    [Joint House and Senate Hearing, 119 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                           A MARKET BUILT ON VICTIMS:
                       STOPPING ILLEGAL ORGAN TRAFFICKING
                              IN CHINA AND BEYOND

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 14, 2026

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China

                     [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                  Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov

                                   ______

                     U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    63-846 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2026

                  CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                        LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

    Senate                               House

    DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chair          CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Co-chair
    TOM COTTON, Arkansas                 ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa
    JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 ELISE STEFANIK, New York
    TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois            DALE STRONG, Alabama
    ANDY KIM, New Jersey                 JEN KIGGANS, Virginia
    LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware       JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
                                         THOMAS SUOZZI, New York
                                         SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM, Virginia
                                         JAMES WALKINSHAW, Virginia

                         EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

                               Not yet appointed

                          Scott Flipse, Staff Director

                       Mary Vigil, Deputy Staff Director

                                      (ii)

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                  Statements

    Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, Co-chair, Congressional-
      Executive Commission on China..................................     1
    Statement of Ethan Gutmann, senior research fellow in China
      Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation; author of
      ``The Xinjiang Procedure'' and ``The Slaughter''...............     4
    Statement of Ambassador Sam Brownback, senior fellow, Pepperdine
      University; former U.S. Ambassador at Large for International
      Religious Freedom, former U.S. Senator and Governor of Kansas,
      and author, ``China's War on Faith''...........................     7
    Statement of Jan Jekielek, senior editor, The Epoch Times, host
      of ``American Thought Leaders,'' and author, ``Killed to
      Order''........................................................     9
    Statement of Kalbinur Sidik, survivor of China's genocide and
      eyewitness to forced labor camps; author of the forthcoming
      book ``Heart Full of Light: Love, Loss, and Survival Inside
      China's Gulags''...............................................    13

                                    APPENDIX

                              Prepared Statements

    Gutmann, Ethan...................................................    31
    Brownback, Sam...................................................    32
    Jekielek, Jan....................................................    33
    Sidik, Kalbinur..................................................    36

    Smith, Hon. Chris................................................    39

                           Submissions for the Record

    Submission of Seyed Alireza Motevalian...........................    41
    Submission of Levi Browde and James Yu, Falun Dafa Information
      Center.........................................................    45

    CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    54
    Witness Biographies..............................................    55

                                     (iii)

                           A MARKET BUILT ON VICTIMS:
                       STOPPING ILLEGAL ORGAN TRAFFICKING
                              IN CHINA AND BEYOND

                                  ----------

                             THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2026

                                Congressional-Executive
                                           Commission on China,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The hearing was held from 10:00 a.m. to 11:48 a.m., in Room
    2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC,
    Representative Chris Smith, Co-chair, Congressional-Executive
    Commission on China, presiding.
        Also present: Representatives Strong, Stefanik, and
    Walkinshaw.

      OPENING STATEMENT OF CHRIS SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
                  JERSEY AND CO-CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-
                     EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

        Co-chair Smith. Last September, the world heard something
    chilling. As Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un walked
    together in Beijing, a hot mic picked up an unguarded
    conversation about organ transplants and the possibility of
    living up to 150 years. This 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. Today this 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. Let me be clear--ethical organ transplantation
    is noble and lifesaving. What we are examining today 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.
        I've chaired several hearings on forced organ harvesting,
    the first being 30 years ago on June 18th, 1996. And as Jan
    knows, we had many hearings focusing especially on what was
    being done, horribly, to the Falun Gong. And since then, the
    evidence has become even more disturbing, more detailed, and
    more compelling. The most persistent allegations in China
    centered first on the Falun Gong practitioners--peaceful men
    and women targeted by the Chinese Communist Party for
    eradication, genocide. Later came mounting evidence concerning
    Uyghurs, already victims of genocide in the Uyghur region,
    Tibetans, Christians, death row inmates, and others treated as
    property of the state. Experts like Ethan Gutmann have
    documented how this atrocity expanded from death row prisoners
    to prisoners of conscience and religious detainees.
        The China Tribunal concluded that forced organ harvesting
    has been committed in China for years on a significant scale.
    Witnesses at previous hearings have warned us about military
    hospitals, impossibly short wait times in order to procure an
    organ, organs available on demand, and a transplant system that
    cannot withstand scrutiny. And yet Beijing now asks the world
    to believe that the problem has somehow been solved. It says
    the transplant system now meets international standards and
    once again, the disappointing and corrupt WHO takes Beijing's
    claims at face value, just as they did in the early days of
    COVID.
        But today this Commission has received rare and
    extraordinary eyewitness accounts from inside the Chinese gulag
    itself. Ali Motevalian's written submission details his
    incarceration in a PLA-linked prison hospital near Shanghai,
    and Kalbinur Sidik's provides testimony from the detention
    camps in the Uyghur region. Together their accounts shatter
    Beijing's fiction that its transplant system is voluntary,
    transparent, and compliant with international standards. Ali
    Motevalian has spent years inside China's prison system. His
    submission describes coerced thumbprints on so-called consent
    forms, bondage, tranquilizers, last rooms of terminal patients,
    prisoners taken into surgery and not returned, mobile freezer
    carts, and bodies moved toward incineration.
        His account strikes at the heart of Beijing's favorite
    defense. The Chinese Communist Party told the world it had
    ended the use of executed prisoners' organs. And I just point
    out, parenthetically--and Sam will remember this, Sam
    Brownback--Harry Wu brought over a guard who brought evidence
    that was absolutely compelling. He testified in the late 1990s.
    He pointed out that the ambulances would be lined up one after
    the other. They would shoot the prisoner, not to kill, but just
    to put them into a coma, take their organs, and then that
    individual would die. And you know, that was almost 30 years
    ago. The hearing 30 years ago didn't have that, but Harry Wu
    was just amazing, what he brought forward. There were people in
    the administration then that didn't want to hear that, and we
    tried, but they didn't want to hear it.
        Inside the prison hospital system in 2020 and 2021, years
    after the world was told that China had stopped taking organs
    from prisoners, Ali says he saw unconscious, shackled men,
    known as sleepers, brought by armed personnel directly into the
    surgery rooms. They never returned. My God, what a nightmare.
    This is not voluntary donation. This is execution by organ
    extraction. Ms. Sidik brings us inside another part of the
    Chinese gulag, the camps of the Uyghur region. I will not
    summarize her testimony in detail because in just a few minutes
    she will speak for herself. Her account shows a system where
    human beings are reduced to commodities, where the state
    controls the body as well as the mind, and where coercion and
    fear are used to destroy dignity. The prison hospitals and
    gulags described in this testimony are not places of care,
    rehabilitation, or education. They are crime scenes, part of a
    system of coercion, medical abuse that knows no parallel, and
    genocide in China.
        Organ crimes are not just a Chinese problem. It is a global
    one that flourishes wherever coercion, poverty, corruption,
    secrecy, and demand intersect. That's why Congress must act.
    The House has twice passed my legislation with overwhelming
    bipartisan support. Most recently, H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced
    Organ Harvesting Act, passed the House 400 to 1, a full year
    ago, and it's still languishing in the Senate. But it passed a
    full year ago. It would criminalize forced organ trafficking,
    impose serious sanctions, require reporting, deny visas, and
    create penalties of up to 20 years in prison and up to $1
    million for knowingly being complicit in this crime. The bill
    is not 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 are
    risking your money, your visa, your access to the U.S., and
    your freedom. Because if we can get you, you're going to jail
    for these heinous practices.
        The Senate has not yet acted on the bill. And I appeal to
    them. I believe that they must. Delay is denial for that poor
    25- to 30-year-old--as Ethan Gutmann has told us over and over
    again, average age 28--who is killed, murdered just for their
    organs. Every day without consequences is another day of
    perpetrators operating in the shadows. Witnesses are
    intimidated, evidence disappears, and families never learn what
    happened to their loved ones. Forced organ harvesting is
    barbaric. It is systematic. It has stayed enabled. It's a big
    business. And speaking frankly, no one wants Xi Jinping or
    Vladimir Putin to live forever. I suspect on this point there
    would be broad bipartisan agreement. But behind that dark money
    is a deadly serious point. No dictator, no party boss, no
    wealthy patient, and no broker should be able to purchase
    longevity with the organs of the poor and the persecuted. That
    is all the more reason to pass the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting
    Act and make unmistakably clear that the United States will not
    stand by in the face of such cruelty, not with our expertise,
    not with our money, not with one dollar of American complicity.
    Thank you.
        I would now like to introduce our very distinguished panel.
    And let me just say, parenthetically, I'm grateful that C-SPAN
    is here. You know, they can go to any hearing they want. They
    are private, as you know. They have chosen to be here. And this
    is a story that they now will be telling the entire American
    public. I'm very grateful that they give these distinguished
    witnesses the opportunity to be heard, again, throughout this
    country. Hopefully that leads to greater mobilization to stop
    this.
        We will start with Ethan Gutmann, senior research fellow in
    China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation,
    and co-founder of the International Coalition to End Transplant
    Abuse in China. He is the author of ``The Slaughter''--I've
    read that book--co-author of the influential 2016 investigative
    report ``Bloody Harvest/The Slaughter: An Update,'' and author
    of the newly published book ``The Xinjiang Procedure,'' based
    on interviews with Uyghur and Kazakh refugees throughout
    Central Asia. His work has been essential to exposing the scale
    and brutality of forced organ harvesting in China. We are
    extremely grateful for his continued leadership.
        We'll then hear from my good long-term friend Ambassador
    Sam Brownback, who served in the House, the Senate, he was a
    Governor, he was Ambassador at Large for International
    Religious Freedom, and just a force for good in the world,
    especially religious freedom. He just today, or in the last
    couple days, released his brand-new book, and I'm looking
    forward to reading it, called ``China's War on Faith.'' Thank
    you, Sam, for that tenacious leadership for all these years.
    You just never quit. You are a national treasure. I am very
    grateful to you. Ambassador Brownback and Ethan Gutmann have
    testified multiple times before this Commission and multiple
    committees of Congress on issues related to forced organ
    harvesting, human trafficking, and, of course, religious
    freedom.
        Then we'll hear from Jan Jekielek, senior editor of The
    Epoch Times and host of ``American Thought Leaders.'' He is a
    journalist, documentary filmmaker, and author of the new book
    ``Killed to Order: China's Organ Harvesting Industry & the True
    Nature of America's Biggest Adversary.'' And I encourage people
    to read that. I've started it. I haven't finished it yet, but I
    am looking forward to reading it in its entirety. His work has
    helped bring wider public attention to forced organ harvesting
    and the dangers of continued international complicity. We
    welcome him to the Commission, thank him for his great
    leadership for these many years--and we've known each other for
    a lot of years now--on this and so many other issues. He's a
    great friend of the China Commission.
        We'll then hear from Kalbinur Sidik, a survivor of China's
    genocide and an eyewitness to the forced labor and internment
    camp system in the Uyghur region. Of Uzbek ethnicity, she
    served for many years as an elementary school teacher before
    being forced to work as a Chinese language instructor in
    internment camps. She's testified several times--including
    before the Uyghur Tribunal in London. I want to thank her for
    being here. She'll be coming in through Zoom, right? Yes. Thank
    you.
        [The prepared statement of Co-chair Smith appears in the
    Appendix.]
        So Mr. Gutmann, please. The floor is yours.

