting in China, including what Wang 

Lijun might have shared with U.S. diplomats while seeking asylum 

at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. To my knowledge, the Department of State has not yet responded to the ‘‘Dear Colleague’’ letter. 

We believe that the United States is the world leader in protecting human rights and has a moral obligation to speak out and 

help bring an end to this horrific crime against humanity, and we 

also believe that by doing this the United States will protect itself 

from being further deceived and harmed by the CCP regime. I did 

submit a report on the Quitting CCP movement, so maybe you can 

take that for the record. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Lee, thank you very much for your testimony and for your leadership. 

Professor Tong? 

[The prepared statement and report of Dr. Lee appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF JAMES TONG, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA–LOS ANGELES 

Mr. TONG. Chairman Smith, thanks for organizing this. 
26 

I have personally learned from this hearing from the other witnesses. I have done research on Falun Gong. Of course I’ve read 

many accounts of persecution of the Falun Gong, I have even read 

some of the publications by other witnesses, but they are not as 

moving as hearing them saying it firsthand, in person. 

So, let me begin with what Mr. Hu earlier alluded to, which is 

that Falun Gong was founded in 1992. This means that this year 

is the 20th anniversary of the Falun Gong. At the anniversary, the 

Falun Gong, as well as its Grand Master Li Hongzhi, was inundated with many greetings from China. In all, there are 2,788 

greeting cards from all over China from six different administrative 

regions in China, as well as 23 occupational groups, including 

teachers, military, law enforcement, and steelworkers, et cetera. 

What this suggests is that: (1) there is an extensive network of 

Falun Gong survivors who outlived the 1999 crackdown; (2) there 

has been regular and frequent communication with the global 

Falun Gong community; and (3) China’s regime is either less willing or less able to persecute them. 

There are some interesting developments. One, is that the Chief 

Procurator, the equivalent of the Attorney General in China, has 

to deliver an annual report to the national legislature in China. 

In this annual report, he has to list what the major law enforcement problems facing China were in the previous year. From 1999 

through 2002, the Falun Gong was listed as a major law enforcement problem in China. But from 2004 onward, it has not been 

listed as such. That is on the national level. 

China has 31 provinces. In each of these provinces, each of the 

provincial procurators also has to make an annual report to the 

provincial legislature. In 1999, 29 out of the 31 provincial procurators also listed Falun Gong as a major problem in their province; 

in 2000, 28 of the 31. 

But through 2004 onward, then the number has become single 

digits. In the last three years, 2009, 2010, 2011, there is not a single province which lists the Falun Gong as a major law enforcement issue in its jurisdiction. 

There are other developments as well. One of the earlier witnesses mentioned the 6–10 Office. The 6–10 Office was created on 

June 10, 1999, with the exclusive function to manage the Falun 

Gong problem. But starting in 2002, it changed its name to become 

the Leading Committee on Maintaining Social Stability, along with 

changes in its function. Its function is no longer exclusively on handling the Falun Gong. It has to deal with other law enforcement 

issues like peasants demonstrating against being evicted from their 

land, workers for being fired because their factories were closed, 

and also citizens protesting high prices. 

Other developments also suggest that Falun Gong is no longer 

perceived as a serious political threat. If it was an important policy 

matter, then the Politburo would convene a meeting, the Central 

Committee would issue an important document, and the entire national media would be launched to get involved on the campaign. 

Xinhua, the official news agency, would have a special commentary. The People’s Daily would have an editorial, and then China’s Central Television would have a special program on the case. 
27 

These were all part of the crackdown campaign in 1999, but in the 

past decade none of these things have happened. 

Similar changes also take place at the local level. Unlike what 

happened in 1999, there are no roadblocks to stop Falun Gong 

practitioners from going to Beijing or to provincial capitals. There 

has been no systematic checking of hotels or rental properties for 

registered Falun Gong members. 

Now, this is not to suggest that Falun Gong has been decriminalized, nor does this suggest that this is the end of persecution in 

China. For sure, as Mr. Hu earlier suggested, if you are a member 

of the People’s Liberation Army or if you work for the government 

or you work for the Party, you would be expelled from the military, 

from the government, from the Party. 

And if you unfold a banner of the Falun Gong in public, if you 

participate in collective meditation in a public park, if you print or 

distribute Falun Gong publications, you will also be arrested. And 

if you have been registered as a Falun Gong member, then you are 

under a surveillance network which is either in your residence or 

in your workplace. So, all those things would still be true. 

It is not a case of persecution or no persecution. It is a case of 

different levels of persecution and different degrees of perceived 

threat. It is similar to the case in the United States, where there 

are five levels of perceived risks of terrorism. So the levels of risks 

are the severe, the high, the elevated, the guarded, and the low levels. Right now we’re in an elevated level of risks as far as the Department of Homeland Security is concerned. 

So if you look at the Falun Gong problem in China, certainly the 

case was severe in 1999, and from 2000 to about 2003 it was high. 

But right now it is probably in the low and guarded level. On special occasions like, say, May 13, which is the foundation day of the 

Falun Gong, or July 20, which is the anniversary of the crackdown 

on the Falun Gong, then it would be elevated. Then on special 

events like the 2008 Olympics, then the perceived risk level would 

be high. 

In my prepared statement I have dealt with other issues and I 

will refer interested parties to look at my prepared statement. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Professor Tong. 

Ms. Ford? 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tong appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF CAYLAN FORD, INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR AND 

HUMAN RIGHTS CONSULTANT, OTTAWA, CANADA 

Ms. FORD. Thank you. I’d like to thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on China for convening this very important hearing today. 

I’d like to begin my testimony with a story about one man whose 

experience I believe is representative of Falun Gong practitioners 

in China. This is the story of Qin Yueming. He’s a father and businessman from Yichun City in the northeastern province of 

Heilongjiang. 

Qin learned about Falun Gong in the spring of 1997 while visiting a friend’s home. That evening he practiced Falun Gong’s one- 
28 

hour meditation for the first time, and borrowed a copy of its central text, Zhuan Falun. 

Soon, Qin’s family and friends noted that his temperament 

changed for the better. He was no longer irritable. He gave up 

drinking, stopped quarreling with his wife. Neighbors recall that he 

took it upon himself to repair the potholes on Lixin Street where 

he lived. Witnessing these changes, Qin’s wife also began practicing 

Falun Gong, as did the couple’s two daughters and several of their 

neighbors. 

In October 1999, three months after the persecution of Falun 

Gong was launched, Qin traveled to a local petitioning office to appeal against the persecution. He was sent immediately to the 

Yichun City forced labor camp for two years. Not long after his release in April 2002, security agents broke into his home, took him 

and his wife and their 15-year-old daughter into custody. 

In a Kafkaesque trial, Qin was sentenced to 10 years at the 

Jiamusi Prison. There he endured regular torture and humiliation 

as guards sought to coerce him into renouncing his spiritual faith. 

In the spring of 2010, the Communist Party’s Central 6–10 Office 

initiated a new three-year campaign to intensify the ideological reeducation of Falun Gong adherence across the country. 

Party Web sites in every province of China carried details of the 

campaign, which set quotas for each region, specifying the percentage of adherents who were to be ‘‘transformed,’’—a process, as 

you’ve already heard, of coercive and often violent indoctrination 

that ends when the victim renounces Falun Gong. 

On February 1, 2011, the Jiamusi prison where Qin Yueming 

was held established a ‘‘Strict Transformation Ward’’ in compliance 

with the 6–10 Office directives. At least nine Falun Gong practitioners were transferred to the ward. Within two weeks, three of 

them were dead. 

Qin was the first victim. Less than five days after the establishment of the Strict Transformation Ward, his wife received a phone 

call from the prison informing her that her husband had died, ostensibly of a heart attack. He was 47 years old. 

When she arrived at the prison, she found his entire back covered in deep purple bruises, with dried blood around his nose and 

mouth. Other inmates and a sympathetic guard related that he’d 

been violently force-fed the night before. They believed a feeding 

tube may have punctured his lung. 

The two other men who were killed were 48-year-old Yu 

Yungang—abducted in 2009 and sentenced to eight years in prison—and 55-year-old Liu Chungjing. They all died within days of 

each other. 

But Qin’s story did not end here. News of the deaths at Jiamusi 

quickly were related via an underground network of Falun Gong 

adherents and published on Web sites overseas. His oldest daughter issued a petition to authorities demanding redress and accountability for his death. Soon, the petition garnered over 15,000 signatures. 

I should mention as well that Qin’s wife and his youngest daughter were sentenced to a forced labor camp because they were seeking a death certificate, and seven other Falun Gong practitioners 

were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 11 to 14 years simply 
29 

for visiting Qin’s widow. Those sentences were handed down just 

two months ago. 

Similar petitions to the one that I’ve alluded to have sprung up 

in Heilongjiang, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning, Henan, and 

other provinces, demanding justice for Falun Gong practitioners. 

They have been signed by thousands of ordinary citizens, including 

members of security forces. 

The petitioners have not changed the will of Central Party authorities. Every year they launch renewed efforts to eliminate 

Falun Gong and undermine public sympathy for the practice. In 

2007, as the Congressional-Executive Commission on China documented, security czar Zhou Yongkang, a Politburo Standing Committee member, ordered the nation’s security forces to wage a 

‘‘Strike Hard’’ campaign against Falun Gong ahead of the 17th 

Party Congress and the Beijing Olympics. References to this crackdown were found in provincial jurisdictions of every province in 

China. 

In the first six months of 2008, there were at least 8,000 Falun 

Gong adherents who were abducted by security agents, typically 

from their homes. In 2009, the Central CCP leadership initiated 

the 6521 project aimed at intensifying surveillance and suppression 

of Tibetans, democracy activists, and Falun Gong practitioners. The 

campaign was rumored to have been led by Xi Jinping. 

Zhou Yongkang led his own top-level CCP committee which exhorted security agencies to ‘‘closely watch out for and strike hard 

against Falun Gong.’’ Top officials have consistently launched such 

campaigns, the recent three-year transformation campaign being 

one iteration. 

Now, interestingly, as Dr. Tong mentioned, anti-Falun Gong 

propaganda has been largely absent at the national level since 

around the time of the 16th Party Congress in 2002. The campaign’s continued prominence in national media was attracting unwanted international attention to the suppression and the new generation of leaders may have decided that a better PR strategy was 

to allow the issue to fade away. 

But while the high-profile national propaganda campaign petered 

out, propaganda activities against Falun Gong at the local level 

have continued unabated. Earlier this year, for example, the Central 6–10 Office launched a comprehensive campaign to clean up 

Falun Gong information or literature. 

The initiative mobilized neighborhood committees to tear down 

Falun Gong messages that were plastered on billboards, light 

posts, and telephone poles. In Weifang City, authorities were required to conduct twice-daily patrols looking for Falun Gong pamphlets. In Qingdao, they demanded 24-hour vigilance against Falun 

Gong’s posters. 

The notices also required neighborhood committees to hold study 

sessions to unify their thinking on the anti-Falun Gong work. They 

mobilized local Party functionaries to screen anti-Falun Gong forms 

and go door-to-door, collecting promises from families that they 

would not support Falun Gong. 

A Party document uncovered in several geographically disparate 

locales earlier this year exhorts authorities to create a climate in 
30 

which Falun Gong are ‘‘like rats running across the street that everyone shouts out to smash. Don’t leave them any space.’’ 

A Party document from the Laodian township in Yunnan Province dated May 15, 2010, notes that the Falun Gong adherents in 

custody, however, are ‘‘becoming more and more difficult to transform.’’ The practitioners were returning to the practice with greater 

frequency and new people were taking up the practice. It further 

notes that Falun Gong is ‘‘fighting with us to win the masses and 

the struggle to win people’s hearts is still very intense.’’ 

Party documents published this year repeatedly admonished cadres to ‘‘overcome their paralysis of thought’’ and truly understand 

that the anti-Falun Gong struggle has always been a ‘‘long-term, 

important political task to grasp unremittingly.’’ 

The continued suppression campaign launched against Falun 

Gong evinced two things. First, to senior leaders of the Communist 

Party, the eradication effort remains of great importance and continues to command tremendous human and material resources. 

Recently released prisoners from China continue to report that in 

many detention facilities, Falun Gong practitioners comprise the 

majority population. In the Beijing Women’s Labor Camp, for instance, they are between two-thirds and 80 percent of the imprisoned population. They are singled out for abuse, and of course 

there are ongoing allegations that the organs of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience are sold for transplant. 

Yet, the official Communist Party literature coming out in recent 

years also reveals that the 13-year-old campaign to defeat Falun 

Gong has failed, that local cadres are increasingly unwilling to pursue the campaign, despite orders from their superiors, that more 

and more people are returning to or taking up the practice, and 

that despite all of its efforts, the Party is losing the battle for the 

hearts and minds of the Chinese people. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Ms. Ford, thank you very much for your testimony and for your insights. 

Mr. Xia? 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ford appears in the appendix.] 

STATEMENT OF YIYANG XIA, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF POLICY 

AND RESEARCH, THE HUMAN RIGHTS LAW FOUNDATION 

Mr. XIA. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Cochairman Brown, 

for holding this hearing. Thank you to the CECC. 

I would like to address how this persecution operates without a 

legal basis. We have established the argument that the Chinese 

Government never legally banned Falun Gong. This is based on 

Chinese lawyers who defended Falun Gong practitioners, based on 

the Chinese Constitution and the Chinese laws. 

Since the Falun Gong practitioners didn’t break any law, the regime couldn’t apply the rule of law to deal with the Falun Gong 

issue. It initiated a political campaign instead. Political campaigns 

cannot co-exist with the rule of law, so the regime used special tactics to create a very sophisticated system, including setting up a 

new chain of command outside the legal system, this is the 6–10 

Office; using an existing Party system, such as the Political and 

Legal Affairs Committee [PLAC]; using internal Party documents 
31 

to override the laws and the Constitution. It used this method to 

persecute Falun Gong. So the regime created a system to systematically break the law, to persecute Falun Gong. I have included 

details in my written statement. This is the result: When the regime systematically breaks its own laws, then nobody is safe. That 

is the current situation in China. 

I will also talk about why Wang Lijun is so important. Wang 

Lijun fled to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, setting off one of the 

biggest political scandals in China in recent years. But most people 

don’t realize that Wang Lijun’s human rights abuses went way 

back, way before he took the position in Chongqing. 

So I would like to mention, Wang Lijun set up and directed a research facility in Jinzhou, Liaoning Province to study and refine 

the harvesting of organs from prisoners. In 2006, Wang Lijun received the Guanghua Innovation Special Contribution Award for 

his research on organ transplantation from donors who had been 

subjected to drug injection. 

Why is this so important? Because Wang Lijun’s case was well 

documented and published by the Chinese media before he fell, so 

the evidence is already there. We know the following facts from the 

Chinese media and official reports. 

First, Wang admitted that he did the organ removal operations. 

Second, from the published information, his experiments at least 

included developing a brand-new protective fluid to preserve the organs that enabled the recipient’s body to receive the organ. 

Third, during the award ceremony for his organ research, Wang 

explained that the so-called on-site research is the result of several 

thousand intensive on-site cases. According to available data, the 

executions in Jinzhou from 2003 to 2006 would not exceed 100. So 

the numbers don’t match. 

Wang Lijun doesn’t have medical training. Without any medical 

background, he collaborated with top universities, both inside and 

outside China. He was just a middle-level city police chief. The only 

reason for the cooperation is that he could offer something the others couldn’t: Taking organs from live human beings. 

Last, execution is not under a police chief’s jurisdiction, and so 

he is not supposed to execute prisoners. 

Then, who are those thousands of prisoners who are under the 

police chief’s jurisdiction? This is where Falun Gong comes in. In 

November 2009, a World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong investigator interviewed a former member of 

the Armed Police. 

The armed policeman witnessed a female Falun Gong practitioner’s organs being removed when she was alive. At the end of 

the interview, the officer mentioned that he had taken orders from 

Wang Lijun, who had said to eradicate them all, referring to Falun 

Gong practitioners. 

