Full Text of HR0881 101st General Assembly
HR0881 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, July 20, 2020 will mark 21 years since the Chinese | 3 | | Communist Party (CCP) launched a systematic and brutal campaign | 4 | | to "eradicate" the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong, a | 5 | | traditional Buddhist-based meditation practice whose core | 6 | | principles are truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance; and
| 7 | | WHEREAS, When this persecution first began in 1999, there | 8 | | were 70 to 100 million people from all walks of life practicing | 9 | | Falun Gong in China according to the Chinese government's own | 10 | | estimate; persecution of Falun Gong is not limited to a | 11 | | specific region; it is in every province, every city, and every | 12 | | county throughout China; and
| 13 | | WHEREAS, A 2007 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report | 14 | | states, "[the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred] Nowak | 15 | | reported that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent | 16 | | of victims of alleged torture while in government custody"; and | 17 | | WHEREAS, Since July 1999, there have been over 4,300 | 18 | | documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners dying as a result | 19 | | of torture and abuse in police custody, yet due to the danger | 20 | | and difficulties of verifying each case and sending that | 21 | | information overseas, the true death toll is widely believed to | 22 | | be many times higher; and |
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, On June 17, 2019, an independent tribunal in | 2 | | London, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC who worked at the | 3 | | International Criminal Tribunal and led the prosecution of | 4 | | Slobodan Milosevic, released its final judgment and concluded: | 5 | | "Forced organ harvesting has been committed for years | 6 | | throughout China on a significant scale and that Falun Gong | 7 | | practitioners have been one - and probably the main - source of | 8 | | organ supply"; and | 9 | | WHEREAS, The U.S. Department of State Country Report on | 10 | | Human Rights for China in 2014 stated, "Advocacy groups | 11 | | continued to report instances of organ harvesting from | 12 | | prisoners"; and | 13 | | WHEREAS, In 2015, Freedom House reported that Falun Gong | 14 | | practitioners comprise the largest portion of prisoners of | 15 | | conscience in China and face an elevated risk of dying or being | 16 | | killed while in custody; and | 17 | | WHEREAS, The ramifications of such atrocities are beyond | 18 | | the Chinese border, as many organ recipients are westerners, | 19 | | and there has been much collaboration between the Chinese | 20 | | transplant industry and western medical professionals and the | 21 | | pharmaceutical industry; and |
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, As the current pandemic shows, a lack of | 2 | | international censure to these horrific crimes has not only | 3 | | cost the lives of innocent Chinese, but also those of many in | 4 | | the West; and | 5 | | WHEREAS, One of the lead investigators of the CCP's killing | 6 | | of Falun Gong practitioners for their organs, David Matas, | 7 | | explained: "…if China had faced global pressure for | 8 | | transparency and accountability in its health system in dealing | 9 | | with organ transplant abuses, we wouldn't have this coronavirus | 10 | | now. And we are suffering the consequences now of turning a | 11 | | blind eye to organ transplant abuse"; and | 12 | | WHEREAS, The CCP's mass campaign to vilify and eradicate | 13 | | Falun Gong and its core values of truthfulness, compassion, and | 14 | | tolerance is also an attack on the conscience of humanity and | 15 | | corrupts the moral fabric of Chinese society; and | 16 | | WHEREAS, This less visible yet more profound damage can | 17 | | have consequences in the West too, as immigrants from such a | 18 | | Chinese society are more likely to act as the CCP's surrogates | 19 | | and conduct technology thefts or espionage activities; and | 20 | | WHEREAS, A Chinese population with more access to free | 21 | | information and more exposure to western values will be less | 22 | | likely to become the CCP's accomplice or advance its agenda in |
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| 1 | | the international community; and | 2 | | WHEREAS, The Washington Post reported in 1999 that many | 3 | | influential people in the party, the government, and the | 4 | | military practiced Falun Gong at that time, and Falun Gong | 5 | | practitioners have a deep understanding about the CCP and know | 6 | | best how to disintegrate it; and | 7 | | WHEREAS, Falun Gong practitioners have been operating | 8 | | 200,000 or more underground printing houses to produce such | 9 | | material across China in what likely constitutes the largest | 10 | | non-violent, grassroots resistance in the world; and | 11 | | WHEREAS, It was Falun Gong practitioners who spearheaded | 12 | | international media companies that broadcast uncensored | 13 | | information to China via satellite TV and shortwave radio; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, It was Falun Gong practitioners who developed free | 15 | | ground-breaking internet freedom software, Freegate and | 16 | | Ultrasurf, which allow millions in China to bypass the Great | 17 | | Firewall and reach entire sectors of the Internet that are | 18 | | blocked by the CCP, as reported by the New York Times, Wall | 19 | | Street Journal, and many other media outlets; and
| 20 | | WHEREAS, As a result, to date, over 300-million Chinese | 21 | | people have withdrawn from the CCP and/or its affiliated |
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| 1 | | organizations (most used pseudo-names to avoid the CCP's | 2 | | retaliation), a phenomenon similar to what happened right | 3 | | before the collapse of the Soviet Union; and
| 4 | | WHEREAS, The killing of religious or political prisoners | 5 | | for the purpose of selling their organs for transplant is an | 6 | | egregious and intolerable violation of the fundamental right to | 7 | | life; therefore, be it
| 8 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 9 | | HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | 10 | | we condemn the persecution of Falun Gong, a traditional | 11 | | Buddhist-based meditation practice whose core principles are | 12 | | truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, as it reaches the 21 | 13 | | year mark since the Chinese Communist Party launched a | 14 | | systematic and brutal campaign to "eradicate" the spiritual | 15 | | discipline of Falun Gong; and be it further | 16 | | RESOLVED, That we encourage the medical community in the | 17 | | United States to help raise awareness of unethical organ | 18 | | transplant practices in China; and be it further
| 19 | | RESOLVED, That we condemn the practice of state-sanctioned | 20 | | forced organ harvesting in the People's Republic of China.
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