                       STATEMENT OF ETHAN GUTMANN

        Mr. Gutmann. In the Chinese transplant industry, humans are
    the only element that can't be fully controlled. That's why I
    swear by field research. And over time I've learned that all
    testimony, even that which doesn't support my ongoing thesis at
    any given time, is valuable. Yet I've also been observing the
    often skeptical Western world. That includes me, back in 2006.
    And all witnesses are taking a big risk. Camp refugees who
    observed the organ harvesting selection process or were nearly
    harvested themselves, as I guess we're going to be hearing from
    some of those today--they matter. But the testimony of a
    medical practitioner who is directly involved in the transplant
    process has a more complex level of risk. And they may matter
    more, in some respects.
        Now I'll briefly focus on these medical witnesses, because
    there's a continuity there that's very interesting, over time.
    I'm going to recap current harvesting rates one more time with
    feeling; I'm sorry about that. I'm going to touch on Uyghur
    deportation from Central Asia. And I'll close with a few
    personal thoughts on policy.
        Now regarding ``The Slaughter,'' we have two witnesses from
    that--15 years ago in a Westminster hearing, Enver Tohti, a
    former Uyghur hospital surgeon, confessed that he used his own
    hands to extract the kidneys and liver of a wounded, but
    salvageable, human being on a Xinjiang execution ground. In
    2013, Dr. Ko Wen-je of National Taiwan University agreed that I
    could publish the story of his quest for organs on behalf of
    his Taiwanese patients. This happened in a mainland hospital,
    probably Wuxi People's Hospital. When Ko expressed doubts about
    the quality of executed prisoner organs, his mainland
    counterparts assured him that all the organs would come from
    Falun Gong.
        ``The Xinjiang Procedure''--I just have to promote these
    things, I'm sorry--adds to this collection. In 2007, an
    accidental witness, Cat--that's Mr. Sugawara--was assisting his
    Yakuza chieftain prepare for a liver transplant in a Beijing
    police hospital. Wandering into the wrong room, Cat found a
    bound and sedated young man, wrist and ankle tendons severed. A
    Chinese surgeon soothingly explained to Cat that the young
    liver donor was Falun Gong. In 2017, Sayragul Sauytbay, a
    teacher in a Kazakh and Uyghur camp, gained exclusive access to
    organize the camp's medical files. A red checkmark next to
    blood results signaled that the individual had been preselected
    for harvesting. Several camp refugees that I interviewed
    recalled guards imposing color coding, from pink vests to
    wristbands, a few nights before the actual disappearances.
        In 2018, Samal, an ethnic Kazakh woman--that is a
    pseudonym--was recruited by a Uyghur veterinarian to extract
    human intestines in preparation for the systematic extraction
    of organs. Why intestines? Because their workspace was in a
    secret medical compound, four floors under a Uyghur and Kazakh
    concentration camp, with substandard ventilation. And an
    update: While Dr. Ko of Taipei knew that the Falun Gong were
    being harvested, according to his Chinese colleagues, Ko became
    ``the teacher of ECMO to mainland China.'' That was--let me
    translate that--that is directly instructing Chinese surgeons
    to exploit an off-label procedure for live organ harvesting.
        As mayor of Taipei and as a Presidential candidate for the
    Taiwan presidency, Ko could have been the ultimate medical
    witness. Instead, Ko was recently sentenced to 17 years in
    Taiwanese prison on corruption charges. And I'd love to see a
    plea deal there. Along with a hunger for medical witnesses,
    there is a hunger for scale. And the full publication of
    witness evidence in chapter 5 concludes: 2.5 to 5 percent
    forced disappearance rate in the camps, average age 28 to 29,
    specifications taken at night, final blood DNA test to
    establish health and identity. Assuming 1 million in the
    Xinjiang camps, forced labor factories, and other carceral
    environments, that's 25,000 to 50,000 Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and
    other Turkic groups harvested per year. Two to three organs
    extracted per individual to reach the minimum requirements for
    China's transplant industry volume, 60,000 successful
    transplants per year. That means a minimum cumulative death
    total in Xinjiang of over 200,000 now, and counting.
        Now some analysts recently speculated that the camps are
    closing, and it may be inside baseball, but I would welcome a
    question on that. Either way, forced labor organs are the same
    as concentration camp organs. And per capita, the medical
    attention that Xinjiang receives is extraordinary. Beijing
    recently pledged six more human organ transplantation medical
    institutions in the region by 2030. Now the roundup of Uyghurs
    from China's neighbors is also extraordinary. My interviews
    established that 88 percent of Tajikistan's Uyghurs and 87
    percent of Kyrgyzstan's Uyghurs have been deported back to
    Xinjiang. I also documented a new Chinese military base just
    north of Tajikistan's Qolma Pass, about 30 miles from a Tajik
    mine speculated to contain 50 percent of the world's uranium.
    The energy and mineral reserves of the Pamir and Kyrgyz
    Mountain ranges are the South China Sea of China's western
    frontier. With Russia at war, without a U.S. presence, a new
    nine-dash line is theoretically possible.
        Regarding policy--I'll close with this. I like all the
    bills. But I support passing the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting
    Act first because it follows the surgical lead. The
    International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation put
    the Chinese transplant industry, and implicitly the
    transplantation society, on notice with an academic boycott of
    China in 2022. Withdrawal of legitimacy by the political side
    should now be immediate and comprehensive. Nothing changes
    without embarrassment and trauma. One day after my press
    conference on Dr. Ko, Taiwanese medical authorities withdrew
    immunosuppressive drug coverage for Taiwanese patients who
    received Chinese organs. We could do that here. And instead of
    attempting to police the entire import-export medical industry,
    we could immediately investigate Thermo Fisher for providing
    the DNA tests used on an estimated 10 million Uyghurs and
    Kazakhs.
        A word on limitations. The Party responds to embarrassment
    by hiding, adapting, altering the production process, and
    adding new layers of complexity. We've seen this in forced
    labor. Beijing loves games. So we might need to consider
    changing the stakes of the game. I don't have a 20-point plan
    here, just a parting thought. Falun Gong is a Han Chinese-
    majority Chinese spiritual movement. And they have no choice.
    Their sacred mission is to change China. And they deserve our
    support. Yet small nations rise--often it's a delayed
    response--when mass murder and wanton neglect have placed their
    future survival as a people in question. The potato famine,
    Ireland; Ukraine, Stalin's mass starvation; Israel, the gas
    chambers; East Turkestan, organ harvesting. Re-entering history
    is a bloody affair, yet these nations came back from the dead.
    Even if it begins as a cynical negotiation tactic, a tacit
    threat, a Uyghur state--even a democratic Uyghur state--is
    possible. And the liberation of Central Asia is also possible.
    For the Party, that's the nightmare scenario. And the most
    improbable scenario of all is the systematic reform of the
    Chinese transplant system. But if our first objective is to
    stanch the bleeding, apply immediate and consistent pressure:
    pass this bill. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ethan Gutmann appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Co-chair Smith. Mr. Gutmann, thank you so very much for
    your testimony. And your expertise enlightens this committee,
    and really enlightens all that we do. Thank you so much.
        Ambassador Brownback.

                 STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR SAM BROWNBACK

        Ambassador Brownback. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Senator.
    Good to see all of you. And thank you for doing this,
    particularly today when the summit is taking place in China. I
    think this is just such an incredibly timely thing. And while
    these are hearings and things that you're familiar with and
    have been familiar with for years, the public is not familiar
    with these topics. Unfortunately, in my experience in social
    movements, you've got to really rub the public's face in this
    stuff for them to get it. And once they do, then they'll kind
    of, Okay, what should we do? And thank you for rubbing people's
    face in this stuff that you've known about and heard about for
    20-30 years, as have I.
        Even just yesterday, I was with Mihrigul Tursun. She's
    featured in our book, ``China's War on Faith.'' She's a Uyghur.
    She was told, finally, toward the very end of her
    incarceration--Okay, you can pick the way you die. We'll either
    shoot you three times, three bullets, or you can sign your life
    and your organs away to us. Now, if you pick the three bullets,
    we're going to charge you for each of these bullets a very
    large sum of money and you can do it for free this other way.
    And how cynical can a group of people be? This is her speaking
    yesterday about the technique that was used. Her children, who
    were born in Egypt, ultimately actually were the tool that got
    her out.
        Disfavored religious communities are particularly targeted
    by the perpetrators of forced organ harvesting schemes. Falun
    Gong practitioners--which we've heard about--systematically
    catalogued based on biometric markers and then murdered for
    their organs; Uyghur Muslims--and you've heard this before,
    their organs harvested and marketed to wealthy Middle
    Easterners as halal, in an unimaginably cynical way. I don't
    like even repeating this because these charges are so horrific
    that people have a hard time even getting their mind around it.
    But this is happening, and has been happening, and continues to
    happen. And it's an evil regime that perpetrates it.
        We have here today, and Mr. Chairman if I could take just a
    moment to introduce Peter Xu. You may remember his name. You
    advocated for him, as I did, a number of years ago. He spent
    five different times in Chinese prisons. He's been out here
    helping promote the book. He was considered the Billy Graham of
    China. They nearly killed him when they took him down from--
    they put him in a cross formation till he nearly died, then
    they took him down. They said to him, Okay, sign the confession
    that God's a hoax, Jesus doesn't exist. And he looks at the
    warden, and he says, Thank you for allowing me to participate
    in the sufferings of Christ. This is amazing testimony of an
    individual who is here--I've got to recognize Peter Xu.
    [Applause.]
        And then the other person--Bob Fu is hosting these
    gentlemen. You know Bob. But Pastor Pan of the Mayflower
    Church, that got all 64 members of theirs out in a daring
    episode that I believe should be a Hollywood movie, is here
    with us as well. Pastor Pan. [Applause.] Wonderful men. They
    bear witness, and as they bear witness, they get family members
    persecuted back home. These are not free shots that people get
    to take. They get hit. Pastor Pan has relatives still in China
    being threatened. I would ask our State Department to allow
    them to come if they're allowed out of China. Allow them to
    come here to the United States. Here's a brave man being
    willing to speak out and the family members back home are still
    persecuted. I hear this constantly from members of this
    persecuted community--of the various religious persecuted
    communities.
        You have experts that know more of the specifics of it. I
    want to talk mostly about policy. No. 1, the United States
    should 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. We need a big
    coalition to come together to say, This is horrific. It
    deserves no place in a modern world. And we should condemn it.
    The White House or Congress should host a global summit of
    religious, democratic, and political leaders calling for
    religious freedom for everyone everywhere, including in China.
    This is a hallmark issue for us. And on our 250th birthday, the
    founding of the country is based, the early settlers, primarily
    on seeking religious freedom. It's still a hallmark human right
    of the soul, the right that's closest to who we are as beings.
    And these are the people who are the most persecuted. It would
    help--and it would help them substantially.
        We asked President Trump to raise with Xi Jinping the
    release of Pastor Ezra Jin. And he said that he's going to seek
    that release. Jimmy Lai. I would add the nine Catholic bishops
    currently in detention in China that we don't know their
    whereabouts--nine Catholic bishops. We don't know where they
    are. They're incarcerated. I would ask as well that Pope Leo
    criticize China publicly for the ongoing genocides in that
    country--of the Muslim Uyghurs, of Falun Gong, of the Tibetan
    Buddhists, and seek the release of these nine Catholic bishops
    that are detained in China. And Mr. Chairman, I've got another
    set of additional recommendations that I want to submit for the
    record.
        One of them--we host the G-20 summit this year. We should
    have in that a major section on religious freedom. As we bring
    these world leaders of the top countries here, we should be
    talking about religious freedom and publicly condemning forced
    organ harvesting at that event. This would be something that--
    Dr. Gutmann points out the embarrassment factor. It's a true
    issue, and you and I both know it. You've got to raise the
    profile of these issues to the point that governments are
    embarrassed before something happens. We should do that at the
    G-20 summit as well. And then finally, our media, Hollywood,
    academia, big business, must start shining a light on these
    horrific practices being conducted by the Chinese government,
    and no longer look the other way. We cannot look the other way.
        Now, we've got such an integrated economy with China. And I
    hope and pray we're in the process of breaking that apart, and
    breaking our supply chains, and moving them to other places.
    I'm seeing positive trends on foreign direct investment in
    China going down substantially, and a lot of that coming to the
    United States and other places, going up, which is favorable
    toward us. That's the right trend. It's going to take several
    years to disentangle these two economies, but we really have
    got to be clear-minded that we have to move this way. This is a
    communist regime in China that seeks our removal from
    leadership on the world stage.
        Whichever one of these systems--and I contend that--and I'm
    going to end with this point--that we're in a clash of
    civilizations now. And one point of that is the communist group
    and authoritarians that look at the world and individuals as
    tools to be controlled, or economic entities alone. And they
    are pushing aggressively and attacking us today. On the other
    side is Western civilization, the United States leading a
    Western civilization that's built on a Judeo-Christian ethic
    that everybody is created in the image of God. They are
    entitled to incredible dignity. They have inherent worth of who
    they are. And they have rights by virtue of who they are as an
    individual. They have rights. These two systems are in conflict
    and clashing.
        I think we've just got to start being much more clear-eyed
    about what the stakes are, because whichever of these systems
    wins will direct how societies move over the rest of this
    century. And we're in this fight. And we're in it now. And
    we've got to sound the alarm to the public and move forward
    aggressively to win this fight. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        [The prepared statement of Ambassador Brownback appears in
    the Appendix.]
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, for
    your very eloquent and powerful statement and testimony. I'd
    now like to recognize Jan Jekielek for such time as he may
    consume.
        Mr. Jekielek. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Co-chairman, distinguished
    members of the Commission, I want to thank you for the
    opportunity to testify today.

