Title: A resolution expressing solidarity with Falun Gong practitioners who have lost lives, freedoms, and other rights for adhering to their beliefs and practices, and condemning the practice of non-consenting organ harvesting, and for other purposes.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution condemns nonconsensual organ harvesting of prisoners in China and calls on China to immediately cease the persecution and imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners. (Falun Gong is a religious practice that is denounced by the Chinese government.)

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 274 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 274

   Expressing solidarity with Falun Gong practitioners who have lost 
  lives, freedoms, and other rights for adhering to their beliefs and 
    practices, and condemning the practice of non-consenting organ 
                  harvesting, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             July 11, 2019

Mr. Menendez (for himself, Mr. Moran, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Tillis, Mr. Coons, 
Mr. Brown, Ms. Baldwin, Mr. Markey, Mr. Casey, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cruz, Mr. 
King, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Reed, Mr. Cotton, and Mr. Cassidy) submitted the 
 following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
                               Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
   Expressing solidarity with Falun Gong practitioners who have lost 
  lives, freedoms, and other rights for adhering to their beliefs and 
    practices, and condemning the practice of non-consenting organ 
                  harvesting, and for other purposes.

Whereas Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is a Chinese spiritual discipline 
        founded by Li Hongzhi in 1992 that consists of spiritual and moral 
        teachings, meditation, and exercise, and is based upon the universal 
        principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance;
Whereas, during the mid-1990s, Falun Gong acquired a large and diverse 
        following, with as many as 70,000,000 practitioners at its peak;
Whereas, on April 25, 1999, an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 Falun Gong 
        practitioners gathered in Beijing to protest growing restrictions by the 
        Government of the People's Republic of China on the activities of Falun 
        Gong practitioners, and the Government of the People's Republic of China 
        responded with an intensive, comprehensive, and unforgiving campaign 
        against the movement that began on July 20, 1999, with the banning of 
        Falun Gong;
Whereas the Constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees basic 
        rights, including the freedoms of speech, association, demonstration, 
        and religion;
Whereas, in 1993, the Government of the People's Republic of China praised Li 
        Hongzhi for his contributions in ``safeguarding social order and 
        security'' and ``promoting rectitude in society'';
Whereas, in many detention facilities and labor camps, Falun Gong prisoners of 
        conscience have at times comprised the majority of the population, and 
        have been said to receive the longest sentences and the worst treatment, 
        including torture;
Whereas, according to overseas Falun Gong and human rights organizations, since 
        1999, from several hundred to a few thousand Falun Gong adherents have 
        died in custody from torture, abuse, and neglect;
Whereas a review of the Government of the People's Republic of China by the 
        United Nations Human Rights Council's Working Group on the Universal 
        Periodic Review in November 2018, recommended that China ``[e]nd 
        prosecution and persecution on the basis of religion or belief, 
        including for Muslims, Christians, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong'';
Whereas the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the Special Rapporteur 
        on Torture have expressed concern 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 any purpose, 
        including for the purpose of selling their organs for transplant, is an 
        egregious and intolerable violation of the fundamental right to life;
Whereas voluntary and informed consent is the precondition for ethical organ 
        donation, and international medical organizations state that prisoners, 
        deprived of their freedom, are not in the position to give free consent 
        and that the practice of sourcing organs from prisoners is a violation 
        of ethical guidelines in medicine;
Whereas the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party 
        of China continue to deny reports that many organs are taken without the 
        consent of prisoners, yet at the same time prevent independent 
        verification of the organ transplant system in China;
Whereas the organ transplantation system in China does not comply with the World 
        Health Organization's requirement of transparency and traceability in 
        organ procurement pathways;
Whereas the Department of State Country Report on Human Rights for China for 
        2018 reported that ``[s]ome activists and organizations continue to 
        accuse the government of involuntarily harvesting organs from prisoners 
        of conscience, especially members of Falun Gong'';
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, but did not directly address 
        organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience;
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 the Department of State Country Report on Human Rights for China for 
        2016 reported that ``some international medical professionals and human 
        rights researchers questioned the voluntary nature of the 
        [transplantation] system, the accuracy of official statistics, and 
        official claims about the source of organs'';
Whereas a 2017 report by Freedom House concluded that there was ``credible 
        evidence suggesting that beginning in the early 2000s, Falun Gong 
        detainees were killed for their organs on a large scale'';
Whereas the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) stated in 2018 
        that ``[i]nternational organizations continued to express concern over 
        reports that organs of detained prisoners have been used in numerous 
        organ transplant operations in China, including those of Falun Gong 
        practitioners'' and also noted that medical professionals and 
        international advocacy organizations ``disputed Chinese health 
        officials' claims that organ procurement systems have been reformed in 
        compliance with international standards, citing ethical concerns about 
        organ sourcing raised by short wait times for organ transplants and 
        discrepancies in data on organ transplants'';
Whereas the Independent Tribunal Into Forced Organ Harvesting From Prisoners of 
        Conscience in China, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, issued a short 
        form conclusion of its final judgment in June 2019 finding that ``forced 
        organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a 
        significant scale and that Falun Gong practitioners have been one--and 
        probably the main--source of organ supply''; and
Whereas the Tribunal also concluded that it had seen no evidence that the organ 
        transplantation industry in China had been dismantled, and absent a 
        satisfactory explanation as to the source of organs, that forced organ 
        harvesting continues in China today: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) expresses solidarity with Falun Gong practitioners and 
        their families for the lives, freedoms, and rights they lost 
        for adhering to their beliefs and practices;
            (2) emphasizes to the Government of the People's Republic 
        of China that freedom of religion includes the right of Falun 
        Gong practitioners to freely practice Falun Gong in China;
            (3) calls upon the Communist Party of China to immediately 
        cease and desist from its campaign to persecute Falun Gong 
        practitioners and promptly release all Falun Gong practitioners 
        who have been confined, detained, or imprisoned for pursuing 
        their right to hold and exercise their spiritual beliefs;
            (4) condemns the practice of non-consenting organ 
        harvesting in the People's Republic of China;
            (5) calls on the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China and the Communist Party of China to immediately end the 
        practice of organ harvesting from all prisoners of conscience;
            (6) calls on the Government of the People's Republic of 
        China to allow an independent and transparent investigation 
        into organ transplant abuses in China;
            (7) urges the President to consider the applicability of 
        existing authorities, including the Global Magnitsky Human 
        Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 2656 note), to impose 
        targeted sanctions on those individuals responsible for the 
        persecution of Falun Gong, including those engaging in a 
        pattern of non-consensual organ harvesting; and
            (8) urges the President to ensure that the United States 
        Government highlights and condemns human rights abuses 
        perpetrated, ordered, or directed by government officials in 
        China both publicly and in private engagements with all 
        relevant government officials in China.
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