Shen Yun Campus Hosts Government and Community Leaders; Report Explains Chinese Doctors’ Silence on Forced Organ Harvesting

Dear Reader,

​On Oct. 17, my wife and I joined our two sons at Dragon Springs, the upstate New York campus where they train as Shen Yun dancers, to watch our family’s story on screen in Unbroken: The Untold Story of Shen Yun. We watched alongside many of Shen Yun’s dancers, musicians, and staff, as well as more than 100 government and community leaders.

I have documented the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999. I never imagined that the regime’s repression would one day threaten my own children’s safety and careers on U.S. soil, or that our family’s experience would itself become the subject of a documentary. That reality has come to pass, however, because of the CCP’s on-going campaign to silence Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance company founded by Falun Gong practitioners in the United States, whose mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and expose the tyranny of the CCP to the world.

As dancers and musicians described threats that have become a routine part of touring, I was encouraged to watch the guests realize that this is not only a Falun Gong or Shen Yun story. This is an American story: how a foreign government is trying to silence an American company and dictate what stories and artistic expressions American audiences can and cannot see.

Also in this issue:

• A 64-year-old Heilongjiang practitioner died a week after prison authorities released him in a coma.

• In Taiwan, 17 of 22 local councils passed motions against transnational repression after bomb threats targeted screenings of a forced organ harvesting documentary.

• A new report shows how the CCP’s control of China’s medical system keeps doctors silent on forced organ harvesting.

• A woman threatened to report a Falun Gong practitioner to the Chinese Embassy during a rally in Athens.

​Finally, I’d like to share again our short explainer on why Beijing goes to such lengths to silence Shen Yun.

Sincerely,

Levi Browde, Executive Director
Falun Dafa Information Center

Shen Yun Campus Hosts 100 Government and Community Leader

What’s new?

On Oct. 17, Dragon Springs, the training campus of Shen Yun Performing Arts in upstate New York, welcomed more than 100 government officials, business leaders, attorneys, artists, and members of the media for a screening of Unbroken: The Untold Story of Shen Yun, an award-winning documentary about the CCP’s campaign against the company.

Dragon Springs is a 400-acre campus in the town of Deerpark, in Orange County’s stretch of the Hudson Valley. The occasion was the first time it hosted an event devoted to the transnational repression Shen Yun itself has faced. Before the screening, guests were given a guided tour of the campus, including its classrooms, rehearsal halls, and Tang dynasty–style temple grounds. After the film and a panel discussion, about two dozen Shen Yun dancers and musicians stayed to talk with guests, answer questions, and pose for photos.

Richard Swett, a former U.S. congressman and ambassador to Denmark, recalled first visiting the property more than 20 years ago, when it was “little more than a hillside,” and said he was amazed by all that has been built since.

Why does it matter?

The event offered guests a rare look at Shen Yun from the inside and gave its dancers and musicians a chance to describe, in their own words, the threats they face and how those threats have shaped their lives. Several dancers said bomb threats have gone from a shock to a routine part of touring.

“All of a sudden, bomb-sniffing dogs are part of our daily lives,” said principal dancer Jared Ren. Fellow principal dancer Justina Wang said there are “so many bomb threats, every single year,” calling the attacks “a little bit overwhelming.”

Frank Dellapolla, a former principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, said he was struck by the “scope of what the company is going through,” particularly since Shen Yun “seems to have the same principles that a real American would certainly appreciate, treasure, and want to fight for.”

The artists also addressed media coverage of the company. “The New York Times and some other media have published untrue reports about us,” said lead dancer Tiffany Lin. “We also hope the good neighbors around us can truly understand us and give us more support.”

What else do you need to know?

Unbroken premiered on March 24 at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City. The film follows two American brothers, Jesse and Lucas Browde, from their childhood to the world stage with Shen Yun. Their father, Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), appears both as an expert on transnational repression and as a parent watching his sons face the same CCP-driven threats and persecution he has spent more than 26 years documenting.

Since Shen Yun’s founding in 2006, Beijing’s most frequent tactic has been to have Chinese diplomats pressure theaters into canceling performances. Leaked notes from 2024 meetings of the CCP’s Ministry of Public Security go further, calling for efforts to turn American public opinion and U.S. agencies against Falun Gong and Shen Yun. Since then, the FDIC has documented hundreds of transnational repression incidents targeting Shen Yun, from espionage and lawfare to disinformation and threats of violence.

More than 300 anonymous bomb and death threats have targeted Falun Gong practitioners and supporters since March 2024, over half of them tied to Shen Yun. Apart from a few attempts to sabotage buses, most have been hoaxes, but they have still forced evacuations, raised security costs, delayed or canceled events, and taken a psychological toll on performers, practitioners, and their families.

Dragon Springs in New York’s Hudson Valley. (Courtesy of Shen Yun Performing Arts)

Heilongjiang Man Released from Prison in a Coma Days Before His Term Ended, Dies One Week Later

Mr. Yu You, a 64-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province, died on Aug. 28, 2026. Tailai Prison had released him unconscious on Aug. 21, two days before his three-year sentence was set to expire.

A month earlier, his brother had visited him and found him healthy and in good spirits. The prison claimed Yu had suffered a brain hemorrhage but provided no medical documentation. His family still does not know what happened during his final month in custody.

For more than two decades, Tailai Prison has been documented as a central site using torture and other abuse to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith. Reported deaths there include Mr. Pan Hongdong, a university-trained computer specialist, who died after prolonged torture in 2005; Mr. Lyu Guanru, 69, in 2021; Mr. Zhong Guoquan, 72, in 2022; Mr. Yang Licheng, 81, in 2025; and Mr. Gao Ke, 72, in 2026. In at least four cases, including Mr. Yu’s, the death followed a reported brain hemorrhage.

17 Taiwanese Councils Pass Anti-Transnational Repression Motions After Bomb Threats Against Organ Harvesting Film

In under five months, 17 of Taiwan’s 22 city and county councils have passed motions against transnational repression (TNR), all prompted by bomb and death threats against screenings of State Organs, a Canadian documentary on forced organ harvesting in China. The motions attribute the threats to “foreign forces,” and some, including New Taipei’s and Kaohsiung’s, name the CCP outright.

Since October 2024, the film’s roughly 1,000 events in Taiwan have drawn more than 150 threats, according to its distributor. Some councils hosted screenings in their own chambers and became targets themselves. One threat to Tainan’s council warned that armed men would shoot everyone once the film started. On October 13, Premier Cho Jung-tai said the central government would amend the Anti-Infiltration Act to criminalize such acts.

In Taiwan and the United States, threats against the Falun Gong community follow similar patterns including matching scripts, impersonations, and traces leading back to China. In 2025, Texas passed SB 1349 that raises penalties for crimes committed on behalf of a foreign government. At the federal level, however, the U.S. still has no law that treats transnational repression as a crime in its own right. A bipartisan bill to change that, the Stop TNR Act (S. 4967), is now before the Senate.

New Report: Pervasive Party Control Keeps China’s Doctors Silent on Forced Organ Harvesting

On Oct. 20, the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) published a report that sets out to explain why, despite evidence spanning more than two decades of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and, more recently, Uyghurs, almost no one inside China’s medical system has spoken out.

The report, the first in a new “Red Flags” investigative series by ETAC, shows how deeply the CCP is embedded in China’s medical establishment. Drawing on official Chinese sources and academic research, it documents how Party secretaries outrank hospital directors and how Party members dominate the leadership of the bodies that oversee transplantation. CCP members, including many doctors, swear a lifelong oath of loyalty and secrecy to the Party, and breaking it, for instance by exposing abuses, carries far heavier personal and professional consequences than breaching medical ethics.

The report quotes a former doctor from Liaoning Province, now living outside China, who said that under the CCP’s pressure, everyone understands the cost of breaking the silence: “If you yourself dare to speak up, you’d be the next to disappear.”

The study also includes several references specific to the persecution of Falun Gong, including an incident that same Liaoning physician recalled from 2002. A Falun Gong practitioner who was injured when fleeing police was taken to the doctor’s hospital but staff were barred from treating him and forced to remain silent. The report also identified 19 transplant surgeons and center directors across 12 provinces who are themselves CCP members, including multiple ones in provinces like Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Shandong where the suppression of Falun Gong has been harshest.

Woman Threatens to Report Falun Gong Practitioner to Chinese Embassy During Athens Rally

On Oct. 9, Falun Gong practitioners from across Europe joined the Tian Guo Marching Band in central Athens to call for an end to the CCP’s persecution. During the event, a Chinese practitioner living in Germany was talking with two tourists from China when another Chinese woman cut in, claiming that practitioners all hate China. The woman repeatedly photographed the practitioner, threatened to send the pictures to the Chinese Embassy, and warned her that she would never be able to return to China. Greek police on duty stepped in and told the woman to delete the photos, but she refused and left.

Reporting someone to the embassy, or warning of consequences back in China, is one way the CCP carries out transnational repression on foreign soil. The Athens incident is the latest in a series of confrontations targeting practitioners who raise awareness in public spaces abroad.

Released in July 2025, this short explainer traces the CCP’s campaign against Shen Yun, from death threats and lawfare to the weaponization of American media and government institutions. It also reveals why Beijing sees a classical Chinese dance company as an existential threat, and what is at stake for all of its critics in America.