FDIC Submits New Organ Harvesting Evidence to Congress; Elderly Liaoning Practitioner Dies Upon Prison Release

Dear Reader,

Today, Vancouver officials walked back earlier claims that meetings with Chinese diplomats over a Shen Yun performance were merely “routine diplomacy,” raising fresh concerns about foreign interference and censorship in Canada. Similar concerns were raised in testimony submitted last month by the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC) to Canada’s House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights, detailing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s escalating campaign of transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners and affiliated communities in Canada and beyond.

In a separate submission to the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) this month, FDIC presented new findings on forced organ harvesting that corroborate the practice of widespread involuntary blood tests and physical exams of detained practitioners—a key feature of an organ harvesting system that requires tissue-typing and compatibility screening.

Also in this issue:

• Mr. Liu Wansheng, a 71-year-old Liaoning practitioner, dies eight days after release from Jinzhou Prison.

• May 2026 Transnational Repression Update: at least 16 new incidents across the U.S., Canada, and Japan.

• UK Security Minister Dan Jarvis condemns the assault on a Falun Gong practitioner outside the British Museum.

• California mayor pleads guilty as CCP Agent; court records expose transnational repression network behind the scenes.

​Finally, we close with a clip of former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback at the Hudson Institute, on the CCP’s war against people of faith.

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

What’s new?

On May 14, the CECC held a hearing titled “A Market Built on Victims: Stopping Illegal Organ Trafficking in China and Beyond,” featuring testimony from the authors of three new books on the CCP’s state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting. Among them was Jan Jekielek, author of “Killed to Order: China’s Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America’s Biggest Adversary,” who shared evidence from his new book drawing from 20 years of investigations.

The FDIC submitted written testimony for the record, including survey data documenting involuntary physical exams of detained Falun Gong practitioners. Of the 1,080 survey respondents across 41 U.S. states, more than one-third had been detained or imprisoned in China. Of those, 56 percent reported being subjected to blood tests or other medical exams including X-rays, ultrasounds and DNA collection while in custody, at 113 facilities across 20 provinces. The exams took place between 1999 and 2024.

“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. 

Why does it matter?

Evidence of forced organ harvesting first emerged in the early 2000s. An independent tribunal in London concluded unanimously in 2019 that it was happening “throughout China on a significant scale,” with Falun Gong practitioners as primary victims and Uyghur Muslims at risk.

That judgment has since been borne out. Hearing witness Ethan Gutmann presented findings from his new book, The Xinjiang Procedure, documenting the forced organ harvesting of young Uyghurs in concentration camps.

“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,” said CECC Commissioner James Walkinshaw.

What else do you need to know?

In the Senate, the bipartisan Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act (S.4009), sponsored by Senators Cruz and Merkley, is sitting in the Foreign Relations Committee. “Congress should immediately mark up and pass S.4009,” Browde said, “which would require the U.S. government to impose sanctions on those who knowingly facilitate forced organ harvesting in China.”

The FDIC testimony counts 14 binding laws against forced organ harvesting and commercial transplant tourism, enacted in Israel, Spain, Taiwan, Italy, Norway, Belgium, the UK, Canada, and six U.S. states: Texas, Utah, Idaho, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Arizona. No binding law at the federal-level has been enacted in the United States.

Elderly Falun Gong Practitioner Dies Eight Days After Release from Jinzhou Prison Following Years of Persecution

Mr. Liu Wansheng, a 71-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, died on April 29, 2026—eight days after his release from Jinzhou Prison, where he had served a six-year sentence for his faith. According to Minghui, relatives said he was largely unconscious throughout those final days at home, unable to speak or move. A Minghui report included photos of unhealed wounds on both wrists and ankles, one above the right wrist described as raw and severe.

Mr. Liu had been arrested in April 2020 after talking with passersby about Falun Gong near a bus station. The Linghai City Court sentenced him to six years and a 10,000 yuan fine following a virtual hearing. He had been detained multiple times since 1999 and sentenced to three years of forced labor in 2004, during which he was allegedly shackled, sleep-deprived, beaten, and force-fed.

