To the editor: I would like to thank the U.S. House of Representatives and those from the local delegation for supporting the Falun Gong Protection Act last June.
The unanimously passed bill aims to end involuntary organ harvesting and the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. It also seeks to protect U.S. citizens, institutions, the transplant community and American medical centers from unknowingly supporting this crime against humanity.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Fairfax City Council and the Virginia General Assembly also addressed this issue by passing similar resolutions in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
Falun Gong is a self-improvement meditation practice that incorporates gentle exercises that benefit health and well-being. It has three tenets: truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. I began practicing Falun Gong after my cancer surgery, and it has helped me navigate challenging times.
In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party decided that Falun Gong’s popularity and its tenets threatened the party’s power, and in response launched a brutal persecution that continues today. According to reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others, Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested, incarcerated, tortured and killed over the past 25 years.
Media outlets reported in 2006 on the state-sanctioned involuntary organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience. A few weeks ago, in early August, media outlets reported on the first known survivor of forced organ harvesting, a Falun Gong practitioner.
A U.S. Senate version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives recently was introduced. I urge Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner to support the Senate bill to impose sanctions on foreign individuals involved in the involuntary harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience.
This legislation will save innocent lives, curtail forced organ harvesting and help prevent American medical centers and patients from becoming complicit in these crimes.
Terry Stenerson, Fairfax
