Rubio Introduces Falun Gong Protection Act Targeting CCP’s Forced Organ Harvesting 👉 Updatem News

Senators take action to address Beijing’s state-sanctioned persecution and forced organ harvesting targeting Falun Gong practitioners.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has brought forth a bill aimed at deterring the Chinese regime’s state-sanctioned killing of Falun Gong practitioners for their organs.

Introduced to the Senate on July 31, the Falun Gong Protection Act would make it U.S. policy to avoid cooperation with China in the organ transplantation field and compel Beijing to end “any state-sponsored organ harvesting campaign.”

Under the measure, the U.S. president would need to provide to relevant congressional committees a list of foreign persons deemed to have “knowingly and directly engaged in or facilitated the involuntary harvesting of organs within the People’s Republic of China.”

Those on the list would face sanctions barring them from entering the United States or engaging in U.S.-based transactions. Any current visas they hold would be invalidated. The bill also prescribes a civil penalty of up to $250,000 as well as a criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison for perpetrators.

Within a year of the bill becoming law, the secretaries of the State Department and Health and Human Services, along with the director of the National Institutes of Health would be required to issue a report on organ transplant practices in China, including with respect to Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience.

The officials would need to submit a list of U.S. grants that have supported organ transplantation in China over the prior 10 years. The same officials would be required to determine whether the persecution of Falun Gong constitutes an “atrocity” under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.

Cosponsors of the Senate bill include Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

The House passed a companion version of the bill in June, which Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and 18 other lawmakers led.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would become the first federal law to challenge China’s persecution and its illicit organ trade targeting the faith group.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) at his office in the Hart Senate office building in Washington on March 21, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

The measure was introduced less than two weeks after the spiritual group marked 25 years of persecution in communist China. Featuring meditation and teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, Falun Gong enjoyed wide popularity in China during the 1990s, garnering an estimated following of 70 million to 100 million people. But since July 1999, the group has faced an extensive campaign designed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to extinguish them, involving imprisonment, torture, forced labor, and forced organ harvesting.

Rubio unveiled the bill as a package to counter communist China’s influence. Two other legislative proposals include the Stop CCP Act to sanction CCP officials and their adult family members for “acts of aggression, oppression, and human rights abuses.”

“Communist China has been able to get away with a campaign of widespread evil,” Rubio said in a statement. “From committing acts of genocide against religious and ethnic groups, to spearheading forced sterilization and abortions, as well as dominating crucial minerals and technologies, and impeding the sovereignty of several regional partners, the U.S. will not tolerate these practices.”

A number of states have been taking action to counter organ harvesting. Since June 2023, Texas, Utah, and Idaho, have enacted laws to stop insurance companies from covering transplant surgeries if the organs originate from China.

The issue has also gained international attention, with a dozen United Nations-affiliated human rights experts saying they are “extremely alarmed by reports of alleged ‘organ harvesting’ targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians, in detention in China.”

Falun Gong practitioners march during a parade calling for the end of the Chinese Communist Party's 25 years of ongoing persecution against the spiritual practice, in New York City on July 20, 2024. (Larry Dye/The Epoch Times) — Falun Gong practitioners march during a parade calling for the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s 25 years of ongoing persecution against the spiritual practice, in New York City on July 20, 2024. (Larry Dye/The Epoch Times)

The European Parliament in 2022 also adopted a resolution over “serious concern about reports of persistent, systematic, inhumane and state-sanctioned organ harvesting from prisoners in China, and more specifically from Falun Gong practitioners.” It said that the CCP’s practice of forced organ harvesting “may amount to crimes against humanity.”

The State Department in multiple recent reports highlighted forced organ harvesting.

Two days after the House passage of the Falun Gong Protection Act, a State Department spokesperson called on the CCP to allow for “independent and transparent investigations into the country’s organ transplantation system” and “welcome independent observers to investigate the veracity of these reports.”

The regime should “cease its depraved actions against prisoners of conscience and to act in accordance with its human rights commitments and fully comply with all relevant medical and ethical standards and best practices, including acting in the best interests of the patient, informed consent, and respect for personhood,” the spokesperson told NTD, the sister media of The Epoch Times.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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