Taking the entire interview into account, the investigators concluded that although the organ harvesting incident the police officer witnessed had occurred in Shenyang, the victims were likely 

from Tieling, where Wang was the police chief, and that her detention and prior torture had occurred there. 

Finally, I would like to say something about the new leadership. 

There are several reasons to believe that the policy of persecution 
32 

of Falun Gong will not have a big change in the near future under 

the new leadership. The new leadership will face a big challenge 

on Falun Gong issues. The Hong Kong Trend magazine published 

an article in October listing three major challenges that the new 

leadership would face. One of them was how to handle the antiFalun Gong campaign. 

But why can’t the policy of persecuting Falun Gong change? One 

reason is that the CCP lacks self-correction mechanisms, and the 

CCP has never fully redressed a political campaign targeted at ordinary Chinese people, never. The Cultural Revolution is the only 

exception. But the Cultural Revolution was targeted at the Chinese 

Communist Party itself and at high-ranking Party officials. 

Some newly selected members of the Standing Committee of the 

Politburo are also involved in the persecution. Before and after the 

18th Party Congress, the persecution of Falun Gong has become 

more severe, along with harassment of other religious groups. Finally, the social, political, and economic crisis the CCP is facing 

will get worse, thus the human rights abuses will get worse. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Xia appears in the appendix.] 

Chairman SMITH. Mr. Xia, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Let me begin. Professor Tong, your information which you’ve conveyed to the Commission, I think, is very interesting, particularly 

Table 2 where you talk about how, on the national level, the enforcement problem from the various counties shows that it probably 

peaked in 2001, maybe 2003, but then it began to abate. 

Now, my question is, so no one draws the wrong conclusion that 

somehow there’s been an easing, is it that—and the others might 

want to speak to this as well, and Ms. Ford, you spoke about that, 

and so did Mr. Xia—there seems to be a morphing of how they do 

it and a change of direction rather than a lack of persecution or 

an abatement of the maltreatment of Falun Gong practitioners. Is 

that true or is it a mixed bag? 

I mean, I’ve heard that local cadres are unwilling, and yet the 

labor camps are overflowing with Falun Gong practitioners, but at 

the local level it continues unabated in terms of how it is implemented. What is the accurate picture in terms of the level of persecution? Has it changed or has it abated? Are the numbers growing 

of Falun Gong practitioners? 

In light of this gross disinformation campaign, this hate campaign that’s being leveled by the government at all levels, are people moving away from the Falun Gong? 

Mr. TONG. I would rely on the other, more knowledgeable Falun 

Gong practitioners to comment and say whether the number of 

Falun Gong practitioners inside China has been growing or is 

about the same. Compared with, say, 1999 when we had more or 

less reliable numbers, the lowest range is 2.3 million and the highest number, as Mr. Hu mentioned, is 80 million. The 2.3 million— 

I believe, is every one of these 2.3 million number has a name, has 

an address, so these are actual people with faces. 

But after 1999, because the Falun Gong has gone underground, 

the number will be difficult to know, whether it has been growing 

or not. It will also be difficult to know at the local level whether 
33 

the persecution has been intensifying or abating or not. China has 

3,000 counties and over 700 cities, so it’s difficult to know what 

happens at the local level. 

Plus, in the case of the Falun Gong and religious communities, 

China subscribes to the policy of local management. So there’s really no uniform national policy and that makes the picture all the 

more confusing. 

Chairman SMITH. But is there a national strategy that’s being 

implemented at a local level in a way that is more efficacious for 

the outcome? I mean, I think, Mr. Xia, you’ve spoken about the extralegal chain of command. 

Mr. XIA. I would like to answer this question. 

Chairman SMITH. Yes, please. 

Mr. XIA. I would like to answer this question. First, this is a political campaign of the Party. The 6–10 Office belongs to the Party, 

not the state, so it’s not required to report to the People’s Congress. 

It’s an option, but it’s not required. This is first. 

Second, the 6–10 Office continues to exist independently from the 

Maintaining Stability Office. People mix them together because, 

first, the Maintaining Stability Office was established on the experience of persecution of Falun Gong. So at the beginning, the office 

members were overlapping, especially when the director of both offices are the same person, Liu Jing. When Liu Jing retired, the offices separated again. You can see it’s a totally different office. 

Now, the leader of the 6–10 Office, Central 6–10 Office, is Li 

Dongsheng and the leader of the Maintaining Stability Office is the 

Vice Minister of Public Security. So it’s a totally different person. 

So we cannot mix them together. But they have the same strategies because the Maintaining Stability Office learned experience 

from the 6–10 Office. 

This is a nationwide political campaign. Since there has never 

been any National People’s Congress that authorized the persecution, we cannot say the persecution never happened. It’s never been 

state action. It’s a Party action, but it used the state organ as the 

instrument. That’s my observation. 

Chairman SMITH. Dr. Lee? 

Dr. LEE. I want to just mention that before the persecution started in 1999, the Communist Party’s Sports Commission did an investigation on Falun Gong practitioners. They estimated there 

were 70 to 100 million people practicing Falun Gong at that time 

and the National Congress head—his name is Qiao Shi—he also 

was involved in the investigation. His conclusion was that Falun 

Gong has nothing bad, but all goodness to the society. Many other 

officials in the high-level CCP, they all supported Falun Gong. 

The number was mentioned and published in the publications before the persecution. When the persecution started, the Communist 

regime changed the number to 2.3 million. The reason was that 

they were going to scale down the numbers of Falun Gong practitioners because if they say there are so many people, like 100 million people practicing, then the target is too big and it’s a very bad 

image. So those are the tactics of the CCP when they do these political movements. They always twist around the numbers. 

Another thing. Professor Tong mentioned that after 2002, there 

was almost no Falun Gong in the media in China. This is also the 
34 

strategy, because in the first two years of the persecution it caused 

a lot of international attention. People saw clearly that there were 

human rights violations. Everybody was questioning, what’s going 

on in China? So they decided to go underground, but the persecution never stopped, never reduced or abated. 

My personal case is exactly the kind of case they want to cover 

up in the persecution of Falun Gong. When they arrested me they 

tried to brainwash me, trying to transform me to give up Falun 

Gong. After they failed, they changed the tactics. They said we’re 

not going to talk about Falun Gong anymore because your case is 

not a religious persecution, your case is a criminal case. So that’s 

what happened. 

They did not allow me to talk about anything concerning Falun 

Gong at the court and they did not allow me to show the evidences, 

what were the reasons for which we wanted to reveal the truth. So 

that is exactly what the Communist Party wanted people to believe 

in, that Falun Gong is no longer a major problem in China and 

they do not publicize the persecution, but underground the persecution never abated. 

On the other side, because of the resistance by the petitioners, 

a lot of people, including those policemen, they found their conscience—many of them even helped Falun Gong practitioners in 

the police station and those kind of places. So that’s like both sides 

of the story. So I just want to mention this is a tactic of the regime. 

Thank you. 

Ms. FORD. I would be happy to address the question that you had 

asked about members. Obviously it’s a very opaque climate and it’s 

very difficult to get a sound assessment. In 2009, there was a 

human rights lawyer in Beijing who told the Telegraph that he believed there were tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners, and 

perhaps more significantly that the practice was growing. This is 

consistent—we find references to this both within Falun Gong literature and within Party literature. They refer to newly discovered 

or new practitioners quite frequently, actually with increased frequency. 

There was a study done by Falun Gong’s primary overseas Web 

site in 2009 that produced an estimate of about 40 million people 

who continued practicing. Not only practicing but who had some 

level of contact with the wider community. This calculation was 

based on the number of underground Falun Gong material sites in 

China. 

These material sites are a Samizdat-like network that practitioners have established, where they upload and download information about Falun Gong to and from the international Web site. 

There are 200,000 of these material sites, and they estimated that 

each one was connected to dozens or hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners. 

There is also some evidence that comes from local-level documents. You will find a particular township or district sometimes referring to the fact that they’ve got 1,600 Falun Gong practitioners 

that they’re monitoring, for instance. It’s very difficult to piece together a coherent picture, but I think it’s safe to say that the number is, I would say, still probably in the millions. 
35 

As far as your question about the willingness of authorities at 

local levels to implement the persecution, my answer to James 

Tong’s question is—is this a matter of the Party’s willingness or 

their ability to fully sort of disintegrate Falun Gong—and I would 

say that at the Central level the Party is completely willing to pursue the campaign to its end. 

They refer to this in official documents from the 6–10 Office at 

the Central level, they describe this as a matter of ‘‘life and death 

for the Party,’’ as a ‘‘test of the Party’s ability to govern,’’ in these 

very hyperbolic terms. 

But as Dr. Lee was mentioning, at the local level—this isn’t to 

say that there aren’t a good number of very sadistic police officers 

and so on, but at the local level we find increasingly that even 

members of the security forces are sympathizing with Falun Gong. 

You hear stories about 6–10 Officers who visit Falun Gong practitioners, that tell them, ‘‘I’m going to have to arrest you in a couple of days because my superiors are watching, but don’t worry, 

we’ll let you out really fast and we’ll try to protect you.’’ So this 

is some of the dynamic. 

Of course, it varies from locale to locale, but increasingly we are 

finding that at the grassroots level, as evidenced as well by these 

petitioners, that people are increasingly sick of this and that even 

the cadres who are charged with performing this transformation 

work, authorities were having a more and more difficult time convincing them of the necessity of the persecution of Falun Gong. 

Chairman SMITH. Let me ask you, in his testimony Dr. Xu had 

a final concluding set of paragraphs: What can we do? He had a 

number of admonitions to the medical community, to society, and 

to the U.S. Government. One, is the petition that they’ve launched, 

Dr. Kaplan, Dr. Centurion, and Dr. Xu. They’ve gained over 10,000 

signatures within two weeks, asking that President Obama speak 

out against this horrific practice. I’m wondering what your 

thoughts are on that approach. 

Second, he also asks that Congress adopt legislative changes to 

prohibit patients from going abroad to receive illegal organ transplants, and then suggests a registry that would include the source 

of the organ donation. Your thoughts on that? 

Finally, in 2000, I authored a law that empowered the U.S. Government to deny visas to anyone who is involved with forced abortion or forced sterilization. Sadly, both the previous administration 

and the current administration has so inadequately enforced it, 

that only some 27 people have been denied entry into the United 

States, despite the fact that forced abortion is absolutely commonplace throughout China. So it has been very ineffectively implemented. 

The other side, or a contrary-positive, in 2004 I authored the 

Belarus Democracy Act, which also has a visa ban in it, and some 

200 top people associated with the Lukashenko regime, the last dictatorship in Europe, are denied entry into the United States. The 

Europeans have a similar annex that lists people and their families 

who are denied entry into Europe and it has had a huge positive, 

and I think over time will have a very positive, impact. 

I heard from some Belarusian leaders last week at a forum with 

Freedom House that there are judges who do not want to handle 
36 

human rights cases because they don’t want to be put on that list 

and be denied access to the United States. I just got news a moment ago that Jacob Ostreicher, a man that I’ve been working to 

get out of prison at the Palmasola Prison in Bolivia, and I actually 

visited him in June and was down there just last week, he just got 

bail. 

But I introduced a bill called Jacob’s Law that would say that 

anyone who is engaged in human rights abuse against an American will be denied a visa to the United States, as well as their 

families, so they can’t send their kids here to college, and hopefully 

this will have a chilling effect on barbaric practices by these individuals. 

There’s a bill that’s pending now, and I’ve introduced it, called 

H.R. 2121—and I’d appreciate your thoughts on it—that would say 

that anyone who engages in human rights abuse is inadmissible to 

the United States. We have already had one hearing at the Judiciary Committee on H.R. 2121. Chai Ling, the great Tiananmen 

Square activist who now heads up All Girls Allowed, was one of 

those who testified, as did I. 

It seems to me that a very focused sanction of this kind that says 

to individuals who engage in barbaric practices, well, at the very 

least you’re not allowed to come to the United States—hopefully 

the Europeans and other countries will follow suit—will have potentially a chilling effect over time, but will also hold to account 

those who commit these. It comports, I think, with what Dr. Xu basically is talking about, holding the individuals to account who 

commit these crimes. 

Your thoughts on a visa denial policy, and the other questions 

that I asked earlier? 

Mr. XIA. I think that the State Department already has questions on the online application form, do you ever, I don’t remember 

exactly, ever involved in forced organ removal operation. They already have one. But I think it should be well-publicized to let everybody know. 

Another thing I would like to think about on that ‘‘Dear Colleague’’ letter that Representative Smith initiated and the petition. 

I think the U.S. Government should respond to those letters and 

petitions. As I mentioned, Wang Lijun’s case is important because 

this is the first and only case we know that is published by the 

Chinese authorities and all the evidence pointed to that one person. 

Before, it was all collected evidence: How many? All numbers. 

But now this is individual. So, this is very important. That’s why 

the government should get involved, because the individuals, the 

non-government organizations have limited resources, so the governments should get involved in the investigation. That’s what I 

think. 

Another thing, really short, is there should be some kind of protection for whoever testifies against themselves. Because if the doctor who operates did the organ harvesting and then he testified, 

then he is against himself. He lost a chance to practice either in 

China or in the United States. He’s against himself because his actions violated the ethical code. So there should be some kind of protection to protect those who can step out to testify, because who-
37 

ever testifies practically loses everything, their reputation, career, 

everything. 

Chairman SMITH. Like Dr. Wang. 

Dr. LEE. I have some suggestions. First, the State Department 

should speak out. We heard that in 2009 the Secretary of State 

said that human rights should not interfere with the trading, 

which is totally wrong because human rights are for every human 

being. If we do not respect human rights, if we do not protect 

human rights, we cannot be called a human being. 

So the U.S. Government should have this right stance. There 

should be no exceptions. If there is any human rights violation, the 

U.S. Government should speak out; let alone these severe, heinous 

crimes happening in China, as the scale that I just talked about. 

It’s comparable to the Nazi’s holocaust or genocide. 

For visa denials, the second step, we can do that in the legislative branch. Also, what we can do is like the Bo Xilai case. We 

know that their family has $6 to $8 billion U.S. dollars outside of 

China. We can trace this money down, maybe freeze these accounts. Also, for these confirmed human rights perpetrators— 

against humanity—they should be arrested if they come to the 

United States or other countries. There should be this kind of law 

and it should be explored in this direction later on. But the U.S. 

Government should speak out clearly to the CCP regime that no 

such thing could happen in this world, we cannot see it happening 

and do the trading normally. Thank you. 

Ms. FORD. With respect to H.R. 2121, I think it has the potential 

to be very powerful. Falun Gong sources have already compiled 

massive lists with the names, often the addresses, phone numbers, 

educational backgrounds of those who are particularly egregious in 

their use of torture and coercion in the persecution. So these lists 

already exist and are often fairly well corroborated. 

To give an example of why this kind of thing is powerful, just 

at the micro-level within China, one of the things that Falun Gong 

practitioners have done very effectively to mitigate the worst excesses of persecution is precisely to adopt a kind of name-andshame tactic against the perpetrators. 

So if there’s one police officer or prison guard who’s particularly 

vile, they’ll post information about them, about their crimes and 

their use of torture, they’ll give it to the man’s wife, to his kids, 

they’ll put it on telephone poles, and that person will largely stop 

doing that. They will also publish it overseas with their phone 

numbers and the person will be inundated with phone calls explaining to them why they shouldn’t be complicit in crimes against 

humanity. 

So even though that’s just at the local level, the risk of people 

losing their reputation, their standing in the community because of 

these things, I think is very potent. At the larger level, many Chinese officials at the mid-levels and higher have assets abroad or 

have children that they’ve sent abroad or intend to and hold foreign passports, so I think it could be a very strong deterrent. 