                       STATEMENT OF JAN JEKIELEK

        Mr. Jekielek. How many of us in the United States would
    knowingly participate in a system that rips organs from
    unwilling donors and treats human lives as disposable
    commodities? It should be zero, but it's not. What is happening
    in China is something far more systemic and industrialized than
    the organ trafficking in black markets that one might normally
    think about. It is communist China's state-sponsored killing of
    its own citizens on demand to supply a multi-billion-dollar
    transplant industry.
        I'll start with a telling example from my book, ``Kill to
    Order: China's Organ Harvesting Industry & the True Nature of
    America's Biggest Adversary.'' ``An affluent German woman with
    a rare AB blood type struggled with alcoholism for years and
    faced liver failure. In systems like Germany's, finding a match
    might take years or not happen at all. Yet she obtained three
    livers in China around 2015 to 2019, each in just months, for
    approximately $400,000, involving a visit to China for each
    procedure. Her continued drinking combined with antirejection
    medications led to quick rejections of each liver--one about
    every 2 years.'' In any ethical transplant system, such as that
    of the United States, vital organs typically come from
    catastrophic accidents. To reduce the chance of rejection,
    blood type and histology are also matched. Thus the supply of
    organs 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.
        In another well-documented case, an American man traveled
    to China and received a perfectly matched kidney in just 2
    weeks. According to the 2009 book ``Larry's Kidney,'' he was
    aware someone was killed for it. Now compare that to here,
    where the average wait time for a new kidney isn't 2 weeks, but
    156 to 260 weeks. This is only possible because of two
    essential tools the Chinese Communist Party that governs China
    has refined over decades. No. 1, it's the regime's creation of
    what are called black classes, designated enemy groups that the
    rest of the population is taught to hate, fear, and even see as
    subhuman. First it was the landowners, then
    counterrevolutionaries, and then the intellectuals during the
    Cultural Revolution, with others following. This is the
    pattern--designate a group as subhuman, flood the information
    space with propaganda, and the population becomes
    psychologically prepared for atrocities against the target
    group.
        The second key tool is the infrastructure to incarcerate a
    large number of people at will. Prisons, black jails,
    reeducation camps, and forced labor camps are just part of an
    incarceration system that has the capacity for millions. In
    1999, the CCP designated Falun Gong practitioners as a black
    class targeted for eradication, setting the stage for this
    kill-to-order forced organ harvesting.
        Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is an ancient Qigong or slow-
    motion exercise practice rooted in the principles of
    truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. This is also
    translated as being true, good, and enduring. Falun Gong
    features extensive teachings by its founder, Master Li Hongzhi.
    It's also characterized by an unusual lack of organizational
    structure, no collection of funds, no roster, no hierarchy, and
    no worship of a deity. It spread by word of mouth in the 1990's
    in China, growing, by government estimate, to 70 to 100 million
    people from all walks of life doing it.
        There are different theories as to why then-leader Jiang
    Zemin of China ordered the persecution of Falun Gong. Perhaps
    it was because the sheer number of practitioners had grown
    greater than Communist Party membership. Perhaps he was jealous
    of the founder. Or perhaps the CCP, with its decades of
    totalitarian rule, simply couldn't abide the individual agency
    that practicing Falun Gong fostered in people. If one were to
    design a system that could withstand totalitarian control and
    overreach, I believe it might look something like Falun Gong.
    Large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners refused to be
    reeducated. And this happened at a scale that had never
    happened before in this black class creation mechanism. And
    this is what caused the mass incarceration of Falun Gong
    practitioners.
        This is happening in 1999-2000. In 2005, the U.S. State
    Department estimated that half of all the people in China's
    reeducation-through-labor camp system were Falun Gong. In 2006,
    the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, reported
    that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of
    torture cases that he documented. I recount in chapter 5 of
    ``Kill to Order'' all sorts of evidence, like that gathered by
    Ethan Gutmann here, among others, research over 20 years by
    many, many different experts. And the regime basically took a
    massive population of healthy people and dehumanized them,
    incarcerated them, and started blood typing, tissue typing, and
    organ scanning them, and creating a data base. When a
    transplant is needed, whether for a Chinese elite or a foreign
    transplant tourist, a match can be made and a victim killed to
    order.
        The years 2000 to 2005 saw a massive surge in growth of
    transplant hospitals in China. Falun Gong refugees who fled to
    the United States have given harrowing accounts of blood tests
    and other costly and suspicious medical exams while detained in
    China. A recent survey identified 113 facilities across China
    in which these health screenings took place, with the most
    recent incident reported in 2024. Shockingly, one respondent
    described how, even in 2023, even non-detained practitioners in
    Anqing City, Anhui Province, were summoned for these detailed
    exams.
        We now have the first known survivor. Cheng Pei Ming, a
    Falun Gong practitioner, was taken for surgery against his will
    while detained, and awoke with a 14-inch gash in his side. This
    was back in 2004. He was later rescued to America through a
    series of unlikely events--kind of a miracle that he survived.
    But basically our own medical scans showed that he's missing
    part of his liver and part of his lung. The liver has since
    regenerated. So after years of very little, frankly, there's
    been some amazing resolutions that have been put forth--that
    Co-chair Smith has put forward, and so forth. But really,
    internationally, there's been very little meaningful action.
    The CCP extended this atrocity--now we're looking at 2015-ish--
    to another group. As mentioned, they further dehumanized the
    Uyghur Muslim population and mass incarcerated them. Up in
    Xinjiang, they've even gone door to door to people's homes
    collecting DNA and blood samples.
        Compounding this danger is new technology. Now there's
    technology that can perfuse organs for extended periods,
    basically in a box, potentially for days instead of hours. This
    is a revolutionary breakthrough. For us, you know, this will
    save a great many lives, but from the perspective of the
    Chinese, this is a way potentially to even export forced organs
    out of the country, if they get their hands on it. This is why
    I titled my book ``Kill to Order.'' This is a deadly boutique
    selection and delivery of human body parts, organs matched in
    advance, delivered on schedule, extracted from living human
    beings, who are then discarded for the purposes of power,
    profit, and elite longevity.
        Yet American universities and hospitals continue to partner
    with Chinese transplant centers, train Chinese transplant
    surgeons, conduct joint research. NIH has funded such projects.
    American companies supply critical immunosuppressive drugs and
    medical technologies used in these procedures. And many
    American media continue to ignore, even whitewash, these
    crimes. Perhaps most prominently, a former New York Times
    correspondent testified at the 2019 China tribunal, that the
    Co-chair mentioned earlier, that she was prevented from
    pursuing evidence of forced organ harvesting by her editors at
    the Times. Now this is not an isolated crime. It's part of a
    much broader pattern of egregious abuses. The U.S. Government
    has determined that the CCP is committing genocide against
    Uyghurs, and several international legal experts have concluded
    that the campaign against Falun Gong also demonstrates
    genocidal intent.
        So what can be done here? I want to take this moment to
    commend Co-chair Smith for your tremendous persistent efforts
    over many decades confronting China's large-scale forced organ
    harvesting from prisoners of conscience and for championing
    China's persecuted innocents even longer than that. You grasped
    the totalitarian nature of the CCP long before most people did.
    This is manifested in your bill, H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced
    Organ Harvesting Act of 2025, which passed the House last year
    nearly unanimously. This is powerful, important legislation
    that should be passed. Another commissioner here, Senator
    Merkley, is co-sponsoring S. 4009, the Falun Gong and Victims
    of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, a Senate update of
    H.R. 1540, which passed the House unanimously. This is likewise
    critical legislation that will make a real difference.
        The Senate has a historic opportunity now to pass two bills
    to finally confront this egregious crime. Eight countries have
    enacted binding national laws addressing this issue. It's time
    for the United States to finally do the same. I have a number
    of additional recommendations across the board, but in the
    interest of time perhaps we can do them in the question and
    answer. Happy to discuss. I also wanted to mention that now we
    have many think tanks in Washington, DC, and civil society
    organizations; there's even a satellite Rotary Club dedicated
    entirely to ending forced organ harvesting. There's kind of a
    broad civil society interest in this. And as mentioned earlier,
    the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation
    has barred all Chinese submissions involving transplants from
    human donors. You know, this is finally getting traction at
    that level, thankfully.
        So to conclude, here we're on the eve of the 250th
    anniversary of America's founding. And we should remember that
    this country was built on a foundational belief in the God-
    given rights of every individual and the inherent dignity of
    every human being. The Chinese Communist Party rejects this
    truth at its core. It views its own citizens not as people with
    innate dignity but as a collection of extractable body parts.
    And here's the hard truth: The CCP looks at America and
    Americans through exactly the same lens. Just as it calculates
    the value of a prisoner's cornea or kidney or heart, it
    calculates how to extract America's technology, markets, its
    alliances, and ultimately its sovereignty.
        Earlier today in Beijing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
    who has championed earlier versions of S. 4009 as senator, said
    China's rise cannot come at our expense. The lesson of the
    CCP's decades of kill-to-order forced organ harvesting is that
    the regime is capable of anything at others' expense. Let us
    honor the 250th anniversary of this nation's founding by
    confronting this atrocity. Thank you. I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Jan Jekielek appears in the
    Appendix.]
        Chair Smith. Jan, thank you so very much for your
    leadership over the many decades as well, and for your new
    book, which I think will open up many eyes, and again, for
    being here today and sharing your expertise with the
    Commission.
        I'd now like to ask Ali to translate. We will be hearing
    from Ms. Sidik, she's in the Netherlands, by way of Zoom. So if
    that could be arranged for her to come in now. Remember, she's
    an eyewitness to China's genocide and to the internment camp
    system. You know, here's somebody who lived it--like many
    people who have testified in the past, and like some people who
    are actually in this audience--and suffered. And just let me
    say one brief thing about Bob Fu while she's coming on. Bob Fu
    has been a mentor to so many of us for so long. I've been to
    China, along with Frank Wolf and along with my good friend the
    Ambassador, many, many times. And again and again, Bob provided
    unbelievable insight to us on the house church movement and all
    the rest. So thank you, Bob, for that with ChinaAid. Is she
    ready?

                      STATEMENT OF KALBINUR SIDIK

        Ms. Sidik [through Translator]. Honorable Chair,
    distinguished members, and respected committee members, thank
    you for giving me the opportunity to testify today. My name is
    Kalbinur Sidik. I am from Urumqi. Our homeland is Turkestan.
    I'm a witness to the detention camps and I am ethnically Uzbek.
        For 20 years, I worked as a Chinese language teacher and
    held important administrative positions at Urumqi No. 24
    elementary school. Never did I imagine that one day I would be
    forced to teach inside a detention camp or that I would become
    a witness to the crimes committed by the Chinese Communist
    Party against Uyghurs and other minority peoples. Today I stand
    before you to speak about atrocities, including the possibility
    of organ harvesting. I'll tell you only the truth, only what I
    personally witnessed and experienced.
        In March 2017, I was sent under a six-month contract to
    teach in a men's camp located on a mountain in No. 5
    Sangfanggou Village, Urumqi City. The authorities told us we
    would be teaching students in a literacy training course. But
    they were not students. They were prisoners. They were fathers,
    young men, businessmen, religious figures, intellectuals,
    people from all walks of life. They were ordinary citizens.
    There were also elderly men among them. They had been taken
    from their homes, imprisoned behind barbed wire, triple iron
    gates, surveillance cameras, armed guards, and locked cells.
        Every Monday, no classes were held for the detainees.
    Instead, blood was drawn from them. They were given
    unidentified injections. Afterwards, they were given small
    white pills. Chinese nurses told me these are vitamins or
    calcium supplements . . . since the detainees never see
    sunlight, the government ordered us to take care of them this
    way. But I did not believe them. How could the government that
    imprisoned, starved, tortured, and humiliated these people
    suddenly care about their vitamins? No. That was impossible. At
    that time and even now I believe there was another purpose
    behind it.
        I also witnessed healthy men disappearing. I clearly
    remember one man named Ozman. He was active in class and eager
    to learn. He was a wealthy businessman and appeared very strong
    and healthy, at first. Among hundreds of people, I could easily
    recognize his face. Then one day, he disappeared. When I asked
    what happened to him, I was told he suffered from high blood
    pressure and diabetes and had died on the way to the hospital.
    There was another man who sat at the far end of the first row
    in the classroom. He too was hard working. And I still remember
    his face vividly. Later he also disappeared. I was told he died
    from kidney poisoning. I did not believe these explanations.
    Every day in the classroom detainees were constantly replaced.
    Older and stronger prisoners were taken away while new ones
    arrived. A familiar face disappeared and we were expected to
    accept whatever explanation the guards gave us.
        Later, when I testified before parliaments in various
    countries, I was asked about the disappearance of detainees and
    organ harvesting. I told them what I had heard while working in
    the camps. The special police driver who transported me and the
    police officer assigned to accompany me often talked among
    themselves. They said, Right now in our country the halal organ
    trade is booming. The detoxification center in Miquan County,
    Urumqi has now become an organ transplant center. I did not
    witness the surgeries. I did not personally see organs being
    removed. But I heard these conversations.
        Later, after hearing my testimony, a close relative and
    friend of mine living in Europe, and married to a foreigner,
    spoke to me on the condition of anonymity. She personally told
    me that Miquan's detoxification center had indeed been
    transformed into an organ extraction hospital. In 2018, she and
    her foreign husband were sent there for medical examinations
    before leaving for Europe. During that process, she saw many
    young detainees wearing prison uniforms, lined up under heavy
    Chinese police supervision, entering designated rooms. She also
    observed that the number of doctors had increased greatly and
    that doctors were carrying unusual containers in their hands as
    they exited the rooms.
        She told me this and begged me to speak about it in my
    testimony. So for the second time, I heard directly from
    someone I personally knew, someone who claimed to have seen
    with her own eyes that this place had become an organ
    harvesting hospital. In the camps, I witnessed blood
    collections from detainees, injections, forced medications,
    disappearances, and secrecy surrounding everything. Therefore,
    if you ask me today whether I believe the Chinese Communist
    Party turned Uyghurs in the camps into a source of profit
    through so-called halal organ trade, my answer is, yes. Yes. A
    hundred times, yes.
        While I was in those camps, I witnessed horrors beyond
    words. Chinese police humiliated detainees to a level no human
    being should endure. They stripped them of their humanity. They
    did not call them by their names, but by numbers. They tried to
    break their minds, destroy their faith, and erase their
    destiny. Let me tell you more about what I witnessed, so the
    world will never forget about the genocide that's taking place
    in East Turkestan.
        When I first entered the men's camp, I walked into a
    building surrounded by barbed wire, electric doors, armed
    police, soldiers, locked gates. The detainees were brought out
    from their cells. Chains and shackles were on their hands and
    feet. Many still had unshaven beards because they had only
    recently arrived. Their eyes looked at me with desperation, as
    if I had come to save them. But I could not save them. I could
    not even help them. Guards surrounded me everywhere. The cells
    were dark. The windows were still shut. The detainees slept on
    bare concrete floors with only a thin blanket. For all three
    meals they received only a small Chinese bun and watery rice
    soup. They were allowed to use the toilet only for a very short
    period of time.
        During the entire six months I was there they were never
    once allowed to bathe. Their bodies were weakened. Their faces
    changed. Healthy people became thin, pale, and exhausted. I
    taught four hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon,
    sometimes even for additional hours during inspection periods.
    But gradually I realized the purpose there was not education.
    The purpose was control. Later, detainees were forced to
    memorize red songs, patriotic songs praising the Chinese
    Communist Party and Xi Jinping, and political slogans. The
    detainees were forced to praise the same Communist Party that
    had imprisoned them. They were forced to express gratitude
    toward the very system destroying them.
        During lessons, police would call detainees out not by
    name, but by number, then take them for interrogation. The
    interrogation room was next to the classroom. Shortly after
    they were taken away, heartbreaking screams could be heard.
    They were tortured with devices such as electric batons,
    electric tiger chairs, electric gloves, and electric helmets.
    After my six-month assignment in the men's camp ended, I was
    sent to a women's camp located at Tugong, Saybagh District,
    Urumqi. There I saw many women and girls. Most were highly
    educated. Their hair had been cut short. They wore gray prison
    uniforms with blue numbered vests over them. Their faces were
    pale and lifeless.
        About 90 percent of these detainees were between 18 and 40
    years old. The remaining 10 percent were older women, some even
    in their seventies and eighties. These women and girls were
    also given medication and unidentified injections. As a result,
    many of them completely stopped menstruating. Some had studied
    abroad. During lessons, they were forced first to thank the
    Chinese Communist Party and the government before telling their
    stories. One woman said she had recently given birth and still
    had a nursing baby, but her breast milk had stopped. Another
    young woman said she had been preparing for marriage when she
    was suddenly taken to the camp. And she no longer even knew
    where her fiance was. Yet she was forced to thank the
    government for providing such a great opportunity to learn the
    national language.
        Others said they had been taken directly to the camp
    immediately after returning from studies abroad. From the way
    these women painfully sat and stood, I could sense the severe
    abuse they had suffered. Tears constantly streamed from their
    eyes. In this camp, I heard about rape and sexual violence
    committed by Chinese police. I heard that guards use electric
    batons and other weapons to abuse these detainees. I personally
    witnessed the body of a young girl around 18 to 20 years old
    being carried away before my eyes. I later heard that she had
    bled to death. Outside the camps, the control continued. The
    Chinese government placed so-called Chinese parent relatives,
    Han Chinese men, inside the homes of Uyghur women, especially
    in homes where husbands had been taken to the camps. Even in
    their own homes, these women faced various forms of abuse and
    humiliation.
        People are afraid to speak. Phones were monitored.
    Relatives abroad became a source of danger. My daughter, at the
    time, was in the Netherlands. And we lived constantly in fear
    and anxiety, under pressure from neighborhood committees,
    assigned police officers. We were also forced to undergo
    sterilization procedures at Changleyuan Hospital in Tianshan
    District. Even though I did not want this, I had no choice. My
    safety and the safety of my family depended on obeying
    government demands. That's why I say we no longer had ownership
    over our bodies. I am one of the fortunate few who managed to
    escape after enduring tremendous suffering. The people inside
    the camps cannot speak to you. They have no way to make their
    voices heard. I'm standing here today, and at enormous personal
    cost, to tell you this truth--because the men who disappeared,
    the women who were abused, and the mothers separated from their
    children, and the families destroyed by this genocide, need
    witnesses.
        Honorable Chair, distinguished members of the committee, I
    ask you not to turn away--turn your eyes away--from this
    tragedy. The horrific violence taking place in East Turkestan
    is not merely a crime. It's part of the system that sees
    Uyghurs, the original inhabitants of this land, as less than
    human. This is genocide. The world once said, never again. Yet
    in East Turkestan, it is happening again. I ask the U.S.
    Congress never to forget the Uyghur genocide. I urge you to
    continue your investigations and hold the Chinese Communist
    Party accountable. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Kalbinur Sidik appears in the
    Appendix.]
                                  ----------

