This month marks 25 years since the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, began a campaign of repression against practitioners of Falun Gong, a self-described spiritual practice. Key features of the group are meditative exercises and teachings reminiscent of Buddhist and Taoist traditions, with emphasis on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. While Falun Gong includes some spiritual attributes of religion, it is loosely organized and lacks a professional clergy, formal membership, acceptance of donations, and specialized places of worship, according to the rights group Freedom House.
For two and a half decades, PRC authorities have targeted Falun Gong practitioners and their families in a campaign of abuses and rights violations. According to Minghui, a Falun Gong-affiliated publication, 188 Falun Gong adherents died during 2023 as a result of persecution. Minghui also reported that in 2023 authorities imprisoned 755 Falun Gong practitioners, arrested 3,457, and harassed 2,749 others, with harassment and arrests increasing around politically sensitive events.
Civil society organizations continue to express concern over reports that authorities forced members of religious organizations, in particular Falun Gong members and ethnic Uighurs, to serve as organ donors, according to the latest International Religious Freedom Report. In March 2023, the New York City Bar Association published a report titled Human Organ Supply: Report on Ethical Considerations and Breaches in Organ Harvesting Practices that found there was “ample evidence China continues to engage in forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience.”
The International Religious Freedom Report notes that the “Chinese Communist Party maintains an extralegal, party-run security apparatus to eliminate the Falun Gong religious group and other banned organizations.”
Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and individuals reported that authorities conducted physical and digital surveillance overseas on Falun Gong adherents, Uighur Muslims and other Muslims and members of religious minority groups from Xinjiang, and Tibetan Buddhists and harassed, detained, or otherwise persecuted their family members in China. The PRC also pressured members of religious minority groups living overseas to spy on fellow expatriates.
The United States will continue to speak out for human rights, including freedom of religion or belief. “We will also continue to promote accountability for those responsible for human rights abuses and violations,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a statement. “We call upon the PRC to cease its repressive campaign and release all who have been imprisoned for their beliefs.”