On the question that was raised in the previous panel as well 

about the impact of public pressure in individual cases, I think the 

Chinese Government has sometimes been deliberately inconsistent 

in how they respond to such pressure, precisely so that Western 
38 

policymakers can’t figure out the most effective way to engage with 

them on human rights. So in some cases attention on a particular 

case can exacerbate the abuses. 

But what I have found, and I think the Falun Gong victims on 

these panels would agree, is that on a whole the pressure is beneficial. Take the case of Bu Dongwei, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, who was detained twice at the same labor camp 

in Beijing. 

The first time there was no international attention attached to 

his case and he was tortured very severely. The second time he noticed that other prisoners were still being tortured severely, but he 

was not. What he didn’t know is that Amnesty had listed him as 

a prisoner of conscience, his wife was lobbying for him at the State 

Department, and that contributed directly to an improvement in 

his condition. 

Mr. TONG. Diplomacy is always a two-way street. American citizens are paying a very high visa fee to go to China. It’s because 

the U.S. Government is requiring Chinese citizens coming to the 

United States to pay a high U.S. visa fee. 

So if we say the State Department wants to deny visas to certain 

categories of Chinese citizens, it is quite likely that China will also 

reciprocate and deny visas to certain categories of American citizens, so it needs to be thought through. That’s my only comment. 

Chairman SMITH. Let me just say, the State Department celebrated the one millionth visa granted to an American citizen just 

a few months ago, but this Chairman—me—I have been denied a 

visa, as have members of our staff, to travel to China because we’ve 

raised the case of Chen Guangcheng and wanted to visit him. So 

it is a one-way street. 

When you’re talking about abusers, any collateral damage that 

might be done if it has any mitigating effect on the abuse is well 

worth it, in my opinion, which is why I think we need to promulgate lists. Again, I heard it as recently as two weeks ago from 

Belarusian leaders that certain judges—and I want to get more information on this to see how widespread it is—simply will not take 

up human rights cases because they don’t want to be on the list. 

I think if we are serious about it and promulgate these lists and 

hold our own government to account and say we don’t want them 

coming here—when I was in La Paz, I raised with government officials of Evo Morales that Jacob’s Law, which is a parallel to everything we’re talking about here—we’re saying if you want to send 

your kids, and you’re an abuser, to University of Miami or some 

other school, forget about it because we’re serious about abuse. 

All these other positives that you might glean from coming to the 

United States, like going on a shopping spree, enjoying the benefits 

of Disney World, or sending your kids to Yale or Harvard, or wherever you want to send them, from our point of view is part of the 

price of trying to help victims, because this Commission and everything we do on the Human Rights Committee and what we should 

be first and foremost all about, in my opinion, is victims, to try to 

mitigate and lessen the number of victims. 

It seems a no-brainer that holding abusers to account, they 

should be before a court of law, on their way to the Hague, or if 

it’s an international issue for crimes against humanity, rather than 
39 

whether or not there might be some corresponding retaliation by 

the Chinese. 

Bring it on. I would say to the Chinese Government, we need to 

be very serious about abuse. We have not been, and as a government, it goes through successive administrations that have been 

very weak and vacillating when it comes to human rights of the 

Chinese people. That has to change. 

On May 26, 1994, Bill Clinton de-linked most-favored-nation status from our trade policy. We have seen a deterioration—it was already bad, obviously—every since. I think while we may never get 

that back again, we do have other tools in the toolbox and we need 

to use them. If any of you have any final comments, any statement 

you’d like to make before we conclude the hearing, please. Dr. Lee? 

You don’t have to if you don’t want to. 

Dr. LEE. Yes. I just want to thank you and all the other members 

on the CECC for their hard work. It’s extremely important for us 

to face the human rights violations in China because China is such 

a big country. As I said, even the transient population in China is 

300 million. It’s like the entire United States population is moving 

around, moving from city to city looking for jobs, that kind of thing. 

The impact is huge so we have to really look into these things 

and do whatever is possible. As I also said, people in China are 

awakening, so we do see hope and we do know that we need to do 

a lot more things. We hope we can do this together with the U.S. 

Government. Thank you very much. 

Chairman SMITH. Professor? 

Mr. TONG. I just want to commend Mr. Smith’s principled position on human rights. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. FORD. I’ll just echo that. Thank you again for convening this 

hearing. 

Mr. XIA. Thank you for holding this hearing. Another thing is the 

petition outside. I think whoever attends this meeting and hasn’t 

signed, please do so when the hearing is finished. Thank you. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you very much. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:34 p.m. the hearing was concluded.] 

(41) 

A P P E N D I X 
42 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRUCE CHUNG

DECEMBER 18, 2012

I want to thank Chairman Smith and Co-chairman Brown for holding this important hearing and inviting me to testify today. 

My name is Chung Ting-pang, manager of INTEK TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. in 

Taiwan. I have been practicing Falun Gong since 2001. Like hundreds of thousands 

of Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan, I follow this spiritual path because Falun 

Gong has not only brought me good health but also provided me with meaningful 

spiritual guidance. 

I traveled to Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province to visit my family members on June 

15, 2012. My father’s ex-wife and my two elder half-brothers live there. During the 

several days of visit, I didn’t do any Falun Gong activities or contact any Falun 

Gong practitioners in Mainland China. On June 18, I was on my way back to Taiwan as planned. When I was just about to board the flight from Ganzhou to 

Shenzhen, I was forcefully taken away by the State Security agents. I was then detained for 54 days under the vague accusation of sabotaging national security and 

public safety until my release on August 11. 

My family members in both Mainland China and Taiwan didn’t know about my 

secret arrest. First, I protested with a hunger strike. I demanded that these plainclothed State Security agents should inform my family members. At the same time, 

I should have an attorney. However, my legal rights were ignored. No attorney came 

to my defense. In the afternoon of the second day of my detention, I was allowed 

to see my family members in Ganzhou City. Then, while under police surveillance, 

I was allowed to make a call home. They instructed me to inform my wife that I 

would be able to go home two days later, but that turned out to be a lie. 

Without the presence of my attorney, I was subject to marathon interrogation sessions that drove me to deep fatigue. They verified my answers over and over again. 

On July 11, I finally saw Attorney Guo Lianhui, who my family in Ganzhou retained for me. However, I couldn’t communicate with my attorney in private. He 

only saw me once. He was turned down by the State Security when he requested 

to see me for the second time. During my detention, I was deprived of my basic 

human rights. I had no protection at all. My pain was beyond words. 

The place I was detained included a bedroom, an interrogation room, and a dinner 

table. Two or more people were watching me at all times. I had to keep the bathroom door half open—I had no privacy at all. 

The main content of the interrogations was as follows: 

1. An incident in 2003 in which I mailed TV hijacking equipment to Falun 

Gong practitioners in Mainland China. 

2. I had once asked a Mainland China Falun Gong practitioner to provide documents regarding how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tried to systematically eliminate and persecute Falun Gong. At the time, this Mainland China 

practitioner was an officer himself. Afterwards however, he was arrested later 

and forced to sign the so-called ‘‘guarantee letter’’ not to practice Falun Gong. 

3. I tried to broadcast truth films regarding persecution of Falun Gong via satellite signals in Taiwan. 

4. The wanted to know all the methods that Taiwan Falun Gong practitioners 

use to expose the persecution of Falun Gong in Mainland China. 

5. They tried to force me to provide all names, phone numbers, email address 

and participating projects of Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan. 

Without the presence of my attorney, State Security agents interrogated me for 

a long time and threatened me if I did not cooperate with them. These threats included: 

1. That they would bring in a harsher team to handle me. 

2. That they would change my civil detention to a criminal detention. Once 

this change was made, I would then be detained with other prisoners and interrogated behind bars. 

3. That they would send me to judicial authorities and threaten that I would 

have to serve at least three years of jail term. 

What is most unacceptable to me was the State Security Bureau in Ganzhou City 

forced me to sign a ‘‘Confession Statement’’, and asked me to admit that I committed a crime to endanger (Chinese) national security, public safety, and sabotage 
43 

public property. They said my help to intercept TV signals resulted in losses for the 

nation and society. Among all these nonsense accusations, they never asked why I 

would think of using satellite interception technology to help the Chinese public understand the truth of the persecution of Falun Gong (in the first place); Chinese people are entitled to freedom of belief under the Chinese Constitution, and they should 

be not be persecuted for what they believe. 

The day before they allowed me to go back Taiwan, they told me that as early 

as one week before I arrived in mainland China, they had already prepared to put 

me under ‘‘house arrest’’ and waited for me. This showed that when I was preparing 

for the trip to mainland, they’d known my itinerary and were ready to take action 

against me. 

Three weeks or so before I went back Taiwan, they began to threaten me to admit 

my ‘‘guilt’’ and ‘‘remorse.’’ I was forced to write and re-write many times the statement. The night before they let me go back to Taiwan, Jiangxi Television (the government TV station in Jiangxi Province) was arranged to be where I was held in 

Nanchang City (the capital city of Jiangxi Province) to video-tape my ‘‘remorse,’’ and 

I was threatened ‘‘not to be too outspoken’’ after I got to Taiwan. If I spoke out, 

they threatened to release this ‘‘remorse’’ video. 

Undeterred, I called for a press conference on the third day after I landed in Taiwan, openly stating that: 

1. What I wrote in that so-called ‘‘confession statement’’ and all the interrogation records, were not done with my free will. All the details I provided (during 

the interrogation) were made up by me to deal with their threats. 

2. I will continue to spread the truth to the Chinese public until the day the 

persecution ends. 

3. As an individual living in free and democratic Taiwan, it is an appropriate 

and just action for me to help the Chinese public, who have been deceived and 

persecuted by the Chinese community party. 

Not until I returned to Taiwan did I realize that Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan, non-government organizations, and the people of Taiwan had put in tremendous efforts to rescue me: about 200,000 people in Taiwan signed a letter campaign 

that urged President Ma Ying-jeou to strive to gain my release; over 30 non-government organizations came together to organize activities and on three occasions accompanied my family during their petitions at the Office of the President. As far 

as I know, the main reason that I was able to come back to Taiwan as a free man 

was the support from the people in Taiwan, while the Administration was relatively 

passive. Up to now, the Taiwan government has not formally responded to the requests of myself, my family, and other organizations regarding the protection of Taiwanese personal safety in Mainland China. 

Additionally I wish to make two points clear. 

First, the Chinese Communist does not only persecute Falun Gong practitioners 

in China; they have also extended the persecution overseas toward Taiwan. According to the Taiwan Falun Dafa Association, I am the 17th Taiwanese Falun Gong 

practitioner subject to persecution from the Chinese Communist Party. 

Second, the Chinese Communist Party has hired spies overseas to illegally collect 

Falun Gong practitioners’ personal information and information of their activities. 

The regime has illegally abducted foreign Falun Gong practitioners that travel to 

China. The international society should condemn these behaviors. 

In Taiwan, I am a respected and highly educated intellectual with a decent job 

and no criminal record. I am the same as the hundreds of thousands of people in 

Taiwan who practice Falun Gong and adhere to the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. I enjoy the freedom of expression and freedom of belief guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of China. I also join the great efforts of 

tens of millions of fellow Falun Gong practitioners in spreading the facts of the persecution and calling for the international community to stop this prolonged persecution. 

Finally, I would like to thank members of U.S. Congress and European Parliament for their efforts to secure my release. At the same time, I am also worried 

about many Falun Gong practitioners in prisons, labor camps, and detention centers 

in China who are facing torture and even facing the risks of been killed for their 

organs. The United States is the world’s leader in human rights. I hope that the 

U.S. Congress and President Obama publicly ask the Chinese Communist Party to 

stop the persecution of Falun Gong. I sincerely hope that when the regime’s crimes 

against humanity are finally put to an end, all the Chinese people around of the 

world will be able to thank the righteous efforts from the United States. 

Thank you. 
44 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HU ZHIMING

DECEMBER 18, 2012

I wish to express a heart-felt thank you to Chairman Smith and Co-chairman 

Brown for holding this important hearing. I am truly honored to be your guest and 

hope that my experiences below will be helpful to you. 

I have organized my written testimony into four sections. 

(1) Personal experiences of finding and practicing Falun Gong, both before and 

after the persecution. 

(2) Resistance to the persecution. 

(3) Details of three instances of detention over 8 years and two months. 

(4) Observations on how practitioners’ resistance to the persecution has rendered it unsuccessful and how it cannot be sustained for much longer. 

(1) PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF FINDING AND PRACTICING FALUN GONG

I was born in northeast China, Liaoning Province, in the middle of the Cultural 

Revolution, in 1972. Because my father had been labeled a Rightist, the first fourteen years of my life were spent living on different farms with my parents and three 

older brothers, where we received ‘‘re-education’’ through manual labor. I vividly remember as part of the re-education posters depicting Confucius as a ferocious monster and liar when he was criticized by the CCP in its political activity. I also remember being terribly cold. Our clothes were always tattered and I believe that because of this, I had a runny nose, congested sinuses and horse breathing for my entire life. 

My views on Confucius and the cultural legacy he represents, as well as my nasal 

condition dramatically changed when I first started practicing Falun Gong in November, 1997. At that time I had already earned a B.S. in Radar and a M.S. in Informational Technology from the Air Force Engineering University in Xi’An City. I 

was living and working at the Institute of Military Training Equipment under the 

Air Force Headquarters in Beijing. Although I was an Officer in the military and 

enjoyed a good lifestyle, I felt empty. Chinese people as a whole knew little of our 

cultural heritage, which had been systematically destroyed by the CCP through its 

many political activities. Still, very few people, if any, believed in Communist ideology, either. I believed there was more to life than material pursuit. 

My older brother, who was living in San Francisco, mailed the main book of Falun 

Gong, Zhuan Falun, to me. I immediately discovered that this practice represented 

a precious opportunity for any individual to raise their spirit, as well as the best 

opportunity for society to stabilize and return to a level where ethical behavior was 

cherished. In these early weeks of practice, the most memorable experiences were 

the inexplicable healing of my life-long respiratory and sinus condition as well as 

dramatic improvement in my outlook of the world. The military bureaucracy is extremely politicized and corrupt, with bribery and embezzlement being the norm. By 

adjusting my behavior to Falun Gong’s guiding principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance, by taking personal interest more lightly and by striving to be 

unaffected by others wronging me, I felt lightness in my spirit and in my step. Work 

and relationships went more smoothly and I found a happiness I had never experienced. 

I benefited greatly at this time from the veteran Falun Gong practitioners at the 

practice site within the Air Force Command University, which was across the street 

from my campus. 40 to 50 Air Force officers or professors regularly attended the 

morning exercises. 

At this time, 1998–1999, Falun Gong practice sites were everywhere. Just about 

every morning, when I left my campus for errands around Beijing, I would see 

scores, even hundreds of people practicing the Falun Gong exercises in parks or 

grassy boulevards. 

(2) MY RESISTANCE TO THE PERSECUTION

Starting in April of 1999, the situation changed dramatically. After the ‘‘4–25 Incident,’’ in which as many as 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners appealed to the central 

government to, among other things, release Falun Gong practitioners detained in 

Tianjin city and stop publishing articles defaming Falun Gong, most workplaces and 

housing units around Beijing put pressure on people to stop practicing Falun Gong. 

Nearly all of the 40–50 Air Force officers and professors in my practice group continued, however. 

By June, the situation was more tense. China had sought to have Mr. Li Hongzhi 

extradited from the United States. Mr. Li published a short article in response but 
45 

many practitioners were not able to read it as the regular channels among practitioners had been disrupted. Perhaps members of the Falun Dafa Buddha Research 

Society had already been detained. Perhaps in some areas the Internet was already 

blocked. I did not know the exact reason but I printed this and several other subsequent articles by Mr. Li from the Minghui.org, a website founded by US – based 

practitioners. I distributed copies to the military officers. 

By mid-June, the Minghui website was blocked and I had to circumvent the blockade using techniques that most computer users would be unable to use. At this time 

we also lost our practice site as a regulation had been passed prohibiting military 

personnel from practicing Falun Gong. We tried to practice outside the Air Force 

compound but were usually forced to disperse by public security. 