        Co-chair Smith. Thank you very much for that very powerful
    testimony. It's shocking. And it hopefully is a wake-up call to
    even more people who will hear it today. And we will amplify it
    through this Commission, I can assure you.
        I'll ask my questions last, but I'd like to yield to my
    good friend and colleague, Mr. Strong of Alabama, and then to
    Congresswoman Elise Stefanik from New York.
        Representative Strong. Thank you, Representative Smith, for
    holding this hearing. Thank you to the staff for their hard
    work. Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today, for
    bringing attention to China's forced organ harvesting and
    trafficking.
        This first question is for any of the witnesses that would
    like to answer. Can you provide an assessment of whether any
    U.S. entities, such as hospitals, universities, or research
    partners, have collaborated with the CCP transplant
    institutions engaging in illegal organ harvesting and
    trafficking practices?
        Mr. Jekielek. I can speak to it briefly, but in terms of
    the details, probably afterwards. I understand that there is
    actually information that has been gathered at HHS. There's
    some sort of report that's been gathered by HHS that touches on
    this question, that you know, perhaps needs to be dislodged
    from under a lot of bureaucracy. That's one quick answer.
    There's an example. The Select Committee wrote a letter to
    Harvard University about a number of research partnerships that
    they had. I believe that was last year, or within the last
    couple of years. We trained over a hundred transplant surgeons
    here in the United States from different institutions. That's
    an obvious connection. I think it would be an amazing effort to
    try to catalog all of this. This is something that I'm actually
    in the process of trying to do, but obviously institutions are
    uninterested in being terribly cooperative and in providing
    that information, if they can avoid it. So that's a roundabout
    answer for you. Perhaps some of the others here can provide
    some more exact specifics.
        Representative Strong. Any other insight from any of the
    other witnesses?
        Mr. Gutmann. You know, I did mention Thermo Fisher, because
    they stand out. What our witness here was talking about really
    didn't begin in 2016 or 2017. It was signaled in 2013 by an
    unusual tactic, which the police of China used on Falun Gong,
    actually, initially. And they were coming into people's homes.
    These were people not in detention. But they were coming into
    their homes and doing a blood test and a DNA cheek swab. This
    happened in five to six provinces. There's a little dispute
    about the sixth. The point is that the DNA cheek swab indicated
    a new method. Human Rights Watch interpreted it as a
    surveillance tool. I think that's probably right. But it's also
    completely compatible with tissue matching--tissue typing and
    cross matching. So that is followed by Thermo Fisher supplying
    the DNA kits for testing the entire Uyghur and Kazakh
    population of Xinjiang. Now this is not something that Han
    Chinese--they were exempt. And they're practically half the
    population. But the entire population, everybody above the age
    of 12, had to be tested. And the DNA kits, apparently, were all
    supplied by Thermo Fisher. They made a killing in this market.
        Representative Strong. Let me ask you this right here. Do
    any of the witnesses have factual data related to how these
    body parts are coming to America? And, you know, they've got to
    get here somehow. Any of that going on?
        Mr. Gutmann. Can I just jump in on that? I don't believe
    parts are coming to America really. I mean----
        Representative Strong. There are people that believe they
    are.
        Mr. Gutmann. Well, that's fine, but it's certainly not my
    experience in China on the ground, as they like to have
    complete control of organ harvesting. And I've never seen
    absolutely persuasive evidence, other than certainly there's
    good speculation, and probably correct, about fetal body parts
    or fetal tissue being sold to our great universities. I don't
    think there's any question that they've moved on from Planned
    Parenthood and China's the supplier. Proving that conclusively,
    of course, is very important.
        Representative Strong. Absolutely. Okay. Do you believe the
    existing U.S. safeguards are enough to prevent American
    institutions from indirectly endorsing or profiting from these
    practices? Or should the U.S. Government explore further
    measures, such as increased transparency, reporting, or funding
    restrictions?
        Mr. Brownback. I think those are absolutely necessary and
    totally plausible. And they are things that we should be doing
    in the face of this documentation, eyewitnesses, of what's
    taking place. I mean, that's what Congress should be doing. And
    passing the bills, like the Stopping Forced Organ Harvesting
    Act, and including these types of provisions in that type of
    bill, broad support. And I think it also is a moral stand for
    people in this country to take, through their Members of
    Congress, to pass such legislation. We will not participate in
    any way, shape, or form in this type of horrific practice. And
    here's how we're expressing that.
        Representative Strong. Thank you. Mr. Gutmann, in your
    estimation what is the scale and scope of illegal sourced
    organs in China?
        Mr. Gutmann. I'm not there with a clipboard, but--and my
    work has concentrated on the Uyghurs--but I do believe that
    this is the main source now. Our 2016 report was done with
    David Kilgour and David Matas, and a team of Falun Gong
    researchers who spent 5 years collecting the data. Now we came
    up with the idea that organs were basically--the transplant
    hospitals had been rationed to about 150, or now it's more like
    200, and that they were doing at least one transplant per day,
    based on their capabilities. That quickly leads you to a number
    at least of 60,000. Personally, I believe that it's closer to
    100,000.
        Representative Strong. Thank you, Mr. Gutmann.
        Mr. Brownback, can you elaborate on how religious freedom
    can play a strategic role in our diplomatic engagement strategy
    with the CCP? And how would you recommend that tool be wielded
    to strengthen U.S. leadership and diplomacy?
        Mr. Brownback. You could just watch and study what Ronald
    Reagan did in the faceoff with the Soviet Union. It was the
    same godless, atheistic society. He traveled across the
    country. He pointed this out. He said--and then he also talked
    about the treatment of Jews in the country and evangelicals,
    the Jewish refuseniks. He brought the American public into it.
    And that's what has to be done. I think we can, as--and I think
    this is a critical piece of our theater engagement strategy
    with the CCP, which we're now engaged in, how we're going to
    fight with this group--is religious freedom. They can't
    tolerate it. They can't stand it. The American public strongly
    supports it. Western civilization does.
        So we need to start talking about that differentiation. And
    we need to start thinking about it in those sorts of strategic
    engagement ways. We ought to invite Chinese dissidents that
    have been persecuted for their faith to the White House to meet
    with the President, the Vice President, to meet with the
    Secretary of State as a show. They ought to invite the person
    that started Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, see if he would come to
    the White House to meet with the President. He's exiled in the
    United States in New York. And this is a group that's been
    decimated, slaughtered, in the most vile of ways, because they
    can't tolerate this indigenous faith that is so natural to
    China.
        It's a blended kind of faith of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucian
    thought, but it's very natural to China. And it was a complete
    threat to the Chinese Communist Party. And all that Falun Gong
    wants is a return to the old Chinese civilization that existed
    before the communists took over. That's really all they want.
    So bring them in--and then I also think it would be wise for us
    to start talking with Tibetan individuals and Tibet authorities
    about the future of Tibet. This is a place that's never been a
    part of China. We should be--we should be bringing those
    individuals in and talking with them as well. I've got a list
    of other specific items in my testimony.
        Representative Strong. Thank you. Mr. Brownback, this will
    be my final question. How has intimidation against religious
    groups outside of China impacted these groups, their worship,
    their advocacy, their personal lives?
        Mr. Brownback. Oh, horribly. Most Uyghurs I talked to and
    work with have had family members back home that have
    disappeared, been killed. Falun Gong members that will cite
    those. I've had people in this country who have been tracked,
    shot at, that have testified to me, that have been open people
    that have testified against what's going on in the CCP--
    tracked, marked, tires slashed, in this country. This is
    transnational oppression--or another person referred to it as
    transnational terrorism. I think we've really got to be much
    more aggressive at prosecuting these cases when they happen in
    this country.
        Representative Strong. Thank you. I thank each of our
    witnesses for being here today, and also Peter and Bob. It's an
    honor to have each of you here.
        Mr. Jekielek. Could I answer your earlier question,
    Congressman? Just one thing that the U.S. Government--one way
    in which we've interacted with Communist China in the past is--
    you know, there's all these methods that were set on autopilot.
    For example, we're still transferring technology to Communist
    China as a matter of policy in different places, like in
    embassies. One example of this in this context is these
    Federal-wide assurances that HHS grants to different bodies
    around the world. And basically, it's sort of--it's been
    described to me by someone as kind of a rubber stamp in some
    terms. Basically, what it says is, from the perspective of the
    U.S. Government, this institution is okay to work with.
        We know some number of these transplant hospitals--we
    should make sure that none of them have one of these Federal-
    wide assurances. I mean, again, there's a whole bunch of
    different specific policy recommendations that can help us cut
    off all relationships with their transplant system. Obviously,
    if we accept that this is real, which I hope we can--we can
    finally put it into law sometime soon. Why are we working with
    any institutions that are involved with this?
        Representative Strong. Thank you. Chairman Smith, I yield
    back.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you very much.
        I'd now like to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from
    New York. I want to thank her as well for her new book,
    ``Poisoned Ivies,'' which is a really, really incisive book
    about antisemitism and the Ivy League. And, you know, Sam
    Brownback, before I yield, made a very good point about Reagan
    and what he did vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. He raised human
    rights, and did it tenaciously, as did Shultz, his Secretary of
    State, and others. He always named names. And that's what
    President Trump was trying to do with Jimmy Lai and others. And
    both the House and the Senate passed resolutions to that
    effect, and named names that hopefully can effectuate or help
    them gain their freedom. But China has always gotten a bye.
    Years ago, there was a book called ``China Misperceived.'' And
    Steven Mosher wrote it and how they always are given a bye when
    it comes to human rights. Well, that has to end. It is ending.
    Your testimony and your great work, and your books, have made a
    difference. And I want to thank my good friend for her new book
    and for her leadership.
        Representative Stefanik. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith.
    And thank you to the Chairman for his extraordinary decades of
    leadership on human rights issues and so many other important
    issues. Thank you to each of you for testifying today.
    Incredibly disturbing testimony, but important to hear this in
    Congress and for the American people to hear this.
        I want to start with you, Mr. Jekielek. In your testimony
    you mentioned American universities partnering with CCP
    transplant centers to train transplant surgeons and conduct
    joint research. You also mentioned that some of these
    partnerships received NIH funding. Do you have a comprehensive
    list that you can provide this Commission of instances where
    there are U.S. Government-funded American universities that are
    funding transplant research supported by the CCP? I know you
    mentioned you're putting together that list.
        Mr. Jekielek. Correct. I will--I don't know if I can
    provide a comprehensive list, because it's a process, but I
    will provide the best list I can.
        Representative Stefanik. I recently introduced legislation
    to ban Federal funding to universities that employ foreign
    researchers who were previously employed by the Chinese
    Communist government, specifically those that work in sensitive
    research areas. Do you agree that U.S. taxpayer dollars should
    not go to universities that financially, directly or
    indirectly, support the Chinese government facilitating illegal
    organ harvesting?
        Mr. Jekielek. This is a complete no-brainer. Absolutely. As
    a matter of fact, even people that come here--there are people
    that come here that want freedom, that are not wanting to work
    for the Chinese Communist Party. But their national
    intelligence law demands that they do, that they provide--that
    they basically spy, and not admit that they're doing so. So
    it's a very difficult situation people are put in. But I would
    say any sensitive area--forced organ harvesting, absolutely--
    but any sensitive area, it doesn't make sense.
        Representative Stefanik. One other concern that I have
    raised is some American universities, as we know, operate
    branch campuses in communist China. And I recently introduced
    legislation to stop the flow of taxpayer dollars to these
    institutions that, frankly, are profiting off of our
    adversaries. Are you concerned that these universities, and
    therefore American taxpayers, could be directly or indirectly
    implicated in cases of organ harvesting?
        Mr. Jekielek. I'm absolutely concerned. I don't know of
    specific instances of this, but again, you can sort of imagine,
    this is the thesis, I guess, of my book--the true nature of
    America's biggest adversary. You have to understand the
    Communist Party--this is a group--this is a regime that does
    these sorts of horrible things to people. Imagine how they
    view, you know, sort of gullible or financially incentivized
    Americans who have set up a campus in communist China. It's not
    good intent, let's say.
        Representative Stefanik. Thank you. Ambassador Brownback,
    thank you for your leadership. You mentioned a number of
    actions the U.S. should take on the world stage to raise this
    issue. And yet we have seen in international organizations like
    the U.N. they have been incredibly uncooperative, despite the
    fact that American taxpayers are footing the majority of the
    bill. Do you think--let me ask it this way--how can the U.S.
    strongly lead on these issues of human rights? And--I think I
    know the answer to this--do you think the U.N. can be a
    reliable partner of the United States when it comes to
    addressing this? I certainly do not think it's a reliable
    partner.
        Mr. Brownback. I think they've proven, no, they're not
    interested. But I think more than that, they're so infiltrated
    by the Chinese Communist Party, the U.N. is, and so many of the
    various branches and entities of it, even if they wanted to I
    don't think they could get it--I don't think they could get it
    done. But that's why it's incumbent upon us. And we're the only
    country in the world that can do this. Nobody else. So at the
    G-20, religious freedom should be front and center. And
    remember, they fear religious freedom more than they fear our
    aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons. This goes right at
    control to them. And they've got the fastest growing Christian
    population in the world. So they know this. And they're looking
    and saying, We've got to hold this down. And these are people
    we should be standing with and backing aggressively everywhere
    that we can. And we've got a lot of tools so we can do that, as
    I mentioned some of those already.
        Representative Stefanik. Thank you very much. Again, thank
    you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this very important hearing.
    I yield back.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Stefanik. Again,
    good luck on your book. I think everyone needs to read it.
        Just a couple of thoughts. And again, I want to thank you
    all for your brilliant testimony. Just on the point of
    universities and colleges, because I held a whole series of
    hearings on the soft power of trying to get these colleges to
    conform to the CCP's will. I had a hearing with the head of
    NYU. I had the top person there, the chancellor, testify. I
    invited myself to go, because I'm barred from going, like you,
    Sam, and like our--you know, I'm on their hit list. And I
    actually got a visa when he said I could come.
        But what shocked me about NYU is that they get a campus in
    Shanghai, fully paid for by the Chinese Communist Party. I
    asked them about if somebody raises Tibet or Falun Gong on the
    campus, or they go online and they--because obviously the
    internet is completely policed, or if a woman gets pregnant and
    she's single, did not get permission by the government--and
    this is in 2016 when I had this hearing--is she forcibly
    aborted? Because we know that forced abortion is absolutely one
    of the most horrendous things. It was a crime against humanity
    at Nuremberg against the Nazis. And it's no less by the Chinese
    Communist Party.
        Scott Flipse and I went on that trip. The students seemed
    eager to hear about human rights. Not so much so with some of
    the other people, particularly the Chinese top people who were
    teaching at that institution. But I was shocked that they were
    charging an enormous amount of money to go there. I asked, who
    picks who gets in here? You know, what kind of selection
    process? I only say this because there has been shameless
    complicity on the part of our universities and colleges. Some
    may have stood up.
        Steven Mosher exposed forced abortion in China in the early
    80's. And then I started, I did an amendment on it in 1984, to
    stop any funding to the UNFPA or anybody else. Based on his
    research--Michael Weisskopf wrote a great piece for the
    Washington Post on that very thing, three-part series about how
    horrible it was--but Stanford then went to him and said, You're
    out. You're not getting your doctorate. Because they wanted
    access. So I hope that our universities, if there's any
    complicity--and I'm sure there is--with this terrible cruelty
    of forced organ harvesting, will absolutely disassociate, call
    it out. You know, maybe you're going to be denied some access.
    And we see what the business is. Sam, you remember--Mr.
    Ambassador--just how conforming American corporations are and
    continue to be to what the mantra is being spread by China and
    by Beijing, because they don't want to lose access. They don't
    want to lose their market. We saw it even during the most
    recent Olympics.
        So my thought is--again, Scott and I went over there. I
    gave a major speech on human rights. And I saw people
    grimacing. And it was a one and done. They didn't invite me
    back. But I'm just so worried about this complicity. Our bill
    will say anybody in that supply chain for forced organ
    harvesting, we're going to come after you and we're going to
    prosecute you. You know, you can't let these Falun Gong
    practitioners continue to be killed, and Uyghurs and others.
    Twenty-eight years old, as you said, 29 years old. And maybe
    Mr. Gutmann, you could further elaborate on what--and any of
    you--what do they go through? You know, when you're strapped
    down, given an anesthetic, and you know that they're going to
    kill you to take your organs, I don't know if there's a greater
    horror. I mean, all torture is horror, but this is a
    particularly cruel manifestation of torture. And it's going on
    right now.
        And as you know, Mr. Gutmann, they're talking about
    expanding, for the Uyghurs, the number of facilities available
    for this by 2030. They're not going in the direction of, Hey,
    we need to stop this. They're expanding it. I think this bill
    has to pass. The State Department, I love them, but they're not
    doing due diligence on this the way they could. This will
