H. Res. 343 
In the House of Representatives, U. S., 
June 13, 2016. 
Whereas when performed in accordance with ethical stand-
ards, the medical discipline of organ transplantation is 
one of the great achievements of modern medicine; 
Whereas voluntary and informed consent is the precondition 
for ethical organ donation and international medical or-
ganizations state that prisoners, deprived of their free-
dom, are not in the position to give free consent and that 
the practice of sourcing organs from prisoners is a viola-
tion of ethical guidelines in medicine; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
and Communist Party of China continue to deny reports 
that many organs are taken without the consent of pris-
oners yet at the same time prevents independent 
verification of its transplant system; 
Whereas the organ transplantation system in China does not 
comply with the World Health Organization’s require-
ment of transparency and traceability in organ procure-
ment pathways; 
Whereas the United States Department of State Country Re-
port on Human Rights for China for 2014 stated, ‘‘Advo-
cacy groups continued to report instances of organ har-
vesting from prisoners’’;
•HRES 343 EH 
Whereas Huang Jiefu, director of the China Organ Donation 
Committee, announced in December 2014 that China 
would end the practice of organ harvesting from executed 
prisoners by January 1, 2015, did not directly address 
organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience; 
Whereas Falun Gong, a spiritual practice involving meditative 
‘‘qigong’’ exercises and centered on the values of truthful-
ness, compassion, and tolerance, became immensely pop-
ular in the 1990s; 
Whereas in July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party 
launched an intensive, nationwide persecution designed to 
eradicate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, reflecting 
the party’s long-standing intolerance of large independent 
civil society groups; 
Whereas since 1999, hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong 
practitioners have been detained extra-legally in reeduca-
tion-through-labor camps, detention centers, and prisons, 
where torture and abuse are routine; 
Whereas in many detention facilities and labor camps, Falun 
Gong prisoners of conscience comprise the majority of the 
population, and have been said to receive the longest sen-
tences and the worst treatment; 
Whereas Freedom House reported in 2015 that Falun Gong 
practitioners comprise the largest portion of prisoners of 
conscience in China, and face an elevated risk of dying 
or being killed in custody; 
Whereas in 2006, Canadian researchers David Matas, human 
rights attorney, and David Kilgour, former Canadian 
Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, conducted an inde-
pendent investigation into allegations of organ harvesting 
from Falun Gong prisoners in China, and concluded that
•HRES 343 EH 
Falun Gong practitioners being killed for their organs 
was highly probable; 
Whereas Matas and Kilgour have implicated state and party 
entities in illicit organ harvesting, including domestic se-
curity services and military hospitals; 
Whereas researcher and journalist Ethan Gutmann published 
findings that Chinese security agencies began harvesting 
organs from members of the predominantly Muslim 
Uyghur ethnic minority group in the 1990s, including 
from Uyghur political prisoners; 
Whereas the United Nations Committee Against Torture and 
the Special Rapporteur on Torture have expressed con-
cern over the allegations of organ harvesting from Falun 
Gong prisoners, and have called on the Government of 
the People’s Republic of China to increase accountability 
and transparency in the organ transplant system and 
punish those responsible for abuses; and 
Whereas the killing of religious or political prisoners for the 
purpose of selling their organs for transplant is an egre-
gious and intolerable violation of the fundamental right 
to life: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) condemns the practice of state-sanctioned forced 
organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China; 
(2) calls on the Government of the People’s Repub-
lic of China and Communist Party of China to imme-
diately end the practice of organ harvesting from all 
prisoners of conscience;