On July 13, Mr. Li published another short article. I was again able to print and 

make copies of it but by this time there were few people left to give it to. They no 

longer came out to the practice sites and I lost contact with them from that point 

on. On July 20, when the practice was officially banned, the whole country seemed 

to be on edge. I later learned that not only all military personnel, but even all workplaces and housing units across the country ordered all people to watch CCTV news 

programming that explained the ban on Falun Gong. Even people who had never 

heard of Falun Gong were ordered to watch it. The widespread reaction was initially 

one of shock and curiosity. 

Already relatively sheltered because I was living on a military compound, in the 

next two or three months I had very little contact with other practitioners. I left 

Beijing for several weeks in August and September for a military exercise and when 

I returned the situation was the same. I decided to bypass the Internet blockade 

again to find out news from the Minghui website. I learned that thousands of practitioners from around the country had been pouring into Beijing to appeal the government ban. I also learned that there had already been cases of abuse, including practitioners being tortured to death. 

I learned that the burden on Beijing practitioners was immense because hotels 

would not give rooms to appealing practitioners from out of town, and, more over, 

there were updates on the increasing gravity of the situation that the out-of-towners 

needed to hear. I realized that my skills on the computer were quite valuable at 

this time and took it upon myself to share these with other practitioners. 

By the beginning of 2000, the situation among practitioners had changed dramatically. It had gone from one of shock, disbelief and confusion to one of urgency and 

clarity. The persecution was getting more and more serious, with deaths and accounts of abuse mounting. We needed to be proactive. 

Then-UN Ambassador Kofi Annan was scheduled to visit Beijing in March, 2000. 

I agreed to assist in a plan to collect signatures from practitioners around the country for a petition that would ask him to intervene. As my days were generally quite 

busy on the military compound I knew I needed more time to accomplish this task 

and in early March decided to leave, with no notice. 

The political affairs committee of my workplace found out and acted right away. 

They had always known I was a practitioner but were loath to report me or even 

put a lot of pressure on me. As the military and political organs are different entities, they chose to bide their time with the many officers in their ranks who practiced Falun Gong. They did not want the responsibility of transforming practitioners, (who posed no threat to their organization, and usually, as in my case, were 

model employees,) and yet, at the same time, did not want the political blemish of 

having a Falun Gong practitioner. When I left, however, they needed to report my 

status as a Falun Gong practitioner and, now, one who was missing. 

They looked at the records of my apartment landline and within one weeks time 

were able to find me in the act of exchanging signatures for the Kofi Annan petition. 

They took me back to my workplace where the Air Force Deputy Commander criticized my boss over my situation. 

They held me for more than two months at an Air Force base outside of Beijing. 

I stayed in a bunker and was watched 24 hours a day by 4 soldiers at any given 

time. The soldiers respected me because I was an officer but they were ordered to 

show me endless hours of brainwashing programs. I rationally explained why all of 

the programs were false and how they had not convinced me to stop practicing. 

Seeing that they couldn’t convince me to quit practicing along these lines, officers 

attempted to appeal to me on ideological grounds, stating, ‘‘As a Master’s degree 

holder you are a member of the Communist Party? As a military officer you should 

be especially clear ideologically. How could a military officer not be an atheist? ’’ I 

asked for a piece of paper and wrote, ‘‘Then I quit the Communist Party.’’ 

They then showed me a report that the Central Government had written on Falun 

Gong prior to banning it. It estimated the number of practitioners around the coun-
46 

try to be 80 million which was later lowered to 60 million for the reason that limited 

the effect. The officers then argued, ‘‘But you are still a military officer. Think about 

it. If so many people are practicing, including military officers, and they are not 

ideologically clear, how can our military continue to function properly? ’’ I wrote, 

‘‘then I won’t be an officer anymore.’’ 

Having failed to transform me, 4 armed officials escorted me back to by hometown, Dandong, Liaoning Province, in May. In Dandong, they registered my civilian 

status with local authorities as a matter of medical discharge. They did not mention 

Falun Gong as doing so would have placed the burden of transformation on the local 

authorities, who would then have insisted that the Air Force be in charge of transforming me. This fact is illustrative of the means of the Communist Party system 

to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong. Because the Communist Party decreed 

Falun Gong to be illegal, it put pressure on the military and all levels of government to carry out the decree. No level of government wanted the burden of transforming Falun Gong practitioners as it was expensive and exhaustive, but if they 

did not they could lose favor with higher authorities who would, in turn, lose favor 

with the Central Government. It was often easier to look the other way. 

I stayed with my family for ten days in Liaoning Province but then returned to 

Beijing. As my records as a Falun Gong practitioner were only within the Air Force, 

I felt relatively free as a civilian. I met with several Beijing practitioners who were 

skilled in computers as I was. We decided that we needed to share our expertise 

with others around the country so as to create a network of people that could pass 

information to each other. More importantly, Minghui and other media would 

spread the blocked information to the international society, exposing the evil activity of the CCP. The free flow of information, we realized, was most feared by the 

Communist Party because it was the most important element to withstanding and 

exposing the persecution. 

Travelling around China was difficult and complicated. Out of safety concerns my 

one companion and I could not contact many practitioners. We started with people 

we knew to be genuine practitioners, and then asked them to organize small meetings with 5 to 15 others who might possesses the necessary technical expertise. Between May and October of 2000, we established viable lines of communication between Minghui and trained practitioners in at least seven cities from all different 

regions. 

Through our efforts, timely news of practitioner detentions, abuse and deaths 

were reported on the Internet. In time the postings became detailed, including the 

names, addresses and phone numbers of the perpetrators. It was found, the years 

that followed, that as more and more information exposing the persecution was published, the pressure on local practitioners became less. Minghui also proved to be 

invaluable as a resource for practitioners to learn from each other about matters 

related to personal cultivation and matters of faith and courage. 

(3) INCARCERATION

Our successes came to a halt on October 4, in the early dawn hours, when a group 

of ten police officers knocked on my Shanghai hotel door. I yelled loudly so as to 

alert two other practitioners in nearby rooms. They managed to escape the hotel but 

the officers detained me and found evidence of the Minghui website on my laptop. 

I went through a show trial and was charged with ‘‘using a cult to destabilize society.’’ They held me at a detention center for 26 months instead of placing me in 

prison because they wanted to find more evidence against me, an ex-military official 

with expertise in information technology. They wanted to frame me as a spy working with an overseas brother and possibly the American government. They wanted 

to build a story around me that would give credence to some of the propaganda that 

claimed Falun Gong was an established organization with a lot of funding from hostile overseas forces with political motives. 

They were unable to collect any other evidence that would help those claims and 

sent me to the Shanghai Tilan Qiao Prison for 22 more months. Conditions were 

considerably worse in the prison. Whereas before I was beaten for refusing to wear 

the detention center uniform, I was still permitted to practice Falun Gong exercises 

and read Falun Gong books. In the prison there was no chance for Falun Gong exercises. They tried their utmost to ‘‘transform’’ me. 

There were approximately 150 prisoners in my division and about 50 were Falun 

Gong practitioners. Very vicious criminals with sentences normally over 15 years 

beat us regularly. Their sentences could be reduced if they kept practitioners from 

practicing or even successfully transform us. The guards did not beat us themselves 

but further incited the criminals by placing one practitioner and two criminals in 
47 

a three-square meter cell. As a practitioner I could withstand being in such a small 

space, but a violent criminal became even more violent under such circumstances. 

In addition there were times when I was forced to watch brainwashing programs 

at deafening volumes, with the TV screen only one meter from my face, for 16 or 

more hours a day. They deprived me of sleep as well. 

Under these conditions I was approaching rock bottom, so I started a hunger 

strike that would last from August to October of 2004. They bound my limbs and 

torso to a hospital bed so that I could not move at all. They inserted a feeding tube 

in through my nose to my stomach. I was in this position for over a month, during 

the hottest time of the year, unable to move, itchy from sweat as well as weeks of 

defecation matter buildup. They also injected me with an unknown substance that 

would give me headaches that I felt put me on the brink of insanity. During this 

time they also drew large quantities of blood and routinely examined my body. 

I survived my prison term and was released in October, 2004, having served a 

total of four years in the detention center and then prison. I lived in my hometown 

in Liaoning for six months but decided to not burden my parents and family members, who were not wealthy, any longer. I moved to Beijing to seek employment and 

resume work with practitioners there to counteract the persecution. 

Several plain-clothed policeman saw me distributing a DVD of the 9–Commentaries to someone on the street in early September, giving rise to a chase and 

eventually capture. Another show trial ensued and I was again sentenced to four 

years in prison on Sept 23, 2005. I entered Beijing Haidian District Detention Center that was even more vicious that my experiences in Shanghai. Knowing the difficulties involved with a hunger strike, it took me some time to summon the will 

to sustain one. But by May 13, 2006, I was once again protesting my detention with 

a hunger strike. Guards shackled me to a hospital bed for six months straight and, 

similar to my experience in Shanghai, force-fed me through a tube in my nose, and 

injected me with drugs that numb the nerves. They took my blood samples and performed comprehensive physical examinations from time to time but never did they 

administer medical treatment for my ailments. I didn’t know anything about organ 

harvesting at that time. Now looking back, I am scared, as they could be checking 

my candidacy for organ harvesting. 

In six months time I was transferred to the Jinzhou Prison Hospital in Liaoning 

Province. They no longer needed to shackle me as by this time I was but a skeleton 

on the brink of death and totally immobile. The force feeding continued, as did the 

painful injections and oddly placed medical exams. During the next three years, 

until my term expired, my weight fluctuated. For months at a time I would grow 

bloated and fat, seemingly due to a different force-feeding diet. Then I would become 

skeletal once again when they denied me food. 

I narrowly survived more than three years of such treatment, languishing on either a hospital bed or a wheel chair, until my term ended in September 2009. Hospital doctors advised my family that I would likely die and that, even if I didn’t, 

I would be permanently disabled for the rest of my life. 

(4) THE PERSECUTION HAS FAILED

The Communist Party’s persecution has failed to wipe out Falun Gong from China 

and it can not be sustained for much longer. I make this assertion based on observations of the greater situation as well as personal experience. 

For the ten years I lived in China under the persecution, I spent eight years and 

two months in custody, and over half of this time languishing alone. After my three 

releases from custody I lived for a time with my parents in Liaoning Province. In 

2000 I saw no signs of Falun Gong practitioner activity in Liaoning Province. In 

2004 I saw attempts by local practitioners to place posters and signs about the facts 

of the persecution around my hometown. The attempts were noteworthy but they 

were infrequent, sporadic and were destroyed almost immediately. In 2009, however, I saw copious posters, signs, flyers and informational DVDs. Moreover, the 

posters hung in public places had been there for a long time, with ink faded from 

the sun and paper crisp from dried rain. I believe that, like my hometown in 

Liaoning, even the CCP continues to order people to persecute Falun Gong, more 

and more people know the truth of the persecution. That is, more and more people 

see through the once-widespread lies that substantiated the decision to ban the 

practice. 

I make the above assertion because I have also seen the efforts by people like myself, proficient in computer technology and proxy circumnavigation software, breed 

success in making Minghui an accurate, timely and truthful tool to expose the persecution. 
48 

1David Ownby, Falun Gong and the Future of China, Oxford University Press, 2008. 

2 Benjamin Penny, ‘‘The Religion of Falun Gong,’’ (University of Chicago Press, 2012. 

3Seth Faison, ‘‘In Beijing: A Roar of Silent Protestors,’’ New York Times, April 27, 1999; Joseph Kahn, ‘‘Notoriety Now for Movement’s Leader,’’ New York Times, April 27, 1999; Renee 

Schoff, ‘‘Growing group poses a dilemma for China,’’ Associated Press, April 26, 1999. 

Finally, I make the above assertion based on my personal experience. When the 

doctors released me, an immobile skeleton in a wheelchair, to my parents and brothers in October 2009, they said I would likely die. For this reason the 610 Office and 

other public security personnel didn’t bother my home. But I resumed my cultivation in Falun Dafa, studying the teachings, reflecting on matters of my spirit, and 

practicing the Falun Gong exercises. In two months time I could walk around my 

house. In three months time I could perform strengthening exercises outdoors. I 

stand here before you today, three years later, almost completely healed with no 

visible trace of the depraved state the persecution left me in. This is a testament 

to the power and wonder of this spiritual practice. It also perhaps helps you understand how I could withstand 8 years of hell and persevere in my faith. 

For a person of faith, his conscience, more than the physical body, is his life. This 

persecution has managed to take away physical bodies but it has not managed to 

shake the conscience of the people. I believe we are now seeing the people of China 

wake up to the facts of this persecution, to the facts of the Communist Party’s wickedness and, soon, to a day when our conscience is free. 

I thank you and the great nation you represent immensely for your efforts to 

bring justice to China. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SARAH COOK

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Good morning Chairman Smith, Co-Chairman Brown, members of the commission, ladies and gentleman in the audience. Thank you for convening this hearing 

and for inviting me to participate. I have been asked to address the origins of the 

Communist Party’s campaign against Falun Gong and in my brief time, I will do 

my best to cover this complex topic. 

Today, Chinese citizens who practice Falun Gong live under constant threat of abduction and torture. The name of the practice, its founder Mr. Li Hongzhi, and a 

wide assortment of homonyms are among the most censored terms on the Chinese 

Internet. Any mention in state-run media or by Chinese diplomats is inevitably 

couched in demonizing labels. 

But this was not always the case. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Falun 

Gong, its practitioners, and its founder were often the subjects of awards, positive 

media coverage, and government support. From 1992 to 1994, Mr. Li toured the 

country giving lectures and seminars to introduce the practice under the auspices 

of the state-run qigong association.1 State media reports from that period laud the 

benefits of Falun Gong practice and show Falun Gong practitioners receiving 

‘‘healthy citizen awards.’’ In an occurrence almost unimaginable today, Mr. Li gave 

a lecture at the Chinese embassy in Paris in 1995, at the government’s invitation.2

As word spread, Chinese from every strata of society—doctors, farmers, workers, 

soldiers, some of them Communist Party members—began taking up the practice. 

Sites of daily exercise groups in Beijing, for instance, included professors from the 

prestigious Tsinghua University or employees of state media like Xinhua or China 

Central Television. Though students of Falun Gong would gather in groups to practice its meditative exercises, many saw the discipline as a personal rather than collective endeavor to enhance their health, mental well being, and spiritual wisdom. 

There were no signs of a political agenda or even criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as one sees in Falun Gong literature after the persecution 

began. By 1999, according to government sources, Western media reports, and 

Falun Gong witnesses, tens of millions of people were practicing.3

SO WHAT WENT WRONG?

The answer lies in a combination of ideological fears, institutional factors, and an 

individual leader’s fateful decision. 

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice whose key features are qigong exercises and 

teachings reminiscent of Buddhist and Taoist traditions that have been an essential 

dimension of Chinese culture for thousands of years. It inevitably encourages ways 

of thinking outside the boundaries of Party doctrines. Yet for decades, the Party has 

systematically sought to suppress independent thought, be it in the form of religious 
49 

4 Vivienne Shue. ‘‘Legitimacy Crisis in China?.’’ In Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen (eds.), 

State and Society in 21st-century China. Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation. New York: 

RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 5King, Gary, Pan, Jennifer, and Roberts, Molly. In Press. How Censorship in China Allows 

Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression. American Political Science Review, 

July 2012 http://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-allows-government-criticism-silences-collective-expression. 6 Noah Porter, ‘‘Falun Gong in the United States: An Ethnographic Study,’’ 2003. 

7 ‘An opiate of the masses?,’’ U.S. News and World Report, February 22, 1999. 