    empower State, HHS, the Justice Department, give them brand new
    tools to go after this horrific supply chain. And again,
    Americans go there. They get their, whatever it is, heart,
    liver, whatever it might be, facilitated by brokers. Let's put
    them behind bars as well. I just brought up the college
    because, again, Elise has done yeoman's work on how our higher
    ed has just been shameless when it comes to human rights with
    regard to Jews, the antisemitism that is rife there in many of
    those places. So if anybody would like to comment on that, I
    would appreciate it.
        Mr. Gutmann. I would like to mention one thing. I've made
    this point before, so I apologize, but I still think it's
    valid. You know, when we discovered in the 1960's that the
    Soviet Union was torturing dissidents by putting them into
    mental hospitals, the world psychiatric association responded
    by banning any contact with the Soviet psychiatrists, or any of
    their institutions. And that meant everything. It was a
    complete ban. There was no work on psychoactive drugs together
    or anything like that. Now we're looking at a very different
    situation. I mean, someone like Pfizer goes into China and
    tests Chinese citizens who've had transplants, and they're
    probably carrying around a Falun Gong or a Uyghur organ, or
    possibly even a house Christian church organ. This absolutely
    should not be defended in any way.
        And of course, from the academic perspective, they've
    absolutely not responded at all to this. This should be a
    blanket ban. That's what we had in the 1960's. I'm not saying
    it worked perfectly. I don't think it really changed Soviet
    behavior on how many dissidents got thrown into mental
    hospitals, but at the end of the day, we made a point. The
    world made a point, and today we're just looking at a kind of
    chaotic situation, I think, on contact with China.
        Mr. Jekielek. Co-chair Smith, we've gotten into this
    habit--I
    remember I interviewed you some years ago. We talked about how
    this linkage of human rights and trade was broken during the
    Clinton administration. And basically ever since then human
    rights have been off the table. They've been in these off-the-
    books or quiet dialogues, which basically both sides, from what
    we learned on reporting subsequently, viewed cynically. They
    were purely performative, basically. It makes no sense, because
    if you're--as a regime, you're treating your people in a
    particular way, in this particular egregious way, the Chinese
    Communist Party has treated hundreds of thousands of its
    people, how do they view Americans?
        This is somehow lost on people. We've gotten into this
    habit of saying, Okay, the human rights, just keep that off the
    table, got to keep it quiet, got to keep it--of course, I
    understand that the U.S. Government is raising these things in
    the appropriate venue and so forth, but--as Ambassador
    Brownback has talked about as well--it's their huge Achilles
    heel. They're doing terrible things to their own people, and we
    should make our own population here in America as aware as
    possible of that, and not play to the platitudes, or their
    propaganda--that this is all kind of false and just attacks on
    China and so forth. So I think human rights is the key.
        Ambassador Brownback. I was just going to say, Mr.
    Chairman, I thought you said something earlier that I want to
    double back to. For years China has been given a bye on this,
    and they really have, for decades. Really until President
    Trump. He's the first President since Kennedy to actually take
    them on. Now, you know, today saying all these things about Xi
    Jinping that I'm kind of questioning about, but maybe that's
    part of the negotiating tactic. I hope it is. It seems to me
    like that bye is starting to be pulled off. And they're not
    getting a bye as much anymore. And we need to get to the point
    where they don't get a bye at all. I think a key piece of this
    is just really following the money.
        As Governor I saw that our universities in our state, the
    university heads, their primary concern every morning they got
    up, was money. Money coming into the place, make sure the doors
    were operating, and I don't begrudge them that. They've got big
    institutions to run. They've got to make sure we've got plenty
    of money coming in here to run this place. That's what they're
    thinking about. And so China comes along and says, Here, we've
    got resources that you can use. That's why you've got to break
    these two economies apart. That's why the key piece of this
    actually--I think two key pieces. One, breaking the economies
    apart. And second, us standing up for human rights,
    particularly religious freedom because it's such a weakness on
    their part.
        This is one of those things, it's kryptonite to them, and
    they do everything they can to suffocate it and hold it out of
    the room. When they bring up Taiwan, we should bring up
    religious freedom. When they bring up any of these issues, we
    should bring these, because this is just something they cannot
    tolerate. It's just such an effective tool. Finally, I think we
    ought to also double back and really press about opening up the
    great internet firewall that China has. The second-largest
    economy in the world and you've got an internet firewall around
    your people? Come on. That's not leadership. That's
    suffocation. And we really should embarrass them about it.
        Co-chair Smith. You know, very interesting point about the
    internet. On one of my trips when I still could get a visa--I
    went to an internet cafe, I typed in ``torture,'' and I got
    everything about what Imperial Japan did vis-a-vis torture, and
    George Bush at Gitmo, which was false, in my opinion, but it
    was still there. Then I put in ``Manfred Nowak.'' He was
    mentioned earlier, because he did a tremendous job at exposing,
    on behalf of the United Nations, the torture there. And
    nothing. Nothing. I put in ``Tiananmen Square.'' I got nothing
    but pretty pictures of people smiling in Tiananmen Square. No
    tanks, no Tank Man, no anything. It was really amazing. And so
    we really have to find our voice more than ever right now.
        I remember meeting Wei Jingsheng after he was allowed out
    in 1994. The Chinese Communist Party thought they would get
    Olympics 2000 by doing that. They didn't get it. They
    rearrested him. But while he was out I was in Beijing. We had
    dinner together. And he says, please, will you Americans
    understand this? When you kowtow and you weakly approach the
    Chinese Communist Party, they beat us more in prison. And he's
    the father of the Democracy Wall Movement. He suffered almost
    death at the hands of his torturers. And it's like, we've got
    to find our voice and stop saying, Oh, by the way, human
    rights. It doesn't work that way. We have to be so upfront.
        And this issue of killing people--you know, I read a book
    before I came to Congress about Unit 731, where Imperial Japan
    did horrific torture against people, mostly servicemembers
    during World War II, in China. And I look at that, then I look
    at what they're doing now, and say, you know, You hated what
    happened to you. And I do too. But why are you replicating it
    in very large numbers beyond that?
        But I would like to ask, Mr. Gutmann, if you don't mind,
    walk us through, if you could, or any of you, what a victim
    goes through. They've already been typed--you know, for their
    blood type and all the other things, so that a match can
    immediately be made. You have said before that there's pretty
    much an equal male to female--number of women that are being--
    average age 28 to 29--being slaughtered, murdered for their
    organs, as well as men, young men. And if you could just--what
    is this like?
        Mr. Gutmann. I would--this is perhaps not the answer people
    want to hear, in a way, but it's actually less painful than it
    used to be. Partly because of Dr. Ko Wen-je, who pioneered this
    technique of using ECMO. That meant--originally what you would
    have to do is do very light anesthesia, because you don't want
    to put a sluggish organ into another human being. So the
    anesthesia had to be very light. And it was actually a very
    painful procedure, according to Nijat, who was a Uyghur who
    worked with the PSB. Now when he put in this new technique it
    basically meant you could put the person under full--pretty
    much full anesthesia, and you'd have the oxygenated organ. It
    would be kind of running through, so you had constant, kind of
    in a loop. You go into slow motion, but not that bad. And
    basically that meant that you could take out the organs in a
    much more rational way, and you could take them out slower, and
    one after the other, and finally the heart's the last to go.
        I don't think the person is actually feeling that much. I
    think we're--you know, if you want, we've made improvements in
    this area. Now, the problem with that is that it also means
    that the person who was worth--you could only get an organ or
    two out of them and plausibly get it to the destination--this
    is something Didi Kirsten Tatlow from the New York Times
    worried about a lot--that person is now worth a lot more money
    because you can take out maybe up to five organs successfully,
    or four organs. Before it was only one or two. Now we're in a
    very different situation, because you've got, like, 16 hours,
    24 hours to work with, with this perfusion method.
        I'm not saying it's ECMO right now. By the way, I went to
    Taiwan for six months to try to figure this out and I don't
    know which perfusion method they are using. I know it started
    with ECMO. And ECMO--this is an off-label use. For any doctors
    out there listening, I am not criticizing ECMO. It's a
    lifesaving device. It's fantastic. But this is the way it's
    been used. And we're looking at a very kind of ``Brave New
    World'' situation. I was saying that they don't take organs
    around the world. That's now possible. I'm not saying they're
    doing it, because I see no actual evidence of that, but it
    could happen.
        Co-chair Smith. But people go there to get the organs.
        Mr. Gutmann. Well, right now people go to China. But
    increasingly these techniques have led to a different world,
    where it is possible for them to fly organs out, say, to Saudi
    or somewhere like that, or Russia, or Berlin. You know, this is
    what we're kind of looking at. And it also means new
    populations are potentially at risk. I don't want to--we don't
    see the evidence for this now. As far as I'm concerned, the
    Chinese are a lot like the old Soviet Union. They like to keep
    their rocket ships landing right in the country, not in
    international waters.
        Co-chair Smith. And the average cost? How much do they
    make, like, for a liver or some other organ?
        Mr. Gutmann. Well, it depends on who's buying it.
    Obviously, if it's a foreigner it's going to be about, you
    know, $100,000 for a liver these days, or something like that.
    And more like $200,000 for a heart or lungs. Or you sometimes
    get a package deal. Now if you're Japanese and don't want to
    negotiate, you might end up paying a million. So there's a huge
    difference between, say, Koreans, Japanese, Germans, Americans,
    and so forth. But we are still talking about huge profit
    potential on every individual who's healthy and is done
    correctly. Thanks.
        Mr. Jekielek. Co-chair Smith, I just wanted to comment on
    these--the new populations. One of the things I noticed, kind
    of anecdotally, I'm very sensitive to this dehumanizing
    rhetoric that's used to target the population first, to get the
    rest of the population to kind of accept horrible things being
    done. It looked to me, anecdotally, that there's this uptick of
    that against Christians in China. And I actually talked with
    Bob Fu over here on ``American Thought Leaders,'' on my show,
    about this. And this sort of thing isn't studied empirically,
    but it really does look like, as there's this increased
    incarceration of Christians with the Zion Church, these
    restrictions on Catholic clergy and so forth, that there's this
    increase in dehumanizing rhetoric as well. I would love it if
    someone would study that empirically. But that's a big concern,
    because it's always this dehumanization that is a prequel to
    inclusion as a group for forced organ harvesting.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you.
        Mr. Walkinshaw.
        Mr. Walkinshaw. Thank you, Co-chair Smith. First, I just
    want to thank you for your many years of principled commitment
    to human rights issues and to this Commission. I'm new here but
    look forward to working with you. And thank you all for being
    here. As we sit here today, the PRC human rights atrocities
    such as forced organ harvesting--the President is participating
    in the U.S.-China summit. I think it's unfortunate that human
    rights issues don't seem to be high on the list of agenda
    topics in that summit, because for years folks here before us,
    researchers, ethics experts, survivors, and human rights
    advocates have raised alarming evidence--presented, I should
    say--alarming evidence that the PRC has systematically targeted
    Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and other religious and
    ethnic minorities for forced organ harvesting.
        As we've heard today, detainees have been subject to
    unexplained blood testing and medical screening while in
    detention camps and prisons, and many later disappeared.
    Researchers estimate that tens of thousands of individuals,
    perhaps more, have been killed to supply China's transplant
    industry. This is a profound moral crisis. And I thank all of
    our witnesses for your commitment to addressing it. This
    Commission, thanks to Co-chair Smith's leadership, has
    documented evidence showing that Uyghurs and other Turkic
    minorities detained may now be a primary source of organs
    within China's transplant system. The targeting of Falun Gong
    practitioners and Uyghurs reflects, as we've heard today, a
    broader campaign of religious persecution that includes
    Christians in China, ethnic repression, and dehumanization
    carried out by the PRC. And this Commission has to continue
    examining these allegations and working to ensure that the
    abuses are documented, and pushing for them to come to an end.
        Ms. Sidik--she can hear? Okay. Ms. Sidik, here in America
    folks might hear terms like ``detention camp'' or ``forced
    labor,'' but they might not understand what daily life is like
    in those camps and under this system. Can you just describe for
    us the atmosphere--the atmosphere of fear inside and outside
    the camps that we've heard about today?
        Ms. Sidik [through translator]. When I was sent to the
    men's camp for six months, I saw horrific atrocities in those
    camps. One example is just in a little cell, 30 to 40 men are
    locked up. They sleep on very thin blankets. The detainees had
    to crawl in and crawl out. And the interrogation room is right
    next to the classroom. So usually they take detainees out for
    half an hour, an hour-ish. We hear these extreme screams from
    these detainees. And these detainees are all chained and
    shackled. They are given little, tiny chairs to sit down. You
    could see from their faces how scared, desperate they are. And
    that they are also--you could see crying, tears streaming from
    their eyes, but there is nothing I can do. I have to be very
    careful, because it's all cameras. And so I have to watch every
    word and my action in the class.
        And in the women's prison, you can see all these women are
    like robots. You know, no hope, no life in their faces. The
    toilet is just a bucket in the cell. You know, they only dumped
    it once every 24 hours--their life is really, really horrible--
    the cell and the corridors stink because of that. All these
    women's hair is shaved. And they all have vests with numbers,
    so they are called not by name but by the vest number. And I
    could see when I was teaching them--they were sitting down--
    getting up is extremely difficult. You could see clear torture
    marks. And at times, you know, I hear they were abused and
    raped. And every Monday those women were given unidentified
    medications, so mothers who are nursing, their milk stops, and
    women's menstruation stops.
        At one class I taught about the motherland, meaning China.
    Then one lady stood up and thanked the Chinese Communist Party
    and the government for giving her the opportunity to study the
    Chinese language there in the camp. And at the same time, she
    talked about that she just had a baby and in the camp her milk
    stopped. Another young woman also said, you know, I was
    supposed to get married a week later before I was taken, all
    the wedding invitations were sent out. But I'm grateful for the
    Chinese Communist Party for bringing me here for education,
    even though I don't know where my fiance is. And some others,
    who came straight from studying overseas, despite their parents
    telling them not to come back, they returned out of love for
    their parents, their homeland. But they were taken from the
    airport, sent straight to the camps. And there they also had no
    choice but to thank the Chinese Communist Party for their
    treatment.
        Representative Walkinshaw. Thank you, Ms. Sidik, for
    sharing, and for your courage in speaking out. That's all I
    have, Mr. Co-chair. Thank you.
        Co-chair Smith. Thank you, my good friend and colleague.
        I'll just conclude--and anything you would like to add,
    please do--but first I want to thank Scott Flipse for his
    incredible leadership on this Commission, on human rights in
    general. Scott and I, and Frank Wolf, back in 1986 went to Perm
    Camp 35 in the Ural Mountains, where Sharansky--and pushed for
    the release of prisoners there. Took us two years to get into
    it. We lobbied like crazy when Gorbachev was saying, you know,
    glasnost and perestroika, all these buzzwords, that they were
    opening. And what seemed absolutely impossible, we went to the
    Ural Mountains, to this horrible place where all these
    prisoners were. Scott was indispensable to that effort, as he
    has been in Romania when we fought against Nicolae Ceausescu,
    and we had many trips there as well.
        Even the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which I
    introduced and got passed in the House and passed in the Senate
    under Marco Rubio. It is the law. It was his idea. He never
    wants to take any credit. But I just want to say how grateful I
    am for all these years of not only never-ending pushing--you
    know, Sam, how important it is to have a staffer like Scott--
    but also to be so creative. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention
    Act--a bill that is law right now and that has made a
    difference. This is the guy that did it. So I just want to
    thank him. [Applause.] He'll get mad at me later and say I
    shouldn't have done that, but I am so grateful for his
    leadership. And on this issue, it's just been incredible as
    well. So Scott, thank you for all your work on helping to put
    this very important hearing together.
        I just want to say, when our bill passed on March 27th,
    2023--the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act--it went nowhere in
    the Senate, and then passed a year ago, May 7th of 2025, when
    it passed, the Chinese embassy went into overdrive to say what
    a liar I was, that I'm making it all up--overdrive. And then
    almost at the same time, their foreign ministry said, anybody
    who wants to go to Xinjiang, nothing to hide, come on. So we
    did a letter that night when they said that and I said: I want
    to lead a congressional delegation there. I want to go to the
    camps. I want to--you know, we've done it, and we've done it
    many times. I even met with Xanana Gusmao when he was in an
    Indonesian jail, you know, way back. You can do it. And I re-
    offer that hope again, that the Chinese will let Members of
    Congress travel to China to go to places.
        You know, if you go over there and talk trade and say,
    Let's make a deal, you know, the doors are wide open. But when
    you go over there and say, Human rights matter--religious
    freedom, as Sam Brownback says, is at the very top of our
    concerns, the door is slammed shut. So I reiterate that request
    to the Chinese embassy, to allow me and others to travel to
    Xinjiang and to China. But also, we need to pass this bill. We
    need to pass it yesterday, for all those victims. And this
    atrocity must end. If anyone would like to add anything before
    we close? Again, your testimony really shows us the way. I
    thank you for that.
        All members have five legislative days to revise and extend
    and to add extraneous matter if they would like. If there are
    any additional questions from the commissioners, we will give
    them to you. And please get back to us as quickly as you can.
    The hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the hearing ended.]

