•HRES 281 IH 
2013 it did not have an organized or effective public sys-
tem of organ donation or distribution; 
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, and the Government of the People’s Re-
public of China has resisted independent scrutiny of the 
system; 
Whereas the Department of State Country Report on Human 
Rights for China for 2011 stated, ‘‘Overseas and domes-
tic media and advocacy groups continued to report in-
stances of organ harvesting, particularly from Falun 
Gong practitioners and Uighurs’’; 
Whereas due in part to traditional views on the importance 
of preserving the body intact after death, China has very 
low rates of voluntary organ donations; 
Whereas the People’s Republic of China implemented regula-
tions in 1984 that permitted the harvesting of organs 
from executed prisoners; 
Whereas in June 2001, Chinese doctor Wang Guoqi testified 
before the House of Representatives International Rela-
tions Subcommittee on International Organizations and 
Human Rights that hospitals worked in collusion with 
state security agencies to extract organs from executed 
prisoners without written consent of the organ donors, 
and that these transplants were a lucrative source of in-
come; 
Whereas former Vice-Minister of Health Huang Jiefu admit-
ted publicly that more than 90 percent of transplant or-
gans extracted from deceased donors stemmed from exe-
cuted prisoners in China; 
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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 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, with multiple estimates placing the 
number of practitioners upwards of 70,000,000; 
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 in order to protect their families and associates, 
many Falun Gong prisoners of conscience refuse to pro-
vide real names or other personally identifying informa-
tion to security agencies, thus making them more vulner-
able to abuses; 
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Whereas the number of organ transplant operations in China 
increased significantly after 1999, corresponding with the 
onset of the persecution of Falun Gong; 
Whereas this increase does not appear to be attributable ei-
ther to an overall increase in the number of death row 
inmates or to an increase in voluntary donations, and in 
fact, human rights groups and legal experts believe there 
has been a decrease in the number of executions in China 
in recent years; 
Whereas the Government of the People’s Republic of China 
has failed to adequately account for the sources of the ex-
cess organs; 
Whereas Chinese hospitals have advertised wait times of 2 to 
4 weeks for kidney and liver transplants, and documented 
cases of scheduled heart transplantations with 3 weeks 
advanced notice; 
Whereas because organs have a very limited survival period 
outside the body, such short wait times are best explained 
by the existence of a large pool of living donors whose or-
gans can be harvested on demand; 
Whereas interviews conducted with previously imprisoned 
Falun Gong practitioners suggest that, while in custody, 
they were targeted for medical exams, including blood 
and urine tests, x-rays, ultra-sounds, and selective phys-
ical exams; 
Whereas the targeted nature of these exams suggests they 
are intended to assess the health of the practitioners’ 
vital organs and their potential candidacy for organ har-
vesting; 
Whereas other prisoner groups are generally not subjected to 
such medical tests; 
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Whereas Canadian researchers David Matas, human rights 
attorney, and David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary 
of State for Asia-Pacific, conducted an investigation into 
allegations of organ harvesting from Falun Gong pris-
oners of conscience in 2006, based on extensive cir-
cumstantial evidence, their report concluded that the alle-
gations were true and that tens of thousands of Falun 
Gong practitioners may have been killed for their organs; 
Whereas in 2006, doctors from 17 Chinese hospitals admitted 
in phone calls with undercover investigators that they 
used or could obtain vital organs of Falun Gong pris-
oners of conscience for transplant, with some of the doc-
tors implicating local courts and security agencies in the 
organ procurement process; 
Whereas researcher and journalist Ethan Gutmann estimates 
that approximately 65,000 Falun Gong adherents may 
have been killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008, and 
that a smaller number of other religious and ethnic mi-
norities may also have been targeted; 
Whereas 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 in May 2012, the World Organization to Investigate 
the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) released tele-
phone transcripts and audio recordings of conversations 
between undercover investigators and senior Chinese 
Communist Party officials, in which several officials indi-
cated that central authorities were aware of or involved 
in organ harvesting from Falun Gong prisoners; 
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Whereas among those implicated were former Politburo mem-
ber Bo Xilai and his deputy, Wang Lijun; 
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; 
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; 
Whereas the Department of Health in Taiwan urged doctors 
in Taiwan to discourage patients from undergoing com-
mercial organ transplants in China; and 
Whereas in September 2012, experts testified before the 
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that 
United States patients continue to travel to China for 
organ transplants and that the medical community con-
tinues cooperation and training with Chinese colleagues, 
creating the risk that they may be indirectly aiding abu-
sive practices: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) calls on the Government of the People’s Re-
public of China to immediately end the practice of 
organ harvesting from all prisoners, and particularly 
from Falun Gong prisoners of conscience and mem-
bers of other religious and ethnic minority groups; 
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(2) calls for a full and transparent investigation 
by the United States Department of State into 
organ transplant practices in the People’s Republic 
of China, and for the prosecution of those found to 
have engaged in such unethical practices; 
(3) demands an immediate end to the 14-year 
persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice by 
the Communist Party of China, and the immediate 
release of all Falun Gong practitioners and other 
prisoners of conscience; 
(4) recommends that the United States State 
Department issue a travel warning for United States 
citizens traveling to China for organ transplants in-
forming them that the organ source for their oper-
ation may be a prisoner of conscience; and 
(5) recommends that the United States Govern-
ment publicly condemn organ transplantation abuses 
in China and ban the entry of those who have par-
ticipated in illegal removal of human tissues and or-
gans, prosecuting such individuals should they be 
found on United States soil. 
Æ 
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