8David Palmer. ‘‘Qigong Fever: Body, Science and Utopia in China.’’ New York: Cambridge 

University Press, 2007. 9 Human Rights Watch, ‘‘Dangerous Meditation: China’s Campaign Against Falungong,’’ January 2002, http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2002/china/. 10 James Tong, ‘‘Revenge of the Forbidden City,’’ Oxford University Press (2009). In his account of the April 25 appeal, Ethan Gutmann takes his analysis a step further, concluding that 

it had been a set-up to create an excuse for a crackdown. Ethan Gutmann, An Occurrence on 

Fuyou Street, National Review 13 July 2009. 11Zong Hairen, Zhu Rongji zai 1999 (Zhu Rongji in 1999) (Carle Place, N.Y.: Mirror Books, 

2001). 

faith or political expression. It displays a low tolerance for groups or individuals 

who place any authority, spiritual or otherwise, above their allegiance to the Party. 

For persecuted Tibetans, this authority is the Dalai Lama; for persecuted human 

rights lawyers, it is the law; for persecuted Falun Gong adherents, it is the dedication to spiritual teachings centered on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and 

tolerance. 

Falun Gong’s emphasis on these three values as part of its theistic worldview appears to have especially attracted the Party’s ire. The concepts seemed to conflict 

with Marxism and other ideas that have been a source of legitimacy for the CCP’s 

authoritarian rule—like materialism, political struggle, and nationalism.4 The 

spread of Falun Gong began to be seen as a fundamental challenge to the Party’s 

authority. Xinhua hinted at this in one of its articles in 1999 after the ban: ‘‘In fact, 

the so-called ‘truth, kindness and tolerance’ principle preached by Li Hongzhi has 

nothing in common with the socialist ethical and cultural progress we are striving 

to achieve.’’ 

Perhaps even more than free thinking, the Communist Party feels threatened by 

independent civil society entities and collective organization.5 As the popularity of 

qigong practices, and among them Falun Gong, grew in the mid-1990s, the Party 

attempted to insert itself into their activities and bring them under its control. In 

1996, after the state-run qigong association with which Falun Gong was linked instructed the establishment of Party branches among its followers and wished to 

profit from Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi parted ways with the association.6 He intended 

for Falun Gong to be a personal practice without formal membership and shared 

free of charge. As it continued to spread in society, Falun Gong’s spiritual independence was coupled with a loosely knit network of meditation practice sites and ‘‘assistance centers’’ sprinkled throughout the country. 

From 1996 to 1999, many in the government and the party held favorable views 

of Falun Gong and publicly cited its benefits for health and even social stability.7

But as Falun Gong’s popularity and independence from Party control grew, several 

top cadres began viewing it as a threat. This translated into repression that showed 

first signs in 1996. The publication of Falun Gong books by state printing presses 

was banned shortly after their being listed as bestsellers. Attempts to register under 

various government organizations were denied. Sporadic articles began appearing in 

state-run news outlets smearing Falun Gong. Security agents began monitoring 

practitioners and occasionally dispersing outdoor meditation sessions.8

In April 1999, the escalating harassment culminated in several dozen practitioners being beaten and arrested in Tianjin. Those calling for their release were 

told that the orders had come from Beijing. On April 25, over 10,000 adherents 

gathered quietly outside the national petitions office in Beijing, adjacent to the 

Zhongnanhai government compound, asking for an end to abuses and recognition of 

their right to practice. 

Some observers have pointed to this incident as taking Party leaders by surprise 

and triggering the suppression that followed.9 Such an interpretation is flawed, 

however, when one considers that it was escalating harassment led by central officials—including then-security tsar Luo Gan—that sparked the appeal in the first 

place.10

Rather, the event was pivotal because of how individual Party leaders responded 

to it. Premier Zhu Rongji took an appeasing stance toward Falun Gong.11 He was 

prepared to resolve the grievances. He met with several of the petitioners’ rep-
50 

12 Jiang reportedly made at a high-level meeting in April 1999, extracted from the book ‘‘Zhu 

Rongji in 1999,’’ cited in excerpts published in the Hong Kong Economic Journal, September 18, 

2001. 13 ‘‘Comrade Jiang Zemin’s speech at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CCCCP regarding speeding up dealing with and settling the problem of ‘Falun Gong’,’’ June 7, 1999. http:// 

beijingspring.com/bj2/2001/60/2003727210907.htm 14Willy Wo-Lap Lam, ‘‘China’s sect suppression carries a high price,’’ CNN, Feb 9 2001. 15Sarah Cook and Leeshai Lemish, ‘‘The 6–10 Office: Policing the Chinese Spirit,’’ China 

Brief, Jamestown Foundation, September 16, 2011: http://www.jamestown.org/programs/ 

chinabrief/single/?tx—ttnews%5Btt— 

news%5D=38411&cHash=2dff246d80ffd78112de97e280ce9725. 16Leeshai Lemish, ‘‘Why is Falun Gong Banned?’’ The New Statesman, August 19, 2008, 

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-faith-column/2008/08/falun-gong-party-chinese. 17 Amnesty International, ‘‘China: The crackdown on Falun Gong and other so-called ‘heretical 

organizations,’ ’’ 23 March 2000. 

resentatives. The practitioners in Tianjin were released and those in Beijing went 

home. 

But then-Party Secretary Jiang Zemin overruled Zhu’s conciliatory approach, calling Falun Gong a serious challenge to the regime’s authority, ‘‘something unprecedented in the country since its founding 50 years ago.’’ 12 In a circular dated June 

7, Jiang issued his fateful order to ‘‘disintegrate’’ Falun Gong.13 Indeed, several experts have attributed the campaign to Jiang’s personal jealousy deriving from the 

sincere enthusiasm Falun Gong inspired at a time when he perceived his own standing in the eyes of the Chinese public as weak.14

Whatever the specific events of the late 1990s, however, the repression of Falun 

Gong in China cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Rather, it is one episode within the 

Communist Party’s long history of arbitrarily suppressing the basic rights of Chinese citizens, including via political campaigns launched against perceived ‘‘enemies.’’ The party’s tactics have become more subtle and sophisticated in recent decades. But the underlying principle and institutional dynamic remains the same: the 

decision of what is approved or forbidden is made arbitrarily by Party leaders and 

the institutions—like an independent judiciary—that might curb their excesses are 

kept within the Party’s realm of influence. This is the case with the daily censorship 

directives issued by the propaganda department and applies equally to spiritual 

movements. 

Thus, once Jiang made the decision and asserted his will over other members of 

the Politburo Standing Committee, there was little to stop what came next. Over 

the following months, Jiang and leaders like Luo began making preparations for a 

campaign to wipe out Falun Gong. Lacking legal authority and fearing the popularity of Falun Gong even among members of the security forces, Jiang created a 

special Party leadership group and related extralegal, plainclothes security force to 

lead the fight. Established on June 10, 1999, it came to be known as the 6–10 Office.15

In July 1999, a full-scale campaign reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution was 

launched. The full weight of the CCP’s repressive apparatus was turned on Falun 

Gong. Demonizing propaganda flooded the airwaves. Thousands of people were 

rounded up. Millions were forced to sign pledges to stop practicing. 

Zhao Ming, a former Falun Gong prisoner of conscience and the subject of international rescue campaigns, explained the dynamics as: ‘‘the Party’s machinery of 

persecution was there—Jiang pushed the button.’’ 16

One more point deserves clarification. The CCP and Chinese officials typically assert that Falun Gong needed to banned because it is an ‘‘evil cult’’ that was having 

a nefarious influence on society. The claims have not held up to scrutiny when investigated in China, nor when one considers Falun Gong’s spread in other parts of 

the world, including democratic Taiwan. As importantly, in the context of the current discussion, it was only several months after Jiang initiated the campaign that 

a resolution was passed punishing involvement with ‘‘heretical organizations’’ and 

that the Party’s propaganda apparatus zeroed in on a slightly manipulated English 

translation of the Chinese term xiejiao to claim that Falun Gong was an ‘‘evil 

cult.’’ 17 Unfortunately, today, media reports about Falun Gong often erroneously 

state that ‘‘Falun Gong was banned as an ‘evil cult’,’’ with little further explanation. 

In fact, the label came later and as noted above, the reasons behind it had little 

to do with anything ‘‘evil’’ about Falun Gong. By using this incomplete reference, 

media inadvertently repeat the Party line and may plant the thought in readers’ 

minds that a repressive campaign that has turned millions of lives upside down 

might be justified. 
51 

18 John Pomfret and Philip P. Pan. ‘‘Torture is Breaking Falun Gong.’’ Washington Post, 5 August 2001. 19Gao Zhisheng, ‘‘Dark Night, Dark Hood and Kidnapping by Dark Mafia,’’ translated and 

published by Human Rights in China, February 8, 2009, http://hrichina.org/public/PDFs/ 

PressReleases/2009.02.08—Gao—Zhisheng—account—ENG.pdf; Teng Biao, ‘‘A Hole to Bury 

You,’’ Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/ 

SB10001424052970203731004576045152244293970.html 20 Hao’s testimony before the European Parliament. 21 ‘‘Guarding the Guardians,’’ The Economist, June 30, 2012, http://www.economist.com/node/ 

21557760. 22 Cook and Lemish. 

A DECISION WITH LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES

When Jiang ordered that Falun Gong be targeted, he had not anticipated that its 

practitioners would not relent easily. Though some renounced the practice under 

pressure, many resumed upon release or withstood ‘‘transformation’’ even in the face 

of torture. Over time, the Party escalated its tactics, enhancing the sophistication 

of its propaganda and encouraging the use of violence.18 Freedom House’s publications—alongside those of Amnesty International, the United Nations Rapporteurs, 

and the CECC itself—have recorded the ongoing rights abuses suffered by those 

who practice Falun Gong in China. These include large-scale detentions, widespread 

surveillance, extreme torture, deaths in custody, and the sentencing of practitioners 

to long prison terms following unfair trials or to ‘‘reeducation through labor’’ camps 

by bureaucratic fiat. The abuses continue 13 years and two leadership changes after 

Jiang’s initial decision, pointing to an entrenchment of the repression. 

The result is that the Party now finds itself trapped. If it backs down, it would 

have to admit to a mistake that ruined millions of lives and tore apart families. If 

it stays the course, then with each day that passes, another Falun Gong practitioner 

is abducted, another judge imprisons an innocent person, another police officer 

learns he can torture with impunity. The effect on the rule of law and the Party’s 

legitimacy is corrosive. 

Meanwhile, so long as the campaign continues, it not only affects Falun Gong 

practitioners and their families. The tactics and strategies developed to suppress 

one group in China can be quickly and easily applied to others. From vague legal 

provisions, to ‘‘black jails,’’ to certain torture and ‘‘transformation’’ methods, human 

rights lawyers and others have remarked on how elements first used against Falun 

Gong practitioners have since been applied to other victim groups, including the 

lawyers themselves.19

Similarly, the entities created to target Falun Gong can be expanded or used as 

models. The 610 Office’s operations have long stretched beyond its core task of wiping out Falun Gong. Since 2003, their targets have also included 28 other small 

spiritual groups and qigong organizations.20 The Economist reported in June that 

a few members of blind activist Chen Guangcheng’s entourage of secret police were 

from the 610 Office.21 Meanwhile, the agency may be serving as a model for the 

Party’s broader ‘‘stability maintenance’’ initiatives.22

The intractable nature of the CCP’s campaign against Falun Gong presents 

unique challenges for advocates, policymakers, and victims. Tools available when 

dealing with other large-scale human rights violations in China are not feasible. The 

openness and occasional compromise that Chinese officials display when dealing 

with workers’ rights, discrimination against Hepatitis B patients, or even the onechild policy, are non-existent when it comes to Falun Gong. But in their interactions 

with regimes such as the CCP’s, democratic governments must not let the authoritarians dictate the agenda. It is precisely because victims of the Falun Gong campaign have so few avenues of recourse within the system that international solidarity, exposure of abuses, and pressure on their behalf are even more vital. For 

these reason, since 1999, Freedom House has consistently tracked the campaign in 

its publications, called for the release of illegally detained practitioners, and participated in annual rallies calling for an end to abuses against them. 

In this context, we would offer the following recommendations to members of Congress and the Obama administration: 

1. Meet with former Falun Gong prisoners of conscience or the family 

of imprisoned practitioners residing in the United States: It is difficult 

and dangerous for U.S. officials to meet such individuals inside China. But as 

is evident from some of the witnesses testifying here today, there is a sporadic 

stream of Falun Gong practitioners coming from China with first-hand information on what is happening inside and outside of detention facilities. U.S. diplomats preparing for their departure to China or officials participating in 
52 

human rights discussions with their Chinese counterparts should periodically 

meet with such individuals. 

2. Continue to lobby for the release of individual prisoners of conscience: Former prisoners of conscience whom I have interviewed and who 

were the subject of international appeal campaigns—including Falun Gong 

practitioners—have repeatedly testified to the noticeably less harsh treatment 

they received compared to their fellow, more internationally anonymous, detainees. 

3. Support initiatives to independently research the dynamics of the 

campaign: Central to the ability to advocate on behalf of individuals and to 

gauge the full scale of abuses targeting groups like Falun Gong is the capacity 

to verify individual cases of religious prisoners and thoroughly investigate 

deaths in custody, including allegations of forced organ removals. Despite the 

sensitivity of the issue and difficulty in obtaining information about Falun Gong 

prisoners, there are avenues for doing so. Increased support, including funding, 

for groups taking the initiative to conduct such research could translate into 

real protection for members of this persecuted minority. 

4. Take proactive measures to ensure that American companies, citizens, and institutions are not deliberately or inadvertently enabling or 

condoning abuses: Over the past year, reports have emerged of incidents that 

point to the pitfalls of engaging in close economic, educational, and medical relationships with China at a time when the CCP is carrying out a campaign like 

the one against Falun Gong. These have ranged from a U.S. company allegedly 

supplying surveillance capabilities to Chinese security agencies, to discriminatory policies regarding teachers assigned to Confucius Institutes, to concerns 

that medical journals are accepting papers with data drawn from abusive organ 

transplant policies. Measures could be taken to improve accountability in these 

sectors that involve U.S. citizens and institutions. 

5. Remain vigilant in the face of Chinese official pressure to self-censor outside of China: Although this is not the focus of today’s discussion, 

pressure to self-censor beyond China’s borders is a daily reality for government 

officials, journalists, and event organizers when it comes to Falun Gong—similar to Tibetans, Uighurs, and other victim groups whose persecution the regime 

is sensitive about. It is critical that those of us outside China resist such pressures and remain vigilant in protecting the right to free expression for all, including those whose voices are systematically silenced within China. 

* * * 
53 
54 
55 
56 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JIANCHAO XU, M.D. 

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Honorable Chairman Christopher Smith, members of Congress, and distinguished 

panelists. Thank you for your invitation to this hearing today. It is my honor and 

privilege to testify here before you in Congress. 

My name is Jianchao Xu. As a kidney specialist, I am an attending Staff Physician at the James J. Peters Veteran Administration Hospital in New York. I am also 

an adjunct Assistant Professor in Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In 

addition, I serve as the Medical Director for the non-profit organization Doctors 

Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), which is comprised of medical profes-
57 

sionals from around the world who investigate the practice of illegal or unethical 

harvesting or transplantation of organs. 

The most powerful witness we could have here today would be a victim whose 

organ was illegally harvested. But as we all know, such victims will never have such 

a chance after their vital organs are removed from their bodies. Their chairs here 

will remain empty. After the victims, the next best witness would be a doctor who 

has removed organs from living prisoners of conscience and is now willing to step 

forward to tell the world about his or her first-hand knowledge of this crime against 

humanity. In lieu of their presence, I stand before you to submit my own findings 

and knowledge on the matter. 

Organ transplants are life-saving procedures, and organ donation—which we often 

call ‘‘the gift of life’’—make this possible. Unfortunately, demand for organs greatly 

exceeds supply in every country. And as people live longer, as medical science and 

technology continues to advance, the demand will only grow with more patients 

steadily becoming eligible for organ transplant and more qualified doctors and 

transplant centers becoming available. 

