FDIC Brings New Evidence on CCP’s Forced Organ Harvesting as Congress Weighs Fresh Sanctions

Authors of three new books about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) systemic forced organ harvesting testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) on May 14, sharing expert insight into the Chinese regime’s human rights abuses.

The Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC) submitted written testimony for the record, including new data from a recent survey that corroborates reports of widespread medical testing of religious practitioners detained by the CCP—a key component of the regime’s forced organ harvesting.

The recent survey yielded 1,080 responses from Falun Gong practitioners across 41 states, representing an estimated 10 percent of the Falun Gong community in the United States. The population is demographically diverse, and more than one-third of respondents reported having been detained or imprisoned in China.

Of those who experienced detention or imprisonment in China, 56 percent reported being subjected to blood tests or other medical exams including X-rays, heart exams, vision exams, ultrasounds, and DNA collection. 

These respondents named 113 facilities across 20 provinces and municipalities in China where the medical examinations took place. The examination dates span from 1999 to 2024 in the survey responses, despite Chinese officials claiming in 2015 that it would stop sourcing organs from prisoners.  

“The fact that 1 in 2 former detainees reported being subjected to the tests demonstrates how widespread the practice has been in China,” said Levi Browde, FDIC executive director. 

The FDIC also submitted evidence that Falun Gong practitioners in China have also been compelled to undergo blood tests outside of detention. 

Evidence first emerged in the early 2000s of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting. Since then, several independent investigations, reports, and books have suggested that the practice occurs on an industrial scale, and that it continues today. An independent people’s tribunal conducted in London unanimously concluded in 2019 that forced organ harvesting was happening “throughout China on a significant scale.” 

At the time, the tribunal concluded that Falun Gong practitioners were the primary targets of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting, and expressed concerns that Uyghur Muslims were at risk. 

One of the May 14 hearing witnesses, Ethan Gutmann, presented evidence that fear has come to pass. His new book “The Xinjiang Procedure” documents his recent undercover investigation across the Kazakh border and presents new evidence of the CCP’s systemic forced organ harvesting of young Uyghurs in concentration camps.

The CECC also heard from Kalbinur Sidik, a survivor of the CCP’s genocide against Uyghurs. Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, recently authored “China’s War on Faith” and testified on religious freedom and human rights as a foreign policy imperative. Jan Jekielek, author of “Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary,” shared evidence from his new book, which draws from 20 years of investigations. 

“The targeting of Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs reflects, as we’ve heard today, a broader campaign of religious persecution that includes Christians in China, ethnic repression, and dehumanization carried out by the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” said Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.).  “And this commission has to continue examining these allegations and working to ensure that the abuses are documented and pushing for them to come to an end.”

The hearing was led by commission co-chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a longtime human rights advocate in Congress.

“Ethical organ transplantation is noble and life-saving. But what we are examining today is the polar opposite. It is the conversion of the imprisoned and persecuted into inventory—hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs, corneas taken from living, sold to the desperate, hidden behind hospital walls, protected by secrecy, corruption, fear, and state power,” Smith said.

Smith in 2025 introduced a bill to sanction perpetrators of forced organ harvesting, which passed unanimously in the House. 

The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee now has before it a bipartisan piece of legislation—the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act (S.4009)—that would enable sanctions against perpetrators of forced organ harvesting and require an investigation into whether forced organ harvesting should be legally designated an atrocity.

The FDIC counts 14 binding laws that target forced organ harvesting and commercial transplant tourism enacted in Israel, Spain, Taiwan, Italy, Norway, Belgium, the UK, Canada, Texas, Utah, Idaho, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Arizona. 

“Congress should immediately mark up and pass the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act (S.4009), which would require the U.S. government to impose sanctions on foreign persons who have knowingly and directly engaged in or facilitated forced organ harvesting in China,” Browde said. 

Read our full testimony here.