Lawmakers Urge State Department to Use Rewards-for-Justice Program to Address CCP's Forced Organ Harvesting

Epoch Times

5 days ago

A group of House Republicans is urging the State Department to set up a reward to curb the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) horrific practice of forced organ harvesting, in which organs seized from prisoners of conscience are being used in transplant surgeries across China's hospital system.
In an Aug. 7 letter addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), John Moolennar (R-Mich.), and Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) said there is an 'urgent need' for the State Department to offer reward money under its Rewards for Justice Program to obtain firsthand evidence to hold perpetrators in China accountable for the transplant abuse.
'The complicity of the Chinese government in forced organ harvesting is deeply troubling and should be considered a 'crime against humanity,'' the lawmakers wrote.
Smith is the co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) and a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Moolenaar is the chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, with Dunn also sitting on the panel.
'For far too long, China's state-sanctioned organ trafficking empire has been overlooked and operated unchecked,' Smith said in an Aug. 7 statement.
'As a result, Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and other prisoners of conscience have suffered the consequences, having their organs brutally removed and sold for profit by CCP officials.
'The State Department already has the funds and the authority to offer rewards for actionable intelligence; it is time that we deploy them to dismantle this illegal and gruesome billion-dollar industry and deliver justice to those whose lives have been mercilessly stolen.'
In the letter, the lawmakers wrote that congressional hearings and independent investigations had presented an 'extensive body of evidence' on the Chinese regime's abuse. They referenced the 2022 study published in the American Journal of Transplantation, saying that Chinese surgeons 'acted as executioners' because the prisoners were not declared brain dead before their organs were removed.
The regime's crime came under media scrutiny in 2006, the year two Canadian human rights lawyers released an investigative report confirming allegations of organ harvesting in China.
In 2019, an independent tribunal in London, led by British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice, concluded that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China for years 'on a significant scale,' with Falun Gong practitioners being the primary victims.
Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice that is also known as Falun Dafa, has been the target of brutal persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July 1999. Since then, millions have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands tortured while incarcerated and untold numbers persecuted to death, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
'With effective enforcement mechanisms, we can ensure that organ procurement is ethical and that no one profits illegally from the organs of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, or others who are unable to make a truly voluntary decision to donate,' the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
Smith said he hopes that the Senate will vote on the legislation next month.
'While we continue to push the Senate to bring HR 1503 to a vote—which I am hopeful will occur in September—the State Department must use all of the tools at its disposal to disrupt this illicit global market for human organs, hold perpetrators to account, and deter future atrocities and human rights violations,' he said in an Aug. 7 statement.
Smith and five other lawmakers, including then-Sen. Rubio, sent a similar letter to then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May 2024. At the time, Rubio shared the letter on X and urged Blinken to 'use readily available resources to halt this vicious & inhuman practice' of communist China's 'forced organ harvesting and human trafficking.'
In May, the House passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (HR 1503), which was co-led by Smith, by a vote of 406 to 1. The legislation would sanction anyone implicated in the abuse, including CCP members, by freezing their assets, prohibiting transactions, revoking their visas, and eliminating other immigration benefits.
During a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the same month, Rubio pledged to help in 'any way we can' to pass the bill in the Senate.