    =======================================================================

                                A P P E N D I X

    =======================================================================

                              Prepared Statements

                                    ------

                      Prepared Statement of Ethan Gutmann

        In the Chinese transplant industry humans are the only element that
    can't be fully controlled. That's why I swear by field research. Over
    time, I have learned that all testimony--even that which doesn't
    support my ongoing thesis--is valuable.
        Yet I've also been observing the often-skeptical Western world.
    Camp refugees who observed the organ harvesting selection process, or
    were nearly harvested themselves, matter. But the testimony of a
    medical practitioner who was directly involved in the transplant
    process clearly matters more. I'll briefly focus on these super
    witnesses, recap current harvesting rates, touch on Uyghur deportation
    from Central Asia, and close with a few personal thoughts on policy.
        From ``The Slaughter'':
        Fifteen years ago, in a Westminster hearing, Enver Tohti, a former
    Urumqi hospital surgeon, confessed that he used his ``own hands,'' to
    extract the kidneys and liver of a wounded, but salvageable, human
    being on a Xinjiang execution ground.
        In 2013, Dr. Ko Wen-je of National Taiwan University Hospital
    agreed that I could publish the story of his quest for organs on behalf
    of his Taiwanese patients in a mainland hospital (probably Wuxi
    People's Hospital). When Ko expressed doubts about the quality of
    executed prisoner organs, his Mainland counterparts assured him that
    ``all the organs will come from Falun Gong.''
        ``The Xinjiang Procedure'' adds to this collection.
        In 2007, an accidental witness: ``Cat,'' (Mr. Sugawara), was
    assisting his Yakuza chieftain prepare for a liver transplant in a
    Beijing Police hospital. Wandering into the wrong room, Cat found a
    bound, sedated young man--wrist and ankle tendons severed. A Chinese
    surgeon soothingly explained the young ``liver donor'' was Falun Gong.
        In 2017, Sayragul Sauytbay, a teacher in a Kazakh and Uyghur camp,
    gained exclusive access to organize the camp's medical files. A red
    checkmark next to blood results signaled the individual had been pre-
    selected for harvesting. Several camp refugees recalled guards imposing
    color-coding--from pink vests to wristbands, a few nights before the
    actual disappearances.
        In 2018, ``Samal,'' an ethnic Kazakh woman, was recruited by a
    Uyghur veterinarian to extract human intestines in preparation for the
    systematic extraction of organs. Why intestines? Because their
    workspace was in a secret medical compound, four floors under a Uyghur
    and Kazakh concentration camp with sub-standard ventilation.
        And an update: While Dr. Ko knew that Falun Gong were being
    harvested, according to his Chinese colleagues, Ko became the ``teacher
    of ECMO to Mainland China''--directly instructing Chinese surgeons to
    exploit an off-label procedure for live organ harvesting. As mayor of
    Taipei and a Presidential candidate for the Taiwan presidency, Ko could
    have been the ultimate super witness. Instead, Ko was recently
    sentenced to 17 years in Taiwanese prison on corruption charges.
        Along with a hunger for medical witnesses, there is a hunger for
    scale. The full publication of witness evidence in Chapter 5 concludes:

              2.5 to 5 percent forced disappearance rate in the
            camps. (Average age 28-29. Specifications: taken at night,
            final blood/DNA test to establish health and identity).

              Assuming one million in the Xinjiang camps, forced
            labor factories, and other carceral environments, that's 25,000
            to 50,000 Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic groups harvested
            per year.

              Two to three organs extracted per individual to reach
            the minimum requirement for China's transplant industry volume:
            60,000 successful transplants per year.

              Minimum cumulative death total in Xinjiang: over
            200,000 minimum and counting.

        Some analysts recently speculated that camps are closing (it may be
    inside baseball, but I would welcome a question on this). Either way,
    forced labor organs are the same as concentration camp organs, and the
    per capita medical attention that Xinjiang receives is extraordinary.
    Beijing recently pledged ``six more human organ transplantation medical
    institutions in the region by 2030.''
        The round-up of Uyghurs from China's neighbors is also
    extraordinary. My interviews establish that 88 percent of Tajikistan's
    Uyghurs and 87 percent of Kyrgyzstan's Uyghurs have been deported back
    to Xinjiang. I also documented a new Chinese military base, just north
    of Tajikistan's Qolma Pass--about 30 miles from a Tajik mine speculated
    to contain 50 percent of the world's uranium.
        The energy and mineral reserves of the Pamir and the Kyrgyz
    mountain ranges are the ``South China Sea'' of China's western
    frontier. With Russia at war, without a U.S. presence, a new nine-dash
    line is theoretically possible.
        Regarding policy: I like all the bills. But I support passing the
    Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act first because it follows the surgical
    lead; the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation put
    the Chinese transplant industry (and implicitly, The Transplantation
    Society) on notice with an academic boycott of China in 2022.
    Withdrawal of legitimacy should now be immediate and comprehensive.
        Nothing changes without embarrassment and trauma; 1 day after my
    press conference on Ko, Taiwanese medical authorities withdrew
    immunosuppressive drug coverage for Taiwanese patients who receive
    Chinese organs. We could do that here. And instead of attempting to
    police the entire import/export medical industry, we could immediately
    investigate Thermo Fisher for providing the DNA tests used on an
    estimated 10 million Uyghurs and Kazakhs.
        A word on limitations. The Party responds to embarrassment by
    hiding, adapting, altering the production process, and adding new
    layers of complexity. Beijing loves games. So we might need to consider
    changing the stakes of the game.
        I don't have a 20-point plan, just a parting thought. Falun Gong is
    a majority Han Chinese spiritual movement. They have no choice; their
    sacred mission is to change China. And they deserve our support.
        Yet small nations rise--often it's a delayed response--when mass
    murder and wanton neglect have placed their future survival as a people
    in question. Ireland, the potato famine. Ukraine, Stalin's mass
    starvation. Israel, the gas chambers. East Turkestan, organ harvesting.
        Re-entering history is a bloody affair, yet these nations came back
    from the dead. Even if it begins as a cynical negotiation tactic, a
    tacit threat, a Uyghur state, even a democratic Uyghur state, is
    possible. The liberation of Central Asia is possible. For the Party,
    that's the nightmare scenario.
        And the most improbable scenario of all is the systematic reform of
    the Chinese transplant system. But if our first objective is to stanch
    the bleeding, apply immediate and consistent pressure. Pass this bill.
                                     ______

                   Prepared Statement of Ambassador Brownback

        We are in a clash of civilizations between the democratic West and
    its allies versus the Chinese Communist Party with its evil alliance of
    communist, authoritarian, and totalitarian regimes. The winner will
    establish how societies are conducted now and in the future.
        Western civilization is built on the Judeo-Christian ethic that
    every person has an eternal soul with immeasurable worth and dignity.
    It believes that all are endowed with inalienable natural rights that
    come from God, not government.
        Communism, on the other hand, boils man down to an economic being
    and denies the existence of these divine rights. In the Communist
    framework, all power is derived from and controlled by the government.
    It cannot and will not tolerate a power above itself.
        In pursuit of this absolute power, the Chinese Communist Party
    (CCP) today is ruthlessly crushing every religion. Their methods are
    unfathomable to most in the West, including the mass deployment of
    crimes such as forced organ harvesting.
        Disfavored religious communities are particularly targeted by the
    perpetrators of the forced organ harvesting scheme, with Falun Gong
    practitioners systematically catalogued based on biometric markers and
    then murdered for their organs. The organs of Uyghur Muslims are
    marketed to wealthy Middle Easterners as ``halal,'' in an unimaginably
    cynical perversion of their Muslim faith.
        Decades of careful research has shown that this issue is not merely
    contained within China--it's a moral blight that involves ``medical
    tourists'' from dozens of countries around the world, including the
    U.S. and its allies in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Chinese
    transplant institutions openly market organs to customers around the
    world in a global scheme that relies on the financial infrastructure
    operated by the West.
        The CCP is conducting three religious genocides as we speak--
    against Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, and Falun Gong
    practitioners.
        In addition, the CCP is training and resourcing other authoritarian
    regimes around the world with the latest in surveillance technology,
    enabling them to be better dictators by crushing non-compliant people
    of faith in their countries.
        As the leading Western civilization nation in the world, on our
    250th anniversary and founded on the principle of religious freedom for
    all, the United States must courageously stand in opposition to this
    fundamental assault on liberty. This is why I wrote the book, ``China's
    War on Faith.''
        The U.S. must embrace a policy stance that reflects the importance
    of religious freedom and China's hostility toward it:

         1.  We must act on the reality that the CCP is at war with us.

         2.  We should stand on our core principles, including defending
    religious freedom for everyone.

         3.  Religious freedom should be viewed as not only a human right,
    but as a strategic weapon we use in our theater engagement strategy
    with the CCP, just as President Reagan did with the USSR.

