(Minghui.org) The US Congress and Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) held a hearing on forced organ harvesting by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on May 14, 2026. Speakers at the hearing condemned the regime for carrying out live organ harvesting, which targets Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs and other prisoners of conscience, and they called on the US and international society to help bring this barbaric practice to an end.
Murder Masquerading as Medicine
Representative Chris Smith, co-chair of the CECC, strongly censured the CCP’s crimes of live organ harvesting, calling it “murder masquerading as medicine.” He also called on the US Senate to pass the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act as soon as possible.
Rep. Chris Smith, co-chair of the CECC, speaks at the hearing on the CCP’s forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience on May 14, 2026.
In his opening remarks, Rep. Smith recalled a hot mic incident in Beijing which captured a conversation between Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un discussing organ transplants and the possibility of “living to 150.” Rep. Smith said, “That was not macabre small talk among aging dictators. It was a glimpse behind the curtain—a glimpse into a world where human beings can be treated as interchangeable parts to prolong the lives of autocrats.
“But forced organ harvesting is not healing, it is murder masquerading as medicine.”
Mr. Smith pointed out that “today’s commission examines one of the most barbaric human rights atrocities of our time, the forced harvesting of organs from prisoners of conscience, death row inmates and other vulnerable people, especially in Communist China.”
He stressed that ethical organ transplantation is noble and life saving, but what the CCP is doing is the polar opposite. “It is the conversion of the imprisoned and persecuted into inventory. Hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs, corneas taken from the living, sold to the desperate, hidden behind hospital walls, protected by secrecy, corruption, fear and state power.”
He said looking back, there have been many hearings in the US Congress especially focusing on the persecution of Falun Gong.
Since then, the evidence on organ harvesting has become “even more disturbing, more detailed and more compelling.”
Rep. Smith said the most persistent allegations centered first on Falun Gong practitioners, peaceful people who follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, who were targeted by the CCP for eradication and genocide. Later came mounting evidence concerning Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, death row inmates and others who are treated as property of the state.
Smith once again urges the US Congress to pass the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, which he has sponsored. He said the House has twice passed this legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support, the most recent being last year when H.R. 1503 was passed 400 to 1, but the legislation is still languishing in the Senate.
The legislation would criminalize forced organ trafficking, impose serious sanctions on perpetrators, require reporting, deny visas and create penalties of up to 20 years in prison and up to $1 million for those who take part in such atrocities.
Mr. Smith emphasized that the bill is not just a press release, it is enforceable policy. “It says to brokers, traffickers, corrupt officials, complicit doctors, hospitals, researchers, insurers, and middlemen, if you profit from coerced transplants directly or indirectly, you should risk your money, your visa, your access to US and even your freedom, because if we get you, you are going to jail for these heinous practices.”
Former Ambassador for Religious Freedom: We Must Be Clear On the Nature of the CCP
Sam Brownback, former Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom and former Kansas governor, said in his speech that while congressional members and those who have been paying attention to human rights issues for a long time have decades of knowledge of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting, the public is not familiar with these topics.
Sam Brownback, former Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom and former Kansas governor speaks at the hearing.
“You’ve got to rub the public’s face in this stuff for them to get it and once they do, then they will ask what should we do,” Mr. Brownback said.
He said he met with Ms. Mihrigul Tursun, a survivor of a forced labor camp for Ugyhurs, yesterday. She was detained by the CCP and brutally tortured. Toward the end of her incarceration, she was told “You can pick the way you die – shoot you three times with three bullets, and we are going to charge you for the bullets, a large sum of money, or you can sign your life and your organs away.”
Brownback said religious groups persecuted by the CCP are the main targets of live organ harvesting. Among them, Falun Gong practitioners are systematically cataloged based on biometric markers and are murdered for their organs. He said that this is being done to the Uyghurs as well.
“These charges are so horrific, people have a hard time getting their mind around it. But this is happening, and has been happening, and continues to happen.”
Mr. Brownback called on the US to lead a global coalition of governments, academics, medical, financial institutions, and religious groups to openly condemn forced organ harvesting and take concrete steps to end the international complicity in this practice.
“This is horrific. It deserves no place in a modern world.”
Falun Gong Practitioners Are Killed on Demand
Jan Jekielek, author of the recent book, Killed to Order, said in his testimony that the live organ harvesting system established by the CCP is “systemic and industrialized.”
Jan Jekielek, Senior Editor for The Epoch Times, and author of Killed to Order, testifies at the hearing.
Mr. Jekielek said, “What is happening in China is something far more systemic and industrialized than the organ trafficking in black markets than one might normally think about. It is Communist China’s state-sponsored killing of its own citizens on demand, to supply a multibillion dollar transplant industry.”
Behind the “Wait For Several Weeks and You Can Get an Organ”
Jekielek narrated a case in his book Killed to Order, where a German woman with a rare blood type obtained three liver transplants within a short period of time in China. He pointed out that in ethical transplant systems such as in the US, organs typically come from catastrophic accidents, and blood type and histology must also match. Thus, the supply of suitable organs for those needing one is always much less than the demand.
“Yet wait times in China are often measured not in years, not in months, but in weeks or even days,” he said.
An Organ Database
Mr. Jekielek said that since the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong in 1999 and listed Falun Gong practitioners as targets that “must be eradicated,” this paved the way for the “kill on demand” system of live organ harvesting. Large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners who refused to give up their belief were illegally detained.
He said through years of investigation, it has been found that detained Falun Gong practitioners were subjected to unusually frequent blood tests, physical examinations, and organ tests. These tests are not for treatment purposes but to establish a massive, nationwide organ database. When a transplant is needed, whether for an elite or a foreign transplant tourist, a match can be made and a victim killed to order.
He pointed out that China’s organ trade grew rapidly around 2000, a time that aligns with the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. Many Falun Gong practitioners who fled China have testified that while they were incarcerated, they were repeatedly subjected to blood tests and physical examinations.
Mr. Jekielek said that in recent years the CCP has extended this atrocity to the Uyghurs.
Ethan Gutmann Exposes CCP’s Crimes of Organ Harvesting
Ethan Gutmann, a writer and researcher who has conducted investigations into organ harvesting by the CCP for many years, also testified during the hearing.
Ethan Gutmann, writer and researcher on the CCP’s organ harvesting, speaks at the hearing.
In recalling testimonies by many key witnesses, Mr. Gutmann said that a Chinese doctor once admitted in the early years of their investigation that “all the organs come from Falun Gong practitioners.” Witnesses who fled China also revealed that several detained Falun Gong practitioners had their blood samples taken, were examined and marked before they disappeared. It is suspected they were chosen as organ donors.
He also mentioned that similar things happened in Xinjiang concentration camps where large numbers of Uyghurs are incarcerated. A witness who used to work at the concentration camps said that the medical records of some prisoners were marked, meaning they were possibly chosen as organ donors.
Mr. Gutmann said that Falun Gong practitioners are the main targets of the CCP’s persecution and live organ harvesting, for upholding their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. He called on the US to pass the “Stop Forced Organ Harvesting” bill as soon as possible, to stop this human rights atrocity that continues to take place.
All content published on this website is copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Organ Harvesting