Jinzhou Prison appears in multiple reports documenting abuse of Falun Gong practitioners. At least four practitioners—Zhao Jiyuan, Zhang Litian, Cui Zhilin, and Xin Minduo—died after being held there.

May 2026 Transnational Repression Update

NYPD officers detain a man who disrupted a World Falun Dafa Day celebration at Union Square in Manhattan on May 9, 2026. (NTD)

On May 9, 2026, NYPD officers detained a man who trespassed the stage and damaged property at a World Falun Dafa Day celebration in Manhattan’s Union Square. It is one of at least 16 incidents targeting Falun Gong practitioners and Shen Yun Performing Arts documented in May across the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Impersonation was everywhere this month. Senders posed as heads of government—Donald Trump, Mark Carney, Anthony Albanese, Lai Ching-te, and Chiang Kai-shek—to conceal the origin of bomb and death threats sent to Shen Yun venues, Dragon Springs, and other Falun Dafa-related institutions.

Perpetrators also impersonated media outlets started by Falun Gong practitioners, including The Epoch Times and NTD Television, and spoofed FDIC Executive Director Levi Browde’s name to send a bomb threat to an unrelated U.S. charity. Several messages tried to preemptively blame Falun Gong practitioners for violent crimes, claiming the crimes would be committed by “individuals posing as Falun Gong practitioners.”

The May incidents bring the total count of anonymous death threats since March 2024 to 282.

UK Security Minister Condemns Assault on Falun Gong Practitioner Outside British Museum, Reiterates Zero Tolerance for Transnational Repression

Britain’s Security Minister, Dan Jarvis, and his letter to Lord Alton of Liverpool (David Alton) on the assault incident. (Photo source: gov.uk; Letter source: UK Falun Dafa Association)

On Feb. 23, Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zhang Chunping was violently assaulted at an information site outside the British Museum while talking with Chinese tourists about the practice. The Falun Dafa Information Center previously reported that the Metropolitan Police have opened a criminal investigation.

In response to a UK parliamentary letter about the incident, Security Minister Dan Jarvis condemned the attack and said the UK “will never tolerate” transnational repression on British soil. “Any attempt to intimidate, harass, or harm people on UK soil is wholly unacceptable and will never be tolerated,” Jarvis wrote. “Falun Gong practitioners, like all communities in the UK, are entitled to practise their beliefs peacefully and without fear.”

The British government has also updated its public guidance on transnational repression through the Home Office website, offering practical advice for those who think they may be targets of foreign state-linked harassment.

Opinion: Arcadia Mayor Pleads Guilty as Court Records Expose Transnational Repression Network

Eileen Wang, the Mayor of Arcadia, California, pleaded guilty on May 11 to acting as an unregistered PRC agent of and resigned the same morning. Her case drew nationwide attention and a pressing question: how many more agents like her are still operating on U.S. soil?

Court records show Wang did not act alone. Her co-conspirators, former fiancé Yaoning “Mike” Sun and handler John Chen who has acknowledged working for the 610 Office, the CCP body created specifically to eradicate Falun Gong, were each convicted of crimes tied to transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners. Wang herself spread CCP-directed propaganda denying Xinjiang abuses through her Chinese-language news network, and after taking office received direction from Chen to oppose Taiwan independence and report her compliance to Beijing.

(Photo: Amb. Brownback/Republic Book Publishers)

On May 12, the Hudson Institute hosted a Washington, D.C. discussion of China’s War on Faith, the new book by former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. The book documents what Brownback describes as three ongoing genocides inside China—against Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong practitioners—as well as the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities.

Brownback warned that the United States is “in a battle today with the Chinese Communist Party and their authoritarian view, and their view that religion is an opium of the people, something that should be thrown out, discarded, persecuted, stomped on, and killed.” The discussion was moderated by Hudson Senior Fellow Nina Shea and included two people profiled in the book: Falun Gong practitioner Wang Chunyan and Uyghur survivor Mihrigul Tursun.