         4.  The President, Vice President, and Secretary of State should
    host public meetings with Chinese exiles of all religions who have been
    persecuted for their faith.

         5.  The White House or Congress should host a global summit of
    religious, democratic, and political leaders calling for religious
    freedom for everyone, everywhere, all the time--including in China.

         6.  The United States should lead a global coalition of
    governments, academics, and medical and financial institutions to
    openly condemn forced organ harvesting and take concrete steps to end
    international complicity in the practice.

         7.  We ask the President to seek from Xi Jinping the release of
    Pastor Ezra Jin, Jimmy Lai, and the nine Catholic bishops currently
    detained in China.

         8.  We ask Pope Leo to criticize China for its three ongoing
    genocides and to publicly seek the release of the nine detained
    Catholic bishops, Pastor Ezra Jin, and Jimmy Lai.

         9.  We should send the Vice President or Secretary of State to
    Dharamshala, India to meet with the Dalai Lama to discuss the future of
    Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.

        10.  We should make religious freedom a major policy focus at the
    G20 Summit we host this year.

        11.  The President should include, in his speeches commemorating
    the 250th anniversary of our Nation's founding, the central role
    religious freedom played in it and call for religious freedom around
    the world.

        12.  Our media, Hollywood, academia, and big business must start
    shining a light on these horrific practices being conducted by the
    Chinese government and no longer look the other way.

        President Trump can be the first president since President Kennedy
    to effectively confront the Chinese government. This must be a
    sustained U.S. policy, similar to our long-term policy of confronting
    the USSR, conducted by both political parties over four decades.
        We must tell the world how ruthless and barbaric the CCP is and how
    far they are willing to go to control their own people. Our most
    effective weapon to confront totalitarians is a free religious people.
    It is a weapon that the CCP fears more than our aircraft carriers or
    even our nuclear weapons.
                                     ______

                       Prepared Statement of Jan Jekielek

        Chairman, Co-Chairman, and distinguished members of the Commission,
    thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
        If there's one thing we can all agree on in America, it is this:
    the United States should not fund, enable, or participate in any system
    that rips organs from unwilling donors and treats human lives as
    disposable commodities.
        What I am about to describe is not the black-market organ trade run
    by cartels we most typically hear about. This is something far more
    systematic, and far more industrialized. It is state-sponsored killing
    of innocents, on demand, to supply a multi-billion-dollar transplant
    industry. I'll start with a telling example detailed in my book, Killed
    to Order: China's Organ Harvesting Industry & the True Nature of
    America's Biggest Adversary:

            ``An affluent German woman from Monchengladbach, with the rare
            AB blood type, struggled with alcoholism for years, and faced
            liver failure. In systems like Germany's, finding a match might
            take years, or not happen at all. Yet she obtained three livers
            in China around 2015-2019, each in just months, for
            approximately $400,000, involving a visit to China for each
            procedure. Her continued drinking, combined with anti-rejection
            medications, led to quick rejections of each liver--one about
            every 2 years.''

        How did this happen? It appears to have been indirectly facilitated
    by a major transplant center in the Eurotransplant zone which had
    listed partnerships with China on liver donor research and anti-
    rejection work as recently as 2025.
        This demand extends to Americans as well. In one well-documented
    case, a man traveled to China for a kidney transplant. He received a
    perfectly matched organ in 2 weeks, then he returned home. He was aware
    someone was killed for this
    purpose. We know this because his cousin documented the trip in the
    2009 book
    Larry's Kidney.
        Now compare that to the United States, where the average wait time
    for a new kidney is three to five years.
        To understand how this is possible, we must begin with two
    essential tools the Chinese Communist Party has perfected over decades.
        First, the creation of what the regime itself calls a ``black
    class,'' a designated enemy group that the rest of the population is
    taught to hate, fear, and see as subhuman through relentless, state-
    controlled propaganda. In the early years after 1949, the landowners
    became one of the first black classes. They were portrayed as parasites
    who had stolen from the people. The regime flooded the country with
    this message until ordinary citizens accepted, and in many cases
    participated in, the confiscation of their property and often their
    lives. During the Cultural Revolution, the educated and keepers of
    traditional culture were targeted for vilification. This is the
    pattern: designate a group as subhuman, flood the information space
    with propaganda, and the population becomes psychologically prepared
    for atrocities against the target group. The persecution of each black
    class also serves as a stark reminder to the entire population of the
    raw power of the Communist state, and what can happen to anyone who
    dares to challenge it.
        The second key tool is the infrastructure to incarcerate massive
    numbers of people at will.
        Prisons, black jails, re-education camps, and forced labor camps
    are just part of an incarceration system with capacity for millions.
        It was the Chinese communist regime's designation of Falun Gong
    practitioners as a black class in 1999, and a directive to
    ``eradicate'' them, that set the stage for ``killed to order'' forced
    organ harvesting. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient
    qigong, or slow motion exercise practice that resembles Tai Chi, rooted
    in the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
    (Another way to translate this is being True, Good and Enduring). Falun
    Gong features extensive teachings written by its founder, Master Li
    Hongzhi. It's also characterized by an unusual lack of organizational
    structure: no collection of funds, no roster (you don't ``join''
    anything, you're a practitioner if you decide to live by its
    principles), no hierarchy, and no worship of a deity. It spread by word
    of mouth in the 1990's in China, growing, by government estimate, to an
    estimated 70 million-100 million people practicing. This included
    people of all walks of life, from high-level CCP officials to migrant
    field workers, and everyone in between.
        There are different theories about why the Chinese paramount leader
    at the time, Jiang Zemin, ordered the persecution of Falun Gong
    practitioners. Perhaps it was because the number of practitioners had
    grown greater than communist party members; perhaps it was because they
    were from a broad cross section of society; perhaps because he was
    jealous of Li Hongzhi, which ample evidence shows he was. Or perhaps it
    was because the Chinese Communist Party, with its decades of
    totalitarian rule, simply couldn't abide how much individual agency
    practicing Falun Gong fostered in people. If one were to design a
    system that could withstand totalitarian control and overreach, it
    might look something like Falun Gong.
        Unlike previous black classes, large numbers of Falun Gong
    practitioners refused to be re-educated. They resisted at a scale the
    regime had never before encountered. As a result, the CCP incarcerated
    a massive number of them, and enacted an unwritten rule: all Falun Gong
    deaths in China's massive incarceration system would be considered
    suicides. In 2005, the U.S. State Department estimated that roughly
    half of all people in China's Reeducation Through Labor (RTL) system
    were Falun Gong practitioners. In 2006, the United Nations Special
    Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, reported that Falun Gong
    practitioners accounted for 66 percent of the torture cases he
    documented during his visit to China.
        This created the perfect supply for an organ industry that was
    ready to grow but needed a reliable, on-demand source.
        In any ethical transplant system such as that of the United States,
    vital organs typically come from catastrophic accidents. To reduce the
    chance of rejection, blood type and histology are also matched. Thus
    the supply of organs is always much less than the demand. Patients must
    wait months or years. The system is conditioned on tragedy. This
    creates a pool of people willing to go to great lengths for a second
    chance at life.
        The Chinese Communist Party saw this as an opportunity. As I
    recount in Chapter 5 of Killed to Order, bringing together the evidence
    gathered by different researchers and groups over the last 20 years,
    the regime took the massive population of healthy, dehumanized and
    incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners, and started blood-typing,
    tissue-typing, and organ-scanning them, and creating a data base. So
    when a patient, whether Chinese super-elite or foreign transplant
    tourist, needs a heart, liver, or kidney, a match could be quickly
    found and the prisoner killed to order. One of the earliest
    whistleblowers exposing this was a transplant surgeon, Dr. Jacob Lavee,
    whose patient in 2005 had a heart transplant scheduled and then enacted
    within 2 weeks' time.
        The years 2000-2005 saw a massive surge in growth of transplant
    hospitals in China. Ethan Gutmann, who is also testifying today,
    estimated in congressional testimony in 2016 that there were 60
    thousand to 100 thousand transplants being done in China annually.
        Tragically, after years of little to no meaningful international
    action on forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong, it was around this
    time that the Chinese Communist Party also expanded this atrocity to
    another group. They dehumanized the Uyghur Muslim population in the
    Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, incarcerated a massive number of
    them, and proceeded to use them in ``killed to order'' fashion. In
    Xinjiang, which now operates as a high-tech police state, authorities
    have gone door-to-door collecting blood and tissue samples from
    ordinary citizens in their own homes, expanding the pool of potential
    organ donors. As noted in a 2022 European Parliament resolution, a
    Beijing hospital actually advertised `` `halal organs' from Uyghurs and
    Muslim minorities.''
        The overall number of transplant hospitals has only grown,
    substantially, since then.
        It is important to note that China did not even have a nationwide
    public donor registry until 2014 and even today, it only claims about 7
    million registered donors--less than 5 percent of the United States'
    more than 170 million.
        This is why I titled my book Killed to Order. Because that is
    exactly what it is: organs delivered on a schedule, matched in advance,
    extracted from living human beings who are then discarded. It is
    industrialized forced organ harvesting made possible by the CCP's
    unique combination of totalitarian control, mass dehumanization, and
    the willingness to turn human beings into spare parts for profit, power
    and elite longevity.
        Unfortunately, the United States is not innocent in this atrocity.
    American universities and hospitals have partnered with Chinese
    transplant centers, trained hundreds of Chinese transplant surgeons,
    and conducted joint research. The NIH has funded projects involving
    Chinese transplant institutions. American companies supply critical
    immunosuppressive drugs and medical technologies used in these
    procedures. American patients have traveled to China for transplants.
    Just last year, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition
    Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter
    to Harvard University raising serious concerns about its collaboration
    with Chinese entities implicated in forced organ harvesting.
        It is critical to understand that the systematic forced organ
    harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, and members of other persecuted
    groups such as the Uyghurs, is not an isolated crime, but part of a far
    more comprehensive pattern of abuses that are inflicted on believers as
    the final stage of a violent suppression campaign.
        The official position of the U.S. Government is that the Chinese
    Communist Party is enacting a genocide against its Uyghur Muslim
    population. A number of international legal experts, including Caylan
    Ford, have concluded that these atrocities against Falun Gong also
    demonstrate genocidal intent. Communist Party documents explicitly call
    for the ``complete eradication'' of Falun Gong. The Party's 610 Office
    has directed a nationwide apparatus of persecution involving mass
    imprisonment without due process, forced ideological conversion,
    dehumanization through state media, social and economic isolation,
    torture, and extrajudicial killing.
        These actions precisely fulfill the legal definition of genocide
    under the Genocide Convention: the deliberate infliction of serious
    bodily and mental harm, conditions calculated to bring about physical
    destruction, and the targeted killing of members of the group. The
    systematic harvesting of organs from living prisoners represents one of
    the clearest manifestations of this intent to destroy Falun Gong in a
    biological and physical sense.
        As Ms. Ford so aptly concludes, China's persecutory campaign that
    includes, indeed features, forced organ harvesting, constitutes
    genocide.
        So what can be done?
        First, end all American participation in and cooperation with
    China's organ transplant system. Congress should direct the Department
    of Health and Human Services (HHS), in coordination with the State
    Department and NIH, to conduct a full audit of any U.S. ties, including
    funding, research collaborations, physician training programs, data
    sharing, or procurement partnerships, with China's organ transplant
    system. Further, HHS should immediately cease issuing or recognizing
    Federalwide Assurances (FWAs) for any Chinese institutions connected to
    organ transplantation. The FWA is the formal process by which HHS
    certifies that a foreign institution meets U.S. ethical standards for
    human subjects research. Once granted, this certification allows the
    institution to receive Federal funding and collaborate with American
    universities, hospitals, and researchers. Revoking FWAs for transplant-
    related Chinese entities would be a direct and effective way to cut off
    U.S. support.
        The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation has
    formally declared that they will not accept submissions related to
    organ or tissue transplantation from human donors in China.
        Second, sanction those involved. There are two bipartisan pieces of
    legislation that address this specifically--S. 4009 (Falun Gong and
    Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, a Senate-modified
    version of H.R. 1540) and H.R. 1503 (Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act).
    Both have passed the U.S. House near-unanimously and now await Senate
    confirmation.
        Third, expand state laws banning insurance reimbursements or public
    funding for organ transplants linked to forced harvesting in China. Six
    states have already done so--Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah,
    and Arkansas--which leaves forty-four left to go.
        Federally, the Block Organ Transplant Purchases from China Act of
    2025 (H.R. 2114, ``BLOCK Act''), still in committee, would bar Federal
    funds (Medicare, Medicaid) from covering transplants sourced in China,
    shutting down any American complicity through transplant tourism.
        Eight countries have enacted binding national laws addressing
    China-related organ trafficking and transplant tourism.
        Fourth, at the grassroots level, I hope Americans can spread the
    word, like through the End Forced Organ Harvesting satellite Rotary
    Club, so their fellow Americans and beyond know not to go to China for
    any more organ transplants.
        On the eve of the 250th anniversary of America's founding, it's
    appropriate to remember that this country was built on a foundational
    belief in the God-given rights of every individual and the inherent
    dignity of every human being. That forged
    the ethical principles that still define America: the sacred right to
    bodily autonomy,
    and the moral imperative to oppose any regime that treats people as
    harvestable resources.
        It is why America has already taken concrete steps to investigate
    at least two transplant systems that have allegedly repeatedly violated
    the dead donor rule. Yet we still cooperate with one on the other side
    of the globe that commits atrocities on an industrial scale. Let's take
    immediate action to stop that.
        Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
                                     ______

