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[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 605 Engrossed in House (EH)]

H. Res. 605

                In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

                                                        March 16, 2010.
Whereas Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline founded by Li 
        Hongzhi in 1992, which consists of spiritual, religious, and moral 
        teachings for daily life, meditation, and exercise, based upon the 
        principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance;
Whereas according to the 2008 Annual Report of the Congressional-Executive 
        Commission on China, ``tens of millions of Chinese citizens practiced 
        Falun Gong in the 1990s and adherents to the spiritual movement inside 
        of China are estimated to still number in the hundreds of thousands 
        despite the government's ongoing crackdown,'' and other estimates 
        published in Western press place the number of Falun Gong adherents 
        currently in China at the tens of millions;
Whereas in 1996, Falun Gong books were banned in China and state media began a 
        campaign criticizing Falun Gong;
Whereas in 1999, Chinese police began disrupting Falun Gong morning exercises in 
        public parks and began searching the homes of Falun Gong practitioners;
Whereas on April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside 
        the State Council Office of Petitions in Beijing, next to the Communist 
        Party leadership compound, to request that arrested Falun Gong 
        practitioners be released, the ban on publication of Falun Gong books be 
        lifted, and that Falun Gong practitioners be allowed to resume their 
        activities without government interference;
Whereas on the same day, immediately after then-Premier Zhu Rongji met with 
        Falun Gong representatives in his office and agreed to the release of 
        arrested practitioners, Communist Party Chairman Jiang Zemin criticized 
        Zhu's actions and ordered a crackdown on Falun Gong;
Whereas in June 1999, Jiang Zemin ordered the creation of the 6-10 office, an 
        extrajudicial security apparatus, given the mandate to ``eradicate'' 
        Falun Gong;
Whereas in July 1999, Chinese police began arresting leading Falun Gong 
        practitioners;
Whereas on July 22, 1999, Chinese state media began a major propaganda campaign 
        to ban Falun Gong for ``disturbing social order'' and warning Chinese 
        citizens that the practice of Falun Gong was forbidden;
Whereas in October 1999, Party Chairman Jiang Zemin, according to western press 
        articles, ``ordered that Falun Gong be branded as a `cult', and then 
        demanded that a law be passed banning cults'';
Whereas Chinese authorities have devoted extensive time and resources over the 
        past decade worldwide to distributing false propaganda claiming that 
        Falun Gong is a suicidal and militant ``evil cult'' rather than a 
        spiritual movement which draws upon traditional Chinese concepts of 
        meditation and exercise;
Whereas on October 10, 2004, the House of Representatives adopted by voice vote 
        House Concurrent Resolution 304, which had 75 bipartisan co-sponsors, 
        titled ``Expressing the sense of Congress regarding oppression by the 
        Government of the People's Republic of China of Falun Gong in the United 
        States and in China,'' and that the text of this resolution noted that 
        ``the Chinese Government has also attempted to silence the Falun Gong 
        movement and Chinese prodemocracy groups inside the United States'';
Whereas, on October 18, 2005, highly respected human rights attorney Gao 
        Zhisheng wrote a letter to Chinese Communist Party Chairman Hu Jintao 
        and Premier Wen Jiabao calling for an end to the persecution of Falun 
        Gong and Chinese authorities, in response, closed his law office and 
        took away his law license, with Chinese security forces suspected of 
        being directly involved in Mr. Gao's disappearance on February 4, 2009;
Whereas Gao Zhisheng's family has subsequently been granted political asylum in 
        the United States;
Whereas the United Nations Committee Against Torture in its fourth periodic 
        report of China, issued on December 12, 2008, stated that ``The State 
        party should immediately conduct or commission an independent 
        investigation of the claims that some Falun Gong practitioners have been 
        subjected to torture and used for organ transplants and take measures, 
        as appropriate, to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are 
        prosecuted and punished.'';
Whereas the Amnesty International 2008 annual report states that ``Falun Gong 
        practitioners were at particularly high risk of torture and other ill-
        treatment in detention * * * during the year 2007 over 100 Falun Gong 
        practitioners were reported to have died in detention or shortly after 
        release as a result of torture, denial of food or medical treatment, and 
        other forms of ill-treatment.'';
Whereas according to the 2008 Department of State's Human Rights Report on 
        China, ``Some foreign observers estimated that Falun Gong adherents 
        constituted at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in 
        re-education through labor (RTL) camps, while Falun Gong sources 
        overseas placed the number even higher.'';
Whereas according to the 2008 Annual Report of the Congressional-Executive 
        Commission on China, ``The (Chinese) central government intensified its 
        nine-year campaign of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in 
        the months leading up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.'';
Whereas Falun Gong-related websites remain among the most systematically and 
        hermetically blocked by China's Internet firewall; and
Whereas, according to an April 2009 New York Times report, ``In the past year, 
        as many as 8,000 (Falun Gong) practitioners have been detained, 
        according to experts on human rights, and at least 100 have died in 
        custody'': Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) expresses sympathy to Falun Gong practitioners and their family 
        members who have suffered persecution, intimidation, imprisonment, 
        torture, and even death for the past decade solely because of adherence 
        to their personal beliefs;
            (2) calls upon the Government of the People's Republic of China to 
        immediately cease and desist from its campaign to persecute, intimidate, 
        imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners, to immediately abolish 
        the 6-10 office, an extrajudicial security apparatus given the mandate 
        to ``eradicate'' Falun Gong, and to immediately release Falun Gong 
        practitioners, detained solely for their beliefs, from prisons and re-
        education through labor (RTL) camps, including those practitioners who 
        are the relatives of United States citizens and permanent residents; and
            (3) calls upon the President and Members of Congress to mark the 
        11th anniversary of Chinese official repression of the Falun Gong 
        spiritual movement appropriately and effectively by publicly expressing 
        solidarity with those practitioners in China persecuted solely because 
        of their personal beliefs, and by meeting with Falun Gong practitioners 
        whenever and wherever possible to indicate that support for freedom of 
        conscience remains a fundamental principle of the United States 
        Government.
            Attest:

                                                                          Clerk.
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