A shortage of organ supply opens a door for illegal organ trafficking, organ tourism, and forced organ harvesting. The medical community has known about unethical organ transplant in China since the 1990s. At a Congressional hearing in 2001, 

first-hand and direct evidence of unethical organ transplant practices in China surfaced. Dr. Wang Guoqi, a Chinese Medical Doctor, testified to the House of Representatives subcommittee on human rights, stating ‘‘My work required me to remove the skin and corneas from the corpses of over one hundred executed prisoners, 

and on a couple of occasions, victims of intentionally botched executions . . . It is 

with deep regret and remorse that I stand here today testifying against the practices of organ and tissue sales from death row prisoners.’’ 

Dr. Wang described coordinated procedures that he said government officials and 

Chinese doctors developed to extract organs from inmates immediately after their 

executions so that they could be transplanted, in some cases before the prisoners’ 

hearts stopped beating. Dr. Wang became tormented by the practice after he followed orders to remove the skin of a still-living prisoner in October 1995. The incident prompted him to alert the international community to the inhuman practice 

of organ harvesting in China. 

According to Wang’s testimony, prisoners received blood tests in prison to determine their compatibility with interested donors. On execution day, he said, the prisoners who were to become organ donors were the first to die—thus, the prisoners’ 

own blood and tissue types dictated how they were executed. 

As a nephrologist, I take care of patients whose lives depend on hemodialysis 

treatment three times a week. Each dialysis treatment typically lasts 3.5 hours. So, 

including the travel time, these people are basically devoting three days every week 

to hemodialysis treatment. Think of the burden on their lives, and now think about 

the fact that if they receive a kidney transplant, their lives immediately improve 

in every way. However, due to the limited source of kidney donations, only fraction 

of my patients can ever receive a transplant, and for those that do, the usual waiting time is more than three years. When I first learned that patients in China can 

receive kidney and other organ transplants within just days or weeks, I was appalled because I know exactly what process it takes to receive a kidney transplant. 

As a potential kidney organ recipient, the patient must contact a transplant center and ask for a transplant evaluation. A team of doctors can then provide an evaluation and determine if the patient is definitely eligible for a kidney transplant. 

After all of that, if the patient is lucky enough to be deemed a suitable candidate 

for transplantation, the patient will be put on the waiting list, where they wait— 

as I said—for an average of more than three years. The key to a successful transplant operation is to have the closest possible blood and tissue match. That is one 

of the reasons why the waiting time is so long—simply finding the right match 

takes years. 

Yet many Chinese hospitals have openly advertised that the waiting time for kidneys and even livers does not exceed one month; sometimes it’s just a matter of a 

few days. Thus the question we face is: why can a patient in China find a match 

so quickly? One possibility is that the patient just gets a kidney that does not closely match patient’s blood and tissue type, but if that were the case, the rejection rate 

of transplant patients in China would be alarmingly high. Since we do not see a 

trend of increased organ rejection in China, the mismatched transplant theory is not 

likely. The second possibility is that there is large number of living organ donors 

representing all possible blood and tissue types; when a patient walks into the hospital, the doctors only need to determine the patient’s blood and tissue types, then 

they simply match the patient with one of the cataloged organ donors who will be 

killed on demand. 
58 

If that process sounds too terrifying to believe or too coldly efficient to think possible, I’d like to present to you findings reaped from multiple investigations, systematic analysis of official medical reports in China, as well as prisoners’ personal experiences. Together, I think you’ll find that they prove the practice of illegal organ 

harvesting in China, especially from Falun Gong practitioners, is an expansive and 

ongoing operation supported and endorsed by the central Party leadership. 

Just looking at the numbers, it is obvious that something is wrong. There are 

vastly more transplants in China every year than there are identifiable sources of 

organs. For cultural reasons, Chinese people are reluctant to donate their organs 

after death. At least 98% of the organs for transplants come from someone other 

than family donors. In the case of kidneys, for example, only 227 out of 40,393 

transplants (less than 0.6%)—done between 1971 and 2001 in China came from family donors. There is no organized, effective system of organ donation yet formed in 

China. The government of China has openly admitted to using the organs of executed prisoners. According to Amnesty International’s reports, the average number 

of officially recorded executed prisoners between 1995 and 1999 was 1680 per year. 

The average between 2000 and 2005 was 1616 per year. The average number for 

the periods before and after Falun Gong persecution began is the same. Even if we 

are to assume that every single execution results in an organ transplant, there is 

still not enough to account for the increase in transplants that came about after 

1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong began. 

According to public reports, prior to 1999, there had been a total of approximately 

30,000 transplants in China’s history, with 18,500 of those cases in the six-year period during 1994 to 1999. Dr. Bingyi Shi, vice-chair of the China Medical Organ 

Transplant Association, stated that there were about 90,000 transplants as of 2005, 

which means that there were 60,000 transplants in the six-year period of 2000 to 

2005. 

Where do the increased organ donors come from? The identified sources of organ 

transplants, consenting family donors and the brain dead, have always been small 

fraction of the donor pool. For example, in 2005, living-related kidney transplant 

consists of 0.5% of total transplants national wide. There is no indication of a significant increase in either of these categories in recent years. It is reasonable to assume that the identified sources of organ transplants which produced 18,500 organ 

transplants in the six-year period 1994 to 1999 produced the same number of organs 

for transplants in the next six year period 2000 to 2005 because there has been no 

recorded change in the donation system or the overall willingness of the population 

to participate. Without a significant change in the donation process, the source of 

41,500 transplants from 2000 to 2005 is unexplained. Where do the organs come 

from for these extra transplants? The allegation of organ harvesting from Falun 

Gong practitioners provides an answer. 

Because of China’s lack of transparency, the precise statistics are impossible to 

obtain. However, independent lines of investigation using different methodologies 

from each other have reached the same conclusion: Organs are being harvested from 

living prisoners. 

Even if we use the China Deputy Minister, Wang Jiefu’s own data there are approximately 30,500 unexplained sources of organs from 1997–2007.1

Another method of calculating the mysterious source of organ is from Mr. Ethan 

Gutmann, an adjunct Fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He 

painstakingly interviewed victims who were imprisoned in China’s prison and labor 

camps. As detailed in his chapter in the book ‘‘State Organs’’, his estimate is that 

65,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed for their organs.3

Gutmann found that Falun Gong practitioners detained in prisons and labor 

camps were often singled out to receive medical exams aimed at assessing the 

health of their vital organs, and that afterwards, some would disappear. 

It is also important to note that even though most of the statistics we are working 

from only go up to the middle or end of the last decade, we have every reason to 

believe that organ harvesting is ongoing in China. According to a report from 

NTDTV, a patient this year traveled from Taiwan to Mainland China’s Tianjin First 

Central Hospital and received concurrent liver and kidney transplantations. It only 

took one month to find a matching liver and kidney, whereas he had been waiting 

for years in Taiwan. During his hospitalization, he was told that some transplant 

tourists had received matching donor organs within one week of initial evaluation 

there. The patient stated that, ‘‘There were other foreign patients [at the Tianjin 

First Central Hospital], but I didn’t ask where they were from. I know there is a 

special guarded international patient ward on the hospital’s10th floor. I guess the 

patients inside have special backgrounds.’’ 

As a medical doctor, I struggle to understand why this is happening at this order 

of magnitude. I could not comprehend that fellow doctors, members of a noble pro-
59 

fession, people granted special status in our society, could use their knowledge and 

skills to kill another human being. 

WHAT HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR

The practice of harvesting organs from executed and living prisoners in China has 

seen distinct opposition from the medical community and other professions. Aside 

from medical organizations and associations like Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), The Transplant Society (TTS) and World Medical Association 

(WMA), many individual doctors have started to oppose the unethical organ harvesting practices in China. Our collective effort to expose the illegal organ harvesting in China has generated results. 

The work of DAFOH is an exemplary resource for those from both medical and 

non-medical backgrounds to learn more about the unethical procedures in China. 

Since its inception a few years ago, DAFOH enlisted a host of well-respected doctors 

around the world to speak out against illegal organ harvesting in China. Our collective efforts also contributed to several publications in medical journals, including a 

letter in the prestigious Journal of American Medical Association in 2011 (JAMA).4

DAFOH’s mission is to raise awareness and to call for an end to the unethical 

organ harvesting practices. DAFOH has co-hosted or organized forums and participated in panel discussions, including a panel discussion in the U.S. Capitol. There 

are many colleagues who share the same wish as us. Upon requesting a statement 

from TTS in early 2012, President-Elect Dr. Francis Delmonico replied: ‘‘TTS is opposed to the use of organs from executed prisoners, and through the efforts of the 

Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group, TTS opposes the presentation of reports 

from China at international congresses and the publication of papers from China 

in the medical literature that involves the use of organs from executed prisoners.’’ 

In November 2011, Chinese medical professionals published an article in the respected British medical journal Lancet, entitled ‘‘A pilot programme of organ donation after cardiac death in China.’’ 5 The article can be characterized as an acknowledgement of China’s unethical transplant. Of note, the lead author is Dr. Jiefu 

Huang, China’s deputy minister of Health, making the article almost an official public policy statement rather than a scientific research. 

In Europe, a DAFOH petition drive to call upon UNHRC to lead an international 

investigation in China has generated 160,000+ signatures. Among the signers were 

more than 200 parliamentarians in Europe, including EU parliament’s Vice President. 

Bob Doris, member of the Scottish parliament released a statement against organ 

harvesting on November 5. 

Michael Prue, member of Ontario’s Legislation Assembly, has also spoken up 

against the forced organ harvesting.6

The President of the Taiwanese Medical association has publicly condemned unethical organ harvesting in a November 2012 statement. 

Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan made the following resolution on November 22, 2012: 

The 2011 annual human rights report of the U.S. State Department released 

on May 24, 2012 for the first time mentioned organ transplants in China, and 

overseas, the media and human rights groups continued to report on organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners and Uighurs. According to the statistics of 

Taiwan’s Department of Health from 2000 to 2011, up to 1,754 Taiwan citizens 

received organ transplants overseas with 86% of those being conducted in 

China. And from 2005 to 2011, the National Health Insurance payments for 

postoperative anti-rejection drugs rose to $7,734,540,000 NTD. But because the 

Department of Health has no law to require organ transplant recipients abroad 

who return home and receive anti-rejection drugs by the health insurance subsidies to register the transplant hospitals and physicians, it may allow the recipients of organs of unknown origin to become accomplices of organ harvesting 

while still enjoying the benefits of health insurance and anti-rejection drugs. 

This is a significant oversight. Therefore, within three months, the Department 

of Health shall require major medical institutions and physicians to register the 

transplant country and hospital information (including surgeons) of those who 

have received organ transplants in a foreign country while they apply for postoperative health insurance payments after returning home. It is reasonable for 

foreign organ transplant information to be transparent to gain health insurance 

benefits.’’ While this is a very welcoming change, we hope the Taiwan government can further tighten their restriction on organ tourism. 

In addition to political leaders and other organizations, we have also seen individual citizens from different countries starting grassroots movements against organ 

harvesting. 
60 

DAFOH petition in US: within 4 weeks, 30,000+ signatures collected 

DAFOH petition in Europe: 160,000+ signatures collected 

DAFOH petition in Australia: 30,000 signatures collected 

Additionally, an independent signature drive among Taiwanese doctors generated 

2,000+ signatures to call for further investigations. 

Within the international medical community there have also been strong steps. 

At the July 2010 biennial World Transplant Congress meeting of TTS in Vancouver 

over 30 abstracts were submitted from China and considered for acceptance; the 

data for the research came from several hundred transplants where the donor 

source was deemed likely to be executed prisoners. This occurred despite the fact 

that a standard ethics filter mechanism was in place, and the TTS ethics policy regarding organs from executed prisoners had been published and was well known. 

Fortunately the failure of the ethics filter to prevent acceptance of these abstracts 

was recognized, and authors were specifically required to state, in the text of their 

abstracts, as a condition of acceptance, that no data from studies using executed 

donor organs were included. As a result, most abstracts were withdrawn. 

Recent actions taken by the editorial board of the American Journal of Transplantation are very encouraging. Starting in May 2011, changes have been made to the 

instructions to authors submitting manuscripts to these journals. The instructions 

now include the following statement: ‘‘The American Journal of Transplantation 

(AJT) will not accept manuscripts whose data derives from transplants involving organs obtained from executed prisoners . . .’’ 

Similarly, a firm stance was undertaken by one the most respected clinical journals in the world: the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In its January issue of 

2012,an editorial statement was made as follows: ‘‘The practice of transplanting organs from executed prisoners in China appears to be widespread. We vigorously condemn this practice and, effective immediately, will not consider manuscripts on 

human organ transplantation for publication unless appropriate non-coerced consent 

of the donor is provided and substantiated.’’ 

The statement continues, ‘‘This disparity in the supply of organs is a particular 

problem in China, where rapid expansion of the capacity to perform transplants has 

not been accompanied by the development of a system for recovering organs from 

those who die in hospitals while on life support, as is international practice. There 

is almost no systematic recovery of voluntarily donated cadaver organs. No regional 

or national system exists for soliciting consent to donate organs in advance from 

those who die or their relatives after death. Unfortunately, the evidence is clear that 

some physicians in China, in an effort to perform more transplants, are engaged in 

a practice that violates basic standards of medical ethics and human rights, namely 

the use of organs from executed prisoners.’’ 

‘‘Using organs from executed prisoners violates basic human rights. It violates 

core ethical precepts of transplant medicine and medical ethics. Worse still, some 

of those who are killed may be prisoners whose ‘crimes’ involve no more than holding certain political or spiritual beliefs.’’ 

‘‘. . . the international biomedical community, including especially journal editors 

and editorial boards, must not be complicit with the practice of killing on demand 

to obtain organs from executed prisoners. We are not naive. We recognize that a 

boycott by this journal and its peers is unlikely, by itself, to bring an end to this 

practice. But we do hope that our actions will bring attention to this outrage and, 

in doing so, encourage China to develop policy options for obtaining organs consistent with international standards, conventions, and ethics.’’ 

We have seen progress, but more need to be done. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

To the medical community: 

As medical doctors, we will continue to inform and advise the professional transplant community to implement policies to dissuade organ harvesting. This includes 

advocating for international and national professional medical societies and journals 

to not accept abstracts, publications, or presentations from Chinese transplant centers unless the authors clearly indicate that the data presented is in accordance 

with the most recent Chinese government regulations regarding transplant tourism 

and that executed prisoners were not the source of organs. 

Membership of international professional societies by Chinese transplant professionals must be conditioned by acceptance of ethics policies that specifically express 

the unacceptability of executed prisoners as a source of organs. 

Memberships of Chinese doctors should be suspended if they fail to comply with 

the ethical standards of medical associations. 
61 

Training of Chinese transplant professionals by the international community 

must be conditioned on commitments that trainees will not engage, directly or indirectly, in the use of organs from executed prisoners. 

Pharmaceutical companies must ensure that no executed prisoners are the source 

of organs used in their studies and that Chinese government regulations regarding 

transplant tourism are adhered to rigorously. 

To society and our government: 

I urge the United States government and anyone with any knowledge of organ 

harvesting to publicly release all evidence they have with regard to China’s use of 

prisoners as a source of organ donation. I believe that a well-informed citizen will 

stop going to China for transplants if they know clearly that someone will be killed 

for his or her organ transplant. Likely this is the most effective and least expensive 

way to decrease demand for organs in China. 

Together with my other two colleagues, Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of medical 

ethics with New York University’s Langone Medical Center and Dr. Centurion, a 

practicing physician in California, we have launched a petition on the White House 

website urging President Obama to speak out and help stop this gruesome practice 

on December 2, 2012. Within 2 weeks, we have collected over 10,000 signatures. 

People can visit www.organpetition.org to learn more. 

I ask Congress to adopt legislative changes, to prohibit patients going abroad to 

receive illegal organ transplants, or at the very least, congress could require the patients to register their operations with the Department of Public Health. Their respective transplant information must include the name of the transplant center, the 

attending physician, and most importantly, the source of organ donation. 

I urge Congress to adopt legislative changes to limit health care insurance coverage for those who receive organs from unknown sources. It has been well documented that the medical outcomes of such transplants are much poorer with unusually high mortality and morbidity rates, and the economic burden is being shifted 

to the United States for the post-operative care for these patients. 

All countries should strengthen their laws against the crime of trafficking in organs. The laws should require doctors to report to the authorities of their country 

any evidence suggesting that a patient has obtained an organ from a trafficked person abroad, defined to include persons in detention abroad. 

Until the Chinese law on organ transplants is effectively implemented, foreign 

governments should not issue visas to doctors from China seeking to travel abroad 

for the purpose of training in organ or bodily tissue transplantation. Any doctor in 

China known to be involved in trafficking in the organs of prisoners should be 

barred entry by all foreign countries. 

Until the international community is satisfied that the new Chinese law on organ 

transplants is effectively implemented, foreign funding agencies, medical organizations, and individual health professionals should not participate in any Government 

of China-sponsored organ transplant research or meetings. Foreign companies that 

currently provide goods and services to China’s organ transplant programs should 

cease and desist immediately until the government of China can demonstrate that 

their law on organ transplants is effective. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the CECC and especially the honorable Chairman Smith; you have been a true champion in advocating for Falun 

Gong and Human rights, and particularly the wok you have done to expose organ 

harvesting, such as by spearheading in the bipartisan dear colleague letter expressing concern about China’s forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, particularly from Falun Gong detainees, and asking the Department of State to share 

any information they have received about unethical organ harvesting in China, including anything that Wang Lijun, a Chinese police chief who met with consular officials in China, might have divulged to U.S. consular officials. Wang is believed to 

have been intimately involved in organ harvesting; he has received an award for ‘‘innovation’’ in organ harvesting, and also, as a police chief, he directly oversaw the 

persecution of Falun Gong with his jurisdiction, which included hospitals. Thus, Mr. 

Wang information may hold to key to unlock the mystery of organ harvesting in 

China. Revealing this information may put an end to the horrific crime against humanity. 

REFERENCES

1. Huang Jiefu et al. Government policy and organ transplantation in China. Lancet. 372: 1937 (2008). 
62 

2. Arthur L. Caplan, Howard A. Rockman, and Laurence A. Turka, Editorial position on publishing articles on human organ transplantation. J Clin Invest. January 

3; 122(1): 2 (2012). 

3. Torsten Trey. State Organs—transplant abuse in China (2012). 

4. Torsten Trey, Abraham A Halpern, and Maria A Fiatarone MA Singh. Organ 

transplantation and regulation in China. JAMA 306 (17): 1863–4 (2011). 

5. Huang Jiefu, et al, A pilot programme of organ donation after cardiac death 

in China. the Lancet, Volume 379, Issue 9818, p 862–865 (2012). 

6. http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2012/12/5/136529.html 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES LEE, M.D. 

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the distinguished members from the U.S. House 

and Senate, as well as executive branches of the government, for giving me the opportunity to testify today. 

1. FALUN GONG AND THE BENEFITS OF THE PRACTICE

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient meditation system that consists of five meditative exercises and the principles of ‘‘Truthfulness Compassion 

Forbearance,’’ which all practitioners are supposed to assimilate themselves to. 

The practice has an ancient lineage, yet it was only made public on a large scale 

in 1992. After that, it spread in China like wild fire. It is free and easy to practice; 

there is no formal membership and no places of worship. Those of us who practice 

Falun Gong find that it brings significant health benefits, reduced stress, and that 

its moral principles bring harmony to interpersonal relationships, our workplaces, 

and wider communities. At the end of 1998, Chinese government sources estimated 

that 70 to 100 million people were practicing it in China. 

2. THE PERSECUTION ON FALUN GONG BY THE CCP

In the 1990s, the government of China enthusiastically promoted Falun Gong on 

the basis that it improved public health and helped reduce healthcare costs. Yet the 

rapid growth of the practice, coupled with the fact that it had a spiritual philosophy 

rooted in traditional Chinese beliefs, caused some Communist Party leaders to view 

Falun Gong as a threat to their monopoly on moral authority. Moreover, Falun 

Gong’s values of ‘‘Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance’’ stood in sharp contrast to 

the corruption and violence of the Communist Party. 

In July 1999, the Communist Party started the campaign to eradicate Falun Gong 

and promote the supremacy of Party’s leadership and loyalty to the party. 

The Party has always tried to control every facet of life in China. It has done this 

partly through force and coercion, and creating an environment of fear where nobody dares to speak out. Secondly, it has systematically indoctrinated the whole 

country, destroyed traditional religions and value systems, and exercised complete 

control over all the media and information outlets. These are the same techniques 

it uses to persecute Falun Gong. 

This persecution is one of the greatest tragedies happening in the world today. 

Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained extralegally 

in this persecution. In many labor camps and detention centers, former prisoners 

report that Falun Gong practitioners are the majority of detainees. 

Central party authorities have sanctioned the use of systematic torture against 

Falun Gong practitioners. In the labor camps, authorities are told to use any measures necessary to force Falun Gong practitioners to recant their beliefs, and are told 

that they will not be punished if Falun Gong practitioners die in custody. Authorities at all levels of government are given economic incentives and penalties that are 

tied to their success in cracking down on Falun Gong. Former prisoners, many of 

whom are not themselves Falun Gong practitioners, regularly report that Falun 

Gong detainees are singled out for mistreatment in prisons and labor camps; in a 

2006 UN Special Rapporteur report, two-thirds of reported torture cases in China 

were against Falun Gong practitioners. The torture methods include sexual assault, 

beatings, shocks with electric batons, violent force-feedings with feces and salt solutions. 

3. THE CRUELTIES OF THE PERSECUTION AND THE DEATH TOLL

So far, 3,627 reports of deaths have been documented and confirmed by Falun 

Gong practitioners. However, the true death toll should be much higher. An untold 
63 

1For information on the body exhibits, see http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/sites/ 

zhuichaguoji.org.en/files/record/2012/11/236-plastination-report—english2—report.pdf 

number of Falun Gong practitioners have disappeared amidst persecution in the last 

13 years. 

More gruesome still, China’s massive organ transplant industry has been supplied 

by organs taken from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience. Canadian investigators 

David Matas and David Kilgour have estimated that between 2000 and 2005, more 

than 40,000 Falun Gong practitioners may have been killed and their organs sold 

to supply China’s organ transplant industry. Researcher Ethan Gutmann says that 

about 65,000 were likely killed for their organs between 2000 and 2008. The actual 

number of deaths can be many times more, because the CCP has always been manipulating numbers to mislead people or simply tell the blatant lies in order to cover 

up the atrocity. And much of the data collected by the researchers were from the 

official figures. There have been also many underground organ transplantation operations as well. 

There is also evidence that Falun Gong practitioners’ bodies have been sold to 

plastination companies, which put them on display in body exhibits.1 Human beings 

have been turned into commodities and been used to maximize profits. These atrocities recall the Nazis’ medical experiments and their use of human hair as pillow 

stuffing, and skin as lampshades. As Chairman Smith wrote, the possibility of mass 

organ harvesting from Falun Gong ‘‘pushes us into a horrific beyond, a beyond that 

challenges our language, making ‘barbaric’ too calm a word, too leached of horror.’’ 

The volume of Falun Gong practitioners was so high that the party actually built 

new labor camps just to contain them. In March 2006, a retired military doctor revealed that there were 36 such large concentration camps in the country. He 

claimed that one camp, 672–S in Jilin Province, held more than 120,000 Falun Gong 

practitioners. 

It is estimated that there are 300 million transient population in China. These 

include the migrating city workers from the countryside, tens of millions of appellants who constantly appeal to the governments for their injustices, and millions of 

unyielding Falun Gong practitioners who have lost their jobs, schools, and families, 

and left their hometown to escape the persecution. In the past decade, many of them 

disappeared/vaporized and nobody can trace them down. (We have many practitioners in the U.S. with their practicing family members cannot be located or found.) 

Tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners had recovered from their illnesses 

(including terminal diseases) and benefited from an improved health. The persecution on Falun Gong in the past 13 years has forced many of them giving up the 

practices, and in consequence, facing with deteriorated health and eventually died. 

My mother was one of them. 

The total deaths caused by the persecution should have reached several millions, 

if all types of death are included. What is outlined here is only part of the clues 

on this heinous crimes in human history. It is extremely important for governments 

and people, both in the West and the East, to know/find-out the scale and severity 

of the largely-undisclosed persecution. Much more efforts are needed to stop this 

crime against humanity and to fully investigate and lay down the framework for the 

long-overdue justice to be served. 

4. PEACEFUL RESISTANCE BY FALUN GONG PRACTITIONERS

Even though we have faced such severe persecution, there is not a single case in 

which a Falun Gong practitioner used violence against the perpetrators. Instead, we 

have resisted persecution by peacefully informing Chinese people about the true situation, debunking the propaganda that the Chinese government has produced 

against us. 

One way we have done this is through underground ‘‘material sites’’ all across 

China, where practitioners can use proxy services to bypass the censorship firewall, 

download and share reports of persecution, and create informational literature and 

DVDs telling the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution. Courageous practitioners then distribute this information at great personal risk. There are estimated 

to be about 200,000 such material sites in China today, and between 20 and 40 million practitioners. 

Overseas practitioners have also developed various media outlets and circumvention software to bring information in and out of China uncensored. 

5. MY OWN EXPERIENCE

In 2002 and 2003, I also sought to resist the persecution by breaking through the 

veil of censorship in China. I traveled to China with the goal of tapping into state 
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television broadcasts to show videos about the true situation of Falun Gong and the 

persecution. However, I was abducted in January 2003, and sentenced in a show 

trial to three years in Nanjing prison. 

Even though I was an American citizen, the prison guards still did everything 

possible to brainwash and intimidate me. In addition to the physical torture and 

forced slave labor, the brainwashing sessions lasted for all three years. They forced 

me to watch TV programs defaming Falun Gong and praising the Communist Party. 

Very often, they cut off all my information sources for weeks on end, not even letting me talk with anybody. After these periods of isolation, they would subject me 

to intensive brainwashing sessions in the hopes that my resistance would be reduced. If I weren’t an American citizen whose case was internationally known, the 

treatment I experienced would have been much worse. 

I thank the strong support from friends around the world, especially the US Congress, that allowed me to come back to this country with my body intact and my 

will unbroken. 

6. AWAKENING OF CHINESE PEOPLE

While I was imprisoned, I would wonder to myself how it was that people could 

so readily abuse and torture their own compatriots. I wondered to myself how they’d 

allowed themselves to be deceived, and how they came to be so full of hatred. 

The book titled ‘‘Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party’’ published in November 2004 by the Epochtimes has given the answer and led to a truly historical 

awakening of Chinese People. 

In the past 60 plus years, the party distorted the Chinese people’s sense of right 

and wrong. It taught them to view each other as enemies, and to struggle against 

each other. The party’s ideology is so pervasive that people are even unaware of 

their inability to think independently. What’s more, from a young age, Chinese people are taught that the party and the country are the same concept, so whenever 

someone criticizes the party, they feel that it’s an attack on the nation of China and 

on themselves as Chinese. 

If there is to be freedom and lasting peace in China, it will only come after the 

Chinese people take a principled stand and reject the culture of violence and deceit 

promoted by the Communist Party. This is beginning to happen already. In the last 

several years, tens of millions of Chinese people have renounced their membership 

in the Communist Party, Youth League, and Communist Young Pioneers. They are 

making the choice to live according to their own conscience—not the will of the 

party—and are refusing to participate in further violations of human rights. The 

process of renouncing the party (known in Chinese as ‘‘Tuidang’’) is thus a deeply 

spiritual, personal, and moral process, and a matter of reconnecting with traditional 

Chinese values of human heartedness and compassion. To date, 129 million renunciation statements have been received from people taking this important step. 

As more and more people’s consciences are freed from the CCP’s control, the 

broader social and political environment is changing. The CCP is losing the battle 

for the hearts and minds of the Chinese people, a process that will ultimately lead 

to the CCP’s disintegration. Today, Chinese people are becoming unafraid of suppressions and crackdowns by the CCP regime, and more and more people are taking 

a public stand to support Falun Gong and oppose the persecution. 

I would like to conclude my testimony by thanking the leadership of Congressman 

Smith and Congressman Andrews, along with 106 members of Congress from 33 

states, for their bipartisan Dear Colleague letter to Secretary Clinton, expressing serious concern over China’s forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience 

(particularly from Falun Gong detainees) and asking the Department of State to release all information about unethical organ harvesting in China, including what 

Wang Lijun might have shared with U.S. diplomats while seeking his asylum at 

U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu. To my knowledge, the Department of State has 

not yet responded to the Dear Colleague letter. 

We believe that the United States as a world leader in protecting human rights 

has a moral obligation to speak out and help bring an end to this horrific crime 

against humanity. We also believe that by doing this, the US will protect itself from 

being further deceived and harmed by the CCP regime. 

Thank you. 

* * * 
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1For data source of the testimony below, see James Tong, ‘‘Banding after the Ban: the Underground Falungong in China, 1999–2011,’’ Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 21, no. 78 (November, 2012), pp. 1045–1062, where much of the contents of the testimony are drawn from. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES W. TONG

DECEMBER 18, 2012

My testimony will focus on three issues.1 First, how serious is the Falun Gong 

as a law enforcement problem for the Chinese government in recent years? Second, 

what kind of activities does the Falun Gong community engage in inside China in 

the same period? Third, how does the Falun Gong community inside China communicate with each other and with the global Falun Gong community? I will begin, 

however, with the birthday celebration of the Falun Gong this year. 

On May 13, 2012, the Falun Gong celebrated its 20th anniversary. Its head office 

was overwhelmed by well wishes and greetings. There were new proclamations of 

a Falun Gong Day in Baltimore, Charlotte, Denver and Milwaukee, a Falun Gong 

week from Detroit and a Falun Gong month from Edmonton. But what is inter-
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esting were unique computer-generated greeting cards and hand-drawn paintings, 

many with classic Chinese poems, sent by 2,788 practitioners from all seven administrative regions in China, in addition to those of more than a dozen occupational 

groups from steel-workers to law-enforcement inside China. What is just as noteworthy is the absence of reports of acts of overt defiance. There was no report of 

protest rallies in Beijing , or of Falun Gong groups staging collective meditation exercises in provincial capitals, or of unfurling Falun Gong banners in public places. 

The celebration of the Falun Gong as a congregational festival and not an act of 

political defiance leads us to the three issues referred to earlier. 

I. GRADUAL REDUCTION OF THE TEMPORAL-SPATIAL SCOPE OF FALUN GONG DEFIANCE

First, there has been a gradual but steady reduction of reported Falun Gong defiance in the past twelve years. The overall trend was a precipitous decline of such 

activities from 2000–2002, a sharp rebound in 2003, then a steady decline from 2004 

thereafter. The trend can be observed from three official sources. Table-1 presents 

references to the Falun Gong in the annual report of the Chief Procurator, the 

equivalent of the U.S. Attorney-General. Every year, the top law-enforcement official of China delivered a report to the National People’s Congress. The report reviews the main law-enforcement tasks of the nation in the preceding year, addresses 

major law and order issues facing the country, and states the priority procuratorial 

tasks in the year ahead. As shown in Table-1, the Falun Gong was named as a notable law-enforcement problem from 1999 to 2003, but was dropped from the annual 

report from 2004 through 2011. At least at the national level, the Falun Gong appears to remain a public security risk in the first five years after the government 

ban in 1999, but declines in relative importance from 2004 on. 

Table-1: Reference to Falun Gong as a Law-Enforcement Problem in the Annual Chief 

Procuracy Report to the National People’s Congress, 1999–2011 

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 

X X X X X - - - - - - - - 

Source: Zhongguo jiancha nianjian, annual issues from 2000 to 2010, and news.xinhuanet.com/politics/./c—111672904.htm, access on 

April, 2012. 

Note: Since the procuracy report of a given year provides law-enforcement data of the preceding year, data in the table refers to the lawenforcement calendar year and not the year when the report is delivered. 

At the next administrative level, provincial procuracy reports offer a similar view 

of the issue. Similar to its central government counterpart, the provincial procuracy 

report is also an annual ritual delivered to the provincial legislature, covering the 

same subject scope and written in the same format. As shown in Table-2, provincial 

trends largely mirror the national trend, where the Falun Gong was depicted as a 

major law-enforcement problem from 1999–2003, but faded out in significance thereafter. 

Table-2: Reference to Falun Gong as Local Enforcement Problem in the Annual Procuracy 

Report to Provincial People’s Congress, 1999–2011 

Province 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 

Beijing X X X - - - - - - - - - - 

Tianjin X X X X - - X - - - - - - 

Hebei X X - - - - - - - - - - - 

Shanxi X X - - - - - - - - - - - 

Neimonggu X X - - X - - X - - - - - 

Liaoning X X X - - - - - - - - - - 

Jilin X X - - X X X X X - - - - 

Heilongjiang X X - - - - - - - - NA - - 

Shanghai X X X - X - - - - - - - - 
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Table-2: Reference to Falun Gong as Local Enforcement Problem in the Annual Procuracy 

Report to Provincial People’s Congress, 1999–2011—Continued 

Province 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 

Jiangsu - X X - - - - - - - - - - 

Zhejiang X X X - X X X - X - - - - 

Anhui X X X X X - - - X - - - - 

Fujian X X X - X X - - - X - - - 

Jiangxi X X X - - - - - - - - - - 

Shandong X - - - - - - - - NA - - 

Henan X X X - - - - - - NA NA - - 

Hubei X X X - X - - - - - - - - 

Hunan X - - X - - - - X - - - - 

Guangdong X X - - - - - - - - - - - 

Guangxi X X X X X - - - - - - - - 

Hainan X X X - - - - - - - - - - 

Sichuan X X X - X X - - - - - - - 

Guizhou X X - - - - - - - - NA - - 

Yunnan X X X - - - - - - - - - - 

Xizhang X - X - - - - - - - - - - 

Shaanxi X X X - X X X X - - - - - 

Gansu X X X - - - - - - X - - - 

Qinghai X X X - - - - - - - NA NA - 

Ningxia X X X - - X X X - NA NA NA NA 

Xinjiang X - - X - - - - NA NA NA NA 

Chongqing X X X - X X X X - - - - - 

Total no. of Provincial reports 

with ref. to 

FLG 29 28 21 4 12 7 6 5 4 2 0 0 0 

Source: See source note on Table-1. Full Chinese texts of provincial procuracy reports for 2009–2011 are obtained from internet searches. 

‘‘NA’’ denotes provinces where the latter has not yielded any such documents for given years using the subject keyword and searching for the 

websites of the Provincial Government, the Provincial Legislature and the Provincial Procuracy. 

A similar pattern on the decline of the Falun Gong threat can also be seen in the 

number of articles on the Falun Gong published in the Renmin ribao, the major national newspaper in China and the official organ of the Central Committee of the 

Chinese Communist Party. These are articles that either refer to the Falun Gong 

in the title or name the Falun Gong in the text. Table-3 presents the monthly total 

of such articles from July, 1999 through December, 2011. It can be seen that except 

for 2000, the annual aggregates have been on a monotonic decline, registering 609, 

325, 534, 198, 54, 17 from 1999 through 2004, and in the single digits thereafter. 

Monthly totals also show a similar pattern. In 1999, they range from 41 (October) 

to 196 (August), 10 to 63 in 2000, 6 to 66 in 2001, 1 to 28 in 2002, 2 to 9 in 2003, 

1 to 4 in 2004, and 1 to 2 in 2005 through 2011. Data from both the annual central 

and provincial procuracy reports, as well as Renmin ribao articles then, point to a 
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sharp reduction of both sets of indexes since 2003, followed by a steady decline 

thereafter, with a hard-core remnant that had survived and continued to defy official suppression efforts through at least 2008. In combination, they show that the 

Falun Gong has been emasculated in China but not eradicated. 

Table-3: Articles on Falun Gong in RMRB, 1999–2011 

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 

1999 170 196 125 41 104 73 609 

2000 52 25 63 38 23 34 25 10 14 10 10 21 325 

2001 59 66 20 46 25 28 34 6 15 10 12 23 534 

2002 20 11 22 24 26 10 25 7 28 17 1 7 98 

2003 5 2 9 2 5 2 2 4 4 3 5 3 54 

2004 4 1 1 3 1 2 2 1 2 17 

2005 2 1 1 2 1 2 9 

2006 1 2 2 1 6 

2007 1 1 

2008 1 1 2 

2009 1 1 2 4 

2010 1 1 2 

2011 1 1 1 1 1 5 

Grand 

Total 1767 

Source: Renmin ribao, 1946–2011, CD–ROM edition. 

II. NEW FORMS OF ORGANIZED UNDERGROUND FALUN GONG ACTIVITIES

If the Falun Gong has not been engaging in overt acts of defiance inside China 

in recent years, what has it been doing? There are two main forms of organized 

Falun Gong activities. Both meet in unstructured small groups or in larger assemblies. 

Small Study groups and Fa Conferences 

In the Fa Study Group, small cells of two or more engage in common spiritual 

cultivation, at fixed or irregular intervals, usually in a private residence like Christian house fellowships, about once or twice a week. There is no formal structure, 

and no fixed meeting schedule, format, size, and organization. Fa Conferences are 

larger gatherings of Falun Gong practitioners, generally meeting also in private 

homes, of around 10 people. At least some were convened on major Falun Gong anniversaries, such as April 25th when the Falun Gong staged their historic protest 

rally in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai, or on May 13, the foundation day of the congregation, or on July 20th, the date commemorated by many Falun Gong groups as the 

anniversary of the ban on the Falun Gong. 

A detailed report shows one Fa conference had a make-shift altar set up with a 

Falun Gong plaque placed at its center, on top of a Falun Gong table-cloth, beneath 

two Buddhist or Li Hongzhi portraits. A candle stand was placed in the middle of 

the altar in front of the plaque, itself flanked by a plate of fruits or buns as tributary articles, surrounded by silk floral arrangements on each side of the altar. Practitioners sat on the floor with their legs crossed in a standard Falun Gong exercise 

posture. 

The congregation was called to order at 8 a.m. The meeting consisted of four segments each punctuated by ten-minute meditation sessions on the hour where practitioners were called on to join the universal Falun Gong congregation to send forth 

righteous thoughts. In the first session, two short videos were played, the first on 

‘‘Remembrance’, where photographs of Falun Gong practitioners who reportedly died 
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in official custody were shown on the screen. This was followed by another short 

video on ‘‘The Flying Revolving Wheel’’ on developments in the Falun Gong. The second session was the main part of the conference where practitioners discussed the 

recent articles of Li Hongzhi, who instructed all practitioners to perform the three 

tasks of Studying the Falun Method, Sending forth Righteous Thoughts, and Clarifying the Truth. Before the discussion of the third task, a musical video entitled 

‘‘Coming for You’’ was played. It was about 36 European Falun Gong practitioners 

who went to Beijing on November 20, 2001 and displayed a Falun Gong banner in 

the Tiananmen Square. Returning to Europe, they composed the title song and 

formed a ‘‘Coming for You European Choir’’ made up of over 80 singers from 13 European nations that performed in London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong, singing 

separately in Mandarin, Swede, French, Italian and in four voice parts. In the Fa 

Conference, both the musical CD, as well as the commemorative video elicited 

strong emotions from sobbing participants. As the last item of the conference, the 

host mentioned two specific projects to which participants were called on to contribute their efforts. The first was to collect documentary evidence for official persecution, including the Indictment, Sentencing, and Ruling Statements, Detention Notices, Summons to appear in labor reform institutions, as well as official receipts for 

fines and Falun Gong material confiscated by the authorities, which would be sent 

to Falun Gong media organizations overseas for documenting official repression. The 

second was to locate and assist the orphans of Falun Gong practitioners who perished in official custody. The conference adjourned at noon. 

Propagation Activities to Clarify the Truth 

The second set of organized activities was ‘‘Clarifying the Truth’’, a direct instruction from Li Hongzhi to his adherents that all should do their part in letting the 

public know about the true Falun Gong doctrine and practice, and the plight practitioners suffer under the repressive regime, repeated in many of his written messages and public speeches. These are done both in passive and active ways, and both 

in their work units and residence as well as outside their place of employment and 

domicile. 

Passive ways of Clarifying the Truth entail drop-and-run tactics of leaving Falun 

Gong materials in target sites—at the door of houses in rural villages, or in buses, 

shopping malls, restaurants, post offices, public phone booths, benches in public 

parks, bicycle shopping baskets, the door handle of autos, and outside shop windows. Some left leaflets on bus depot, underground walkways, trains, electric wire 

poles, telephone booths, and street walls. Additional drop-off points included postal 

boxes, milk delivery containers, newspaper holders outside doors, shelves in supermarkets, suit pockets on racks of clothing stores. 

These non-invasive tactics contrast with the more interactive methods of other 

bolder practitioners who engaged their targets, including speaking to the elderly in 

nursing homes, talking to store cashiers, peasants waiting in fields for the harvester 

to arrive. Not all acts of clarifying the truth were, however, done by lone operators. 

Some travelled in groups on bicycles or in two cars, bringing food and water for 

their own consumption to distant mountain communities. Along the way, they put 

up Falun Gong posters on electric wire poles, trees, and hung Falun Gong banners, 

traveling over 100 li (50 km. or 31 miles) one-way, speaking to villagers as well as 

residents of forest lands and dropped off pamphlets to rural households, putting up 

posters in every house. 

III. COMMUNICATING WITH THE GLOBAL FALUN GONG COMMUNITY

Thanks to the internet, the underground cellular Falun Gong community is connected with each other and with the universal Falun Gong congregation in the diaspora, which has organizations in 114 countries and regions in the world, including 

groups in 45 of the 50 states in the U.S. Falun Gong practitioners inside China can 

thus tap into the vast resources of its universal community. On one end of this cyber 

link is the elaborate Falun Gong telecommunications network composed of two news 

agencies, three television stations, two radio stations, a newspaper, and the worldwide web Minghui.org with global electronic footprint. On the other are the ‘‘Material Centers’’ established by the underground Falun Gong community inside China 

that reproduce Falun Gong global communications, create local content, and distribute these to other local Falun Gong practitioners. 

The Falun Gong Cyber Community 

Falun Gong practitioners in China can get their daily bread from the Minghui.org 

website, which publishes around 40 daily news items on developments relating to 

the Falun Gong in China. In addition to information on the Falun Gong survivors 

in China, what practitioners in China may find particularly useful are up-to-date 
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intelligence, like when some public security bureau was planning a systematic inspection of computers, that some taxicab operators in the city were government 

agents, or some cities were installing electronic surveillance systems in the residential compound or in street walls. 

The Minghui.org website offers a whole spectrum of technical consulting on how 

to set up a Material Center, produce and distribute Falun Gong materials. In its 

section on Technical Reference, it lists informational entries on 11 topics including 

appropriate equipment and production processes for manufacturing CD’s, DVD’s, 

video-tapes, stick-on posters and banners; text and graphics editing; software debugging as well as computer and photocopier trouble-shooting. It suggests ways to position the household satellite dish at different times of the day in China to get the 

best reception for television programs broadcast by the Falun Gong New Dynasty 

Station in the U.S. It warns against the most recent mail interception techniques 

of public security agents embedded in Chinese post offices, suggests ways to prevent 

electronic locating and eaves dropping by the authorities, and to circulate Falun 

Gong slogans widely by writing those slogans on currency bills. 

In a special section entitled how to evade network blocking, the Minghui.org 

website publishes 67 entries ranging from the best anti-virus and data management 

software available in China, techniques to save documents and data when surfing 

in internet cafes, the latest technology by law-enforcement to erect firewalls and 

how to bypass these obstructions. To minimize the pernicious effects of official hacking and worming, it suggests that practitioners in the mainland should set up three 

email addresses, one for correspondence and the other two for storage, where Falun 

Gong documents and graphic data would be saved as attachments. To bypass official 

surveillance efforts, it offers step-by-step instructions on how to apply for free overseas email addresses, attaching the actual English-language electronic application 

form, highlighting the key entries that are to be filled, translating the terms in Chinese, and providing samples of responses in English. 

Material Centers 

To rebuild the communications system within China, a network of Material Centers was established by Falun Gong survivors to link Falun Gong practitioners inside China with each other as well as with its international media hub in the U.S. 

The ‘‘Home Material Centers’’ are operated by members of a single family in their 

own residence. The standard equipments are a computer, printer, photocopier, and 

CD-burners. The operations of the Material Centers involved three basic tasks. 

First, the master copy from the international Minghui.org website are downloaded, 

from which relevant items to produce a local edition of newsletter and posters are 

selected. Second, multiple copies of the local printed or electronic file are then made 

by photocopiers or CD burners, stapled and/or packaged for dissemination. Third, 

these end products are then distributed to fill local orders from other Falun Gong 

groups, or to their target locations in urban housing blocks or rural villages. 

One report from Northeast China describes a large material centers that was 

equipped with a state-of-the-art photocopier, a high-volume, multifunctional machine capable of printing 100 pages per minute. The output in a busy day was 4– 

5 boxes of print-outs, or 40,000–50,000 sheets. Orders for printed products were 

placed by other Falun Gong groups in the city or surrounding urban places, in 

amounts of two to three thousand sheets per order, or one or two boxes (10–20,000 

sheets). To replenish paper supply, the Material Center periodically purchased a 

truck-load of paper that was around 80 boxes. In the three-year lifetime of the Center, it moved and operated in three locations, produced Falun Gong materials printed on over 1,000 boxes of paper, burnt over tens of thousands of CD’s, plus a large 

volume of posters, Falun Gong exercise tapes, video, and CD’s. 

CONCLUSION

On the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Falun Gong, one may well 

ponder why the authoritarian regime was able to emasculate but not eradicate what 

its top leader considered to be the most serious domestic political threat since the 

1989 Democracy Movement. Has the regime that once crushed demonstrating students with tanks become mellow, second-guessing itself about the expected utility 

of nipping another domestic challenger? Is it a case of calculated inaction, where the 

price of the pyrrhic victory was considered too costly for China’s newfound international status? Or is it rather that the Anti-Falun Gong Campaign had a limited 

objective in the first place, including only the liquidation of its national and provincial leadership, decimation of its organizational structure, purge of Falun Gong adherents who were inside the Communist Party, sanction for its collective actions 

that breached the law, but excluding grassroots practitioners who do breathing exercises and read Falun Gong mantra in the solitude of their homes, or even gather 
105 

for piety and not for protest? And since the regime has delegated law-enforcement 

authority relating to the Falun Gong to local governments, should explanations for 

regional variations in repressive efficacy be sought not at the central but at the local 

levels, which differ significantly in their willingness and ability to deal with the outlawed sect? Or is it the case that China does not fall exception to the general rule 

that few governments can exterminate well-entrenched and committed ideologues, 

determined insurgents and underground churches, especially one that has 

metathesized and nourished by daily and easy international contact with a well-established global community that enjoys international protection? Whatever the case, 

both the Falun Gong and the Chinese government have reasons to prefer the statusquo than the relentless campaign that suppressed the congregation in July, 1999. 

For Beijing, it gained social stability which it needs for economic development at 

home and a positive international image abroad. For the Falun Gong, it has survived the mortal wound inflicted by the Chinese government in a ruthless suppression, lived through its darkest night and rebuilt the movement for a better tomorrow. 
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