Recommendations

The findings of this report show that the CCP’s ongoing campaign against Chinese citizens who practice Falun Gong remains one of the most severe human rights crises in today’s China. The people of China cannot make meaningful advances toward religious freedom, free expression, or the rule of law until Falun Gong practitioners are free. In this context, the Falun Dafa Information Center urges policymakers and members of civil society to take the following steps to condemn, deter, and prevent rights violations against Falun Gong believers in China and around the world.

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 For policymakers in the United States, Europe, and other democracies:

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(A) Vocally condemn the persecution of Falun Gong in public and private

1. Make public statements on key anniversaries: Government agencies, high-level officials, and elected representatives should make public statements on key anniversaries—such as May 13 (World Falun Dafa Day) and July 20 (the date of the CCP’s launch of its violent persecution)—that express support for Falun Gong victims and condemn ongoing persecution.

2. Condemn violence against individual practitioners: Government agencies, high-level officials, and elected representatives should make public statements condemning the persecution of individual Falun Gong practitioners and their families (see list of Family Rescue Cases).

3. Raise Falun Gong in private meetings with top Chinese officials: In meetings with Chinese counterparts, officials should call for the release of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, including at the highest levels. Officials should raise points of information related to Falun Gong in discussions on topics such as high-tech surveillance, forced labor, and rule of law reforms, in addition to discussions on religious freedom or human rights.

4. Raise Falun Gong in meetings with lower level Chinese officials: When preparing to meet with provincial or local-level officials in China, make use of publicly available resources or queries to the Falun Dafa Information Center to ascertain conditions in the location for Falun Gong practitioners and the names of jailed believers whose circumstances are particularly precarious and should be raised.

 

(B) Meet with victims of persecution outside China

1. Diplomatic staff: Ambassadors and other diplomatic staff should meet with Falun Gong representatives, torture survivors, and relatives of jailed practitioners outside China. This enables them to receive up to date information about conditions in China. Given the severity of the persecution in China and risk of reprisals, it is too dangerous for local adherents to meet with foreign government officials inside the country. As such, diplomatic staff should make a particular priority of meeting with Falun Gong practitioners prior to their travel to China or during visits to their home country.

2. Top officials: High-level officials, including presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, secretaries of state, and religious freedom ambassadors should meet with Falun Gong torture survivors or relatives of jailed practitioners to better understand conditions in China and to signal support for their freedom.

 

(C) Assess the extent to which international crimes (including crimes against humanity and/or genocide) have been committed by Chinese leaders in the campaign against Falun Gong: Like the Rohingya Genocide Determination Act of 2021, make a determination of whether crimes against humanity and/or genocide have been committed against Falun Gong.[1]

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(D) Impose sanctions on high and low level Chinese officials who have actively perpetrated severe human rights violations against Falun Gong practitioners. Several sanctions were imposed in 2020 and 2021 against those who perpetrated rights violatons against Falun Gong, most notably Yu Hui, former director of the Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions in Chengdu City. Sources in China relate the deterrent effect it has indeed had on local officials, with some police expressing less willingness to engage in persecuting Falun Gong in certain locales and circumstances.

1. High-level officials: These should include Zhao Leji and Guo Shengkun, the two central CCP officials current leading ongoing security campaigns to monitor, arbitrarily detain and forcibly “transform” Falun Gong believers throughout China—including via torture and extrajudicial killing–as well as Central 610 Office Director Sun Lijun, 2019-present

2. Lower level officials, particularly those involved in individual cases, such as the death of Ji Yunzhi in Inner Mongolia.

 

(E) To members of Congress or parliament:

1. Include Falun Gong-related witnesses in any hearing regarding religious persecution in China or transnational repression targeting the Chinese diaspora

2. Adopt resolutions condemning the persecution and legislation that minimizes potential international complicity in organ transplant abuses.

3. United States: Cosponsor and adopt HR 1592  and S.602, also known as Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2021, to create institutional mechanisms that would hinder unethical organ transplants, including in China. For House representatives, cosponsor and pass H.R. 6319, the Falun Gong Protection Act.

 

(F) Take action to protect Falun Gong communities from transnational repression

1. Punish diplomats who engage in intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or pressuring members of the Chinese diaspora to marginalize Falun Gong or take action against practitioners

2. Investigate proxy groups, such as the 610 Office-linked Anti-Cult Association that are at the forefront of harassing Falun Gong practitioners in locations such as Flushing, NY.

3. Investigate digital surveillance of Falun Gong communities

4. Pressure China-based companies like Tencent or ByteDance to be transparent about moderation policies and data collection. Urge them to avoid censorship and surveillance of Falun Gong-related information on popular apps such as WeChat and TikTok outside of China.

5. Take action to prosecute anyone who assaults Falun Gong practitioners peacefully exercising their right to free speech, as authorities in New York City have done.

6. Ensure local Falun Gong community representatives are aware of any available channels to report incidents of transnational repression.

 

For international civil society and scholars:

 

(A) Vocally condemn the persecution of Falun Gong in public and private

1. Make public statements on key anniversaries, such as May 13 (World Falun Dafa Day) and July 20 (the date of the CCP’s launch of its violent persecution)—that express support for Falun Gong victims and condemn ongoing persecution.

2. Make public statements condemning the persecution of individual Falun Gong practitioners and their families

 

(B) Assess the extent to which international crimes (including crimes against humanity and/or genocide) have been committed by Chinese leaders in the campaign against Falun Gong

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(C) Advocate for the release of imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners, especially those with family members residing outside China