IV 

111TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 605 

Recognizing the continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China 

on the 10th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party campaign 

to suppress the Falun Gong spiritual movement and calling for an 

immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and 

torture Falun Gong practitioners. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

JUNE 26, 2009 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN (for herself, Mr. POE of Texas, Mr. BILIRAKIS, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mr. ROHRABACHER, Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida, Mr. MINNICK, and Ms. WATERS) submitted the following resolution; 

which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Recognizing the continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China on the 10th anniversary of the Chinese 

Communist Party campaign to suppress the Falun Gong 

spiritual movement and calling for an immediate end 

to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and 

torture Falun Gong practitioners. 

Whereas Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline which consists of 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 milVerDate Nov 24 2008 00:21 Jun 28, 2009 Jkt 079200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR605.IH HR605

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•HRES 605 IH 

lions 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.’’; 

Whereas in 1996, Falun Gong books were banned in China 

and state media began a campaign criticizing Falun 

Gong; 

Whereas in 1998 and 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-Prime Minister 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 stated that the Communist Party 

must ‘‘defeat’’ Falun Gong in order to ‘‘avoid becoming 

a laughing stock.’’; 

Whereas, on June 10, 1999, Jiang Zemin ordered the creation of the 6–10 office, an extrajudicial security apparatus, given the mandate to ‘‘eradicate’’ Falun Gong; 

Whereas, on July 20, 1999, Chinese police began arresting 

leading Falun Gong practitioners; 


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•HRES 605 IH 

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 illegal; 

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’’, the term ‘‘evil cult’’ was 

subsequently utilized by Chinese authorities to undercut 

public sympathy in China for Falun Gong and to play 

upon Western fears of cult movements; 

Whereas Chinese authorities have devoted extensive time and 

resources over the past decade, both at home and abroad, 

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 Chinese official harassment of Falun Gong practitioners has extended to interfering with the exercise of 

the constitutional rights of assembly and free speech by 

United States citizens and lawful permanent residents 

within the boundaries of the United States, including the 

physical assault on Mr. Sheng Mei on October 22, 2000, 

in San Francisco’s China Garden Park ‘‘by a mob of 

thugs who shouted allegations about Falun Gong practitioners identical to those published in various Chinese 

government-controlled newspapers’’ while he was distributing Falun Gong literature, the physical assault on 

Falun Gong practitioner Bill Fang outside the Consulate 

of the People’s Republic of China in Chicago on September 7, 2002, by an assailant with reported ties to the 

Chinese Government who pleaded guilty to battery 


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•HRES 605 IH 

charges in the Circuit Court of Cook County, and the 

physical assault on May 19, 2008, on United States citizen Judy Chen, the mother of two United States Marines then serving in Iraq, outside the public library in 

Flushing, New York, by individuals who also have reported links to the Chinese Government; 

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 in July 2006, former Canadian Secretary of State, 

David Kilgour, and Human Rights Lawyer David Matas, 

published a report, titled ‘‘Report into Allegations of 

Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in 

China’’, of their investigation into the reports of organ 

harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China which 

concluded that large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners are victims of systematic organ harvesting, whilst 

still alive, throughout China and that the practice is still 

ongoing; 

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 


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•HRES 605 IH 

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, according to the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group report of March 6, 2009, ‘‘in April 2007, a secret document of the Public Security Bureau listed Falun 

Gong among 11 groups that were to be monitored and 

prohibited from attending the Olympics, in February 

2008, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games 

of the XXIX Olympiad issued an internal instruction to 

‘strictly monitor and control Falun Gong’ ’’, and subsequently ‘‘over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in the name of the Beijing Olympics’ security.’’; 

Whereas Falun Gong-related websites remain among the 

most systematically and hermetically blocked by China’s 

internet firewall, clearly demonstrating the paranoia and 

hostility directed against Falun Gong by China’s communist leaders; and 

Whereas the Falun Dafa Information Center received reports 

of over 8,000 practitioners having been detained in 2008, 


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•HRES 605 IH 

with numerous reports of death from torture or other 

abuse while in custody: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 

2 (1) expresses sympathy to Falun Gong practi3 tioners and their family members who have suffered 

4 persecution, intimidation, imprisonment, torture, 

5 and even death for the past decade solely because of 

6 adherence to their personal beliefs; 

7 (2) calls upon the Government of the People’s 

8 Republic of China to immediately cease and desist 

9 from its campaign to persecute, intimidate, im10 prison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners, to im11 mediately abolish the 6–10 office, an extrajudicial 

12 security apparatus given the mandate to ‘‘eradicate’’ 

13 Falun Gong, and to immediately release Falun Gong 

14 practitioners, detained solely for their beliefs, from 

15 prisons and re-education through labor (RTL) 

16 camps, including those practitioners who are the rel17 atives of United States citizens and permanent resi18 dents; 

19 (3) calls upon the Government of the People’s 

20 Republic of China to end all harassment and intimi21 dation within the borders of the United States of 

22 Falun Gong practitioners and to end all interference 

23 in their exercise of rights guaranteed under the 


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1 United States Constitution and applicable laws of 

2 the United States; 

3 (4) calls upon the Secretary of State to ensure 

4 that officials of foreign embassies and consulates are 

5 not engaged in activities incompatible with their dip6 lomatic status, including interference in the exercise 

7 of constitutional rights by United States citizens and 

8 permanent residents within the borders of the 

9 United States; and 

10 (5) calls upon the President and Members of 

11 Congress to mark the 10th anniversary of Chinese 

12 official repression of the Falun Gong spiritual move13 ment appropriately and effectively by publicly ex14 pressing solidarity with those practitioners in China 

15 persecuted solely because of their personal beliefs, 

16 and by meeting with Falun Gong practitioners when17 ever and wherever possible to indicate that support 

18 for freedom of conscience remains a fundamental 

19 principle of the United States Government. 

Æ 


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