                      Prepared Statement of Kalbinur Sidik

        Honorable Chair, distinguished members, and respected committee
    members:
        Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. My name is
    Kalbinur Sidik. I am from our homeland, Uyghuristan (East Turkestan),
    from the city of Urumqi. I am a witness to the detention camps, and I
    am ethnically Uzbek.
        For 28 years, I worked as a Chinese language teacher and held
    important administrative positions at Urumqi City No. 24 Elementary
    School. Never did I imagine that one day I would be forced to teach
    inside a detention camp, or that I would become a witness to the crimes
    committed by the Chinese Communist Party against Uyghurs and other
    minority peoples.
        Today, I stand before you to speak about atrocities, including the
    possibility of forced organ harvesting. I will tell you only the
    truth--only what I personally witnessed and experienced.
        In March 2017, I was sent under a 6-month contract to teach in a
    men's camp located on a mountain in Sangfanggou Village No. 5, Urumqi
    City. The authorities told us we would be teaching ``students'' in a
    literacy training course. But they were not students. They were
    prisoners.
        They were fathers, young men, businessmen, religious figures,
    intellectuals, people from all walks of life, and ordinary citizens.
    There were also elderly men among them. They had been taken from their
    homes and imprisoned behind barbed wire, triple iron gates,
    surveillance cameras, armed guards, and locked cells.
        Every Monday, no classes were held for the detainees. Instead,
    blood was drawn from them. They were given unidentified injections.
    Afterwards, they were given small white pills. Chinese nurses told me,
    ``These are vitamins or calcium supplements. Since the detainees never
    see sunlight, the government ordered us to take care of them this
    way.''
        But I did not believe them.
        How could a government that imprisoned, starved, tortured, and
    humiliated these people suddenly care about their vitamins? No, that
    was impossible. At that time, and even now, I believe there was another
    purpose behind it.
        I also witnessed healthy men disappearing. I clearly remember one
    man named Osman. He was active in class and eager to learn. He was a
    wealthy businessman and appeared very strong and healthy at first.
    Among hundreds of people, I could easily recognize his face. Then one
    day, he disappeared. When I asked what had happened to him, I was told
    he suffered from high blood pressure and diabetes and had died on the
    way to the hospital.
        There was another man who sat at the far end of the first row in
    the classroom. He too was hardworking, and I still remember his face
    vividly. Later, he also disappeared. I was told he died from ``kidney
    poisoning.''
        I did not believe these explanations.
        Every day in the classroom, detainees were constantly replaced.
    Older and stronger prisoners were taken away, while new ones arrived.
    Familiar faces disappeared, and we were expected to accept whatever
    explanation the guards gave us.
        Later, when I testified before parliaments in various countries, I
    was asked about the disappearance of detainees and organ harvesting. I
    told them what I had heard while working in the camps.
        The special police driver who transported me, and the police
    officer assigned to accompany me, often talked among themselves. They
    said: ``Right now in our country, the `halal organ trade' is booming.
    The detoxification center in Michuan, Urumqi, has now become an organ
    transplant center.''
        I did not witness the surgeries. I did not personally see organs
    being removed. But I heard these conversations.
        Later, after hearing my testimony, a close relative and friend of
    mine living in Europe--married to a foreigner--spoke to me on the
    condition of anonymity. She personally told me that the Michuan
    ``detoxification center'' had indeed been transformed into an organ
    extraction hospital.
        In 2018, she and her foreign husband were sent there for medical
    examinations before leaving for Europe. During that process, she saw
    many young detainees wearing prison uniforms lined up under heavy
    Chinese police supervision, entering designated rooms. She also
    observed that the number of doctors had increased greatly and that
    doctors were carrying unusual containers in their hands as they exited
    the rooms. She told me this with her own mouth and begged me to speak
    about it in my testimony.
        So for the second time, I heard directly from someone I personally
    knew--someone who claimed to have seen with her own eyes that this
    place had become an organ harvesting hospital.
        In the camps, I witnessed blood collection from detainees,
    injections, forced medication, disappearances, and the secrecy
    surrounding everything.
        Therefore, if you ask me today whether I believe the Chinese
    Communist Party turned Uyghurs in the camps into a source of profit
    through a so-called ``halal organ trade,'' my answer is: ``Yes. Yes. A
    hundred times yes.''
        While I was in these camps, I witnessed horrors beyond words.
    Chinese police humiliated detainees to a level no human being should
    endure. They stripped them of their humanity. They did not call them by
    their names, but by numbers. They tried to break their minds, destroy
    their faith, and erase their dignity.
        Let me tell you more about what I witnessed, so that the world will
    never forget the genocide taking place in East Turkestan.
        When I first entered the men's camp, I walked into a building
    surrounded by barbed wire, electric doors, armed police, soldiers, and
    locked gates. The detainees were brought out from their cells. Chains
    and shackles were on their hands and feet. Many still had unshaven
    beards because they had only recently arrived. Their eyes looked at me
    with desperation--as if I had come to save them.
        But I could not save them. I could not even help them. Guards
    surrounded me everywhere. The cells were dark. The windows were sealed
    shut. The detainees slept on bare concrete floors with only a thin
    blanket. For all three meals, they received only a small Chinese bun
    and watery rice soup. They were allowed to use the toilet only for very
    short periods of time. During the entire 6 months I was there, they
    were never once allowed to bathe.
        Their bodies weakened. Their faces changed. Healthy people became
    thin, pale, and exhausted.
        I taught 4 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon--
    sometimes even 4 additional hours during inspection periods. But
    gradually I realized the purpose there was not education. The purpose
    was control.
        Later, detainees were forced to memorize ``red songs,'' patriotic
    songs praising the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping, and
    political slogans. The detainees were forced to praise the same
    Communist Party that had imprisoned them. They were forced to express
    gratitude toward the very system destroying them.
        During lessons, police would call detainees out not by name, but by
    number, and take them for interrogation. The interrogation room was
    next to the classroom. Shortly after they were taken away,
    heartbreaking screams could be heard. They were tortured with devices
    such as electric batons, electric ``tiger chairs,'' electric gloves,
    and electric helmets.
        After my 6-month assignment in the men's camp ended, I was sent to
    a women's camp located in Tugong, Saybagh District, Urumqi. There I saw
    many women and girls. Most were highly educated. Their hair had been
    cut short. They wore gray prison uniforms with blue numbered vests over
    them. Their faces were pale and lifeless.
        About 90 percent of these detainees were between 18 and 40 years
    old. The remaining 10 percent were older women, some even in their
    seventies and eighties. These women and girls were also given
    medication and unidentified injections. As a result, many of them
    completely stopped menstruating.
        Some had studied abroad. During lessons, they were forced first to
    thank the Chinese Communist Party and government before telling their
    stories.
        One woman said she had recently given birth and still had a nursing
    baby, but her breast milk had stopped.
        Another young woman said she had been preparing for marriage when
    she was suddenly taken to the camp, and that she no longer even knew
    where her fiance was. Yet she was forced to thank the government for
    providing such a ``good opportunity'' to learn the ``national
    language.'' Others said they had been taken directly to the camp
    immediately after returning from studies abroad.
        From the way these women painfully sat and stood, I could sense the
    severe abuse they had suffered. Tears constantly streamed from their
    eyes.
        In this camp, I heard about rape and sexual violence committed by
    Chinese police. I heard that guards used electric batons and other
    weapons to abuse detainees. I personally witnessed the body of a young
    girl, around 18 to 20 years old, being carried away before my eyes. I
    later heard that she had bled to death.
        Outside the camps, the control continued. The Chinese government
    placed so-called ``Chinese paired relatives''--Han Chinese men--inside
    the homes of Uyghur women, especially in homes where husbands had been
    taken to camps. Even in their own homes, these women faced various
    forms of abuse and humiliation. People were afraid to speak. Phones
    were monitored. Relatives abroad became a source of danger.
        My daughter was in the Netherlands, and we lived constantly in fear
    and anxiety. Under pressure from neighborhood committees and assigned
    police officers, we were also forced to undergo sterilization
    procedures at Changleyuan Hospital in Tianshan District. Even though I
    did not want this, I had no choice. My safety and the safety of my
    family depended on obeying government demands. That is why I say: we no
    longer had ownership over our own bodies.
        Because of time limitations, I will end my testimony here.
        I am one of the fortunate few who managed to escape after enduring
    tremendous suffering. The people inside the camps cannot speak to you.
    They have no way to make their voices heard. I am standing here today,
    at enormous personal cost, to tell you this truth--because the men who
    disappeared, the women who were abused, the mothers separated from
    their babies, and the families destroyed by this genocide need
    witnesses.
        Honorable Chair, distinguished leaders, and committee members: I
    ask you not to turn your eyes away from this tragedy.
        The horrific violence taking place in East Turkestan is not merely
    a crime. It is part of a system that sees Uyghurs--the original
    inhabitants of that land--as less than human. This is genocide. The
    world once said, ``Never again.'' Yet in East Turkestan, it is
    happening again. I ask the U.S. Congress never to forget the Uyghur
    genocide. I urge you to continue investigations and hold the Chinese
    Communist Party accountable.
        Thank you.
                                     ______

                     Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith

        Last September, the world heard something chilling.
        As Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un walked together in
    Beijing, a hot mic picked up an unguarded conversation about organ
    transplants and the possibility of living to 150 years old.
        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.
        Today, this 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.
        Let me be clear: ethical organ transplantation is noble and
    lifesaving. But what we are examining today is the 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.
        I chaired my first hearing on forced organ harvesting thirty years
    ago, on June 18, 1996. Since then, the evidence has become more
    disturbing, more detailed, and more compelling.
        The most persistent allegations in China centered first on Falun
    Gong practitioners--peaceful men and women targeted by the Chinese
    Communist Party for eradication. Later came mounting evidence
    concerning Uyghurs, already victims of genocide in the Uyghur region;
    Tibetans; Christians; death row inmates; and others treated as property
    of the state.
        Experts, like Ethan Gutmann, have documented how this atrocity
    expanded from death row prisoners to prisoners of conscience and
    religious detainees. The China Tribunal concluded that forced organ
    harvesting has been committed in China for years, on a significant
    scale. Witnesses at previous hearings have warned us about military
    hospitals, impossibly short wait times, organs available on demand, and
    a transplant system that cannot withstand scrutiny.
        And yet Beijing now asks the world to believe the problem has been
    solved. It says its transplant system now meets international
    standards. And once again, the disappointing and corrupt WHO takes
    Beijing's claims at face value--just as it did in the early days of
    COVID.
        But today, this Commission has received rare and extraordinary
    eyewitness accounts from inside the Chinese gulag itself: Ali
    Motevalian's written submission details his incarceration in a PLA-
    linked prison hospital near Shanghai, and Kalbinur Sidik's testimony
    from the detention camps of the Uyghur region. Together, their accounts
    shatter Beijing's fiction that its transplant system is voluntary,
    transparent, and compliant with international standards.
        Ali Motevalian spent years inside China's prison system. His
    submission describes coerced thumbprints on so-called consent forms,
    bondage, tranquilizers, ``last rooms of terminal patients,'' prisoners
    taken to surgery and not returned, mobile freezer carts, and bodies
    moved toward incineration. His account strikes at the heart of
    Beijing's favorite defense. The Chinese Communist Party told the world
    it had ended the use of executed prisoners' organs. Ali says otherwise.
        Inside the prison hospital system, in 2020 and 2021--years after
    Beijing told the world it had stopped taking organs from prisoners--Ali
    says he saw unconscious, shackled men, known as ``sleepers,'' brought
    by armed personnel directly into surgery rooms. They never returned.
    That is not voluntary donation. That is execution by organ extraction.
        Kalbinur Sidik brings us inside another part of the Chinese gulag:
    the camps of the Uyghur region. I will not summarize her testimony in
    detail, because in just a few minutes she will speak for herself. But
    her account shows a system where human beings are reduced to numbers,
    where the state controls the body as well as the mind, and where
    coercion and fear are used to destroy dignity.
        The prison hospitals and gulag described in these testimonies are
    not places of care, rehabilitation, or education. They are crime
    scenes--part of a system of coercion, medical abuse, and genocide in
    China.
        Organ crimes are not just a China problem. It is a global one that
    flourishes wherever coercion, poverty, corruption, secrecy, and demand
    intersect.
        That is why Congress must act.
        The House has twice passed my legislation with overwhelming
    bipartisan support. H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of
    2025, passed the House 406 to 1.
        It would criminalize forced organ trafficking, impose serious
    sanctions, require reporting, deny visas, and create penalties of up to
    20 years in prison and up to a $1 million fine for knowing complicity.
        This bill is not 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 the United States, and your freedom.
        The Senate has not acted on the bill, but they must. Delay is
    denial.
        Every day without consequences is another day perpetrators operate
    in the shadows, witnesses are intimidated, evidence disappears, and
    families never learn what happened to their loved ones.
        Forced organ harvesting is barbaric. It is systematic. It is state-
    enabled. And it is big business.
        And, speaking frankly, no one wants Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin to
    live forever. I suspect on this point there would be broad bipartisan
    agreement. But behind that dark irony is a deadly serious point: no
    dictator, no party boss, no wealthy patient, and no broker should be
    able to purchase longevity with the organs of the poor and persecuted.
        That is all the more reason to pass the Stop Forced Organ
    Harvesting Act and make unmistakably clear that the United States will
    not stand by in the face of such cruelty. Not with our expertise. Not
    with our money. Not with a dollar of American complicity.
        Thank you.
                           Submissions for the Record

                                    ------

                     Statement of Seyed Alireza Motevalian

    Chinese Prisons and Organ Harvesting

        My name is Seyed Alireza Motevalian, commonly known as Ali. I am an
    Iranian-born refugee and a victim of wrongful imprisonment in the
    People's Republic of China. I lived in China as a businessman from 2009
    until 2023. I was arrested in Shanghai with my