U.S. Congress Annual Human Rights Report: The CCP is still persecuting Falun Gong practitioners

Reporter : Fei Zhen / Editor : Yun Tian / https://www.soundofhope.org/post/464012 / Direct translation

The U.S. Congress and Administration China Committee (CECC) released the 2020 Annual Human Rights Report on the 14th. The report disclosed that the CCP continues to harrass, arbitrarily detain, and persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The report quoted a report from Minghui.com, which provides first-hand information on mainland China, stating that 96 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death in 2019 and 774 Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced. In the first quarter of 2020, 6 Falun Gong practitioners were in custody. They were tortured to death, and 11 others died after being released or due to torture by public security personnel. Regarding the international allegations that the CCP has harvested organs from Falun Gong practitioners and prisoners of conscience, the report also specifically quoted the opinions of medical papers and observers saying that the CCP authorities may have forged organ donation figures and continue to force human organ harvesting. The report pointed out that, as in previous years, the Chinese Communist Party continued to imprison Falun Gong practitioners and abuse them. It is difficult to obtain the exact number of people due to government suppression. The U.S. State Department reported that the Communist Party of China used administrative means outside the law, and a national security organization operated by the party to eliminate Falun Gong and other dissident groups. The report stated that the CCP authorities continue to prosecute and convict Falun Gong practitioners under the pretext of “organizing and using ‘cult’ to undermine the implementation of the law” under Article 300 of its Criminal Law. The report mentioned that, according to Falun Gong Minghui.com, in 2019, 96 Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted to death by CCP officials, and 774 Falun Gong practitioners were illegally sentenced. Among them, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin provinces had the largest number of people in northern regions. "Minghui.com also recorded the detention, arrest, beating, sleep deprivation and other forms of abuse by the CCP police against Falun Gong practitioners." "Minghui.com also reported that from January 2020 to April 2020, 6 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death while in custody, and 11 others died after being released or tortured to death by public security personnel." In a year when the epidemic spread in 2020, Falun Gong practitioners were forcibly transferred to the CCP virus isolation hospital to cover up evidence of their abuse. The report quoted Minghui.com's report that on January 27, 2020, the local authorities of the Chinese Communist Party took Falun Gong practitioner Gong Fengqiang to a Chinese virus isolation hospital to cover up evidence that caused him to be tortured to a coma during his imprisonment. The report also quoted the observer’s point of view: The CCP should continue to force human organ harvest The report stated that “a paper published in BMC Medical Ethics in November 2019 deeply expressed concerns about the transparency of data in the Chinese government’s organ transplantation system.” The author of the paper stated, “The standards for the disclosure of organ transplant data in China are quite different from those of other countries. The official organ transplant registration (data) is not open to the public.” The author of the paper said that the Chinese government is likely to falsify annual organ donation statistics. Therefore, observers said, “This shows that China’s annual organ donation figures are contrary to the CCP’s official claims. Involuntary harvesting of human organs continues to occur in China.” The report also mentioned that Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng was imprisoned for providing legal defense to Falun Gong practitioners. In addition to refusing visits from family members, the Chinese Communist Party also refused to seek help from a lawyer. Attorney Yu Wensheng was later sentenced to 4 years in prison, and 16 other human rights activists, Huang Qi, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison, were all included in the report by CECC's prominent cases in the political prisoner concern database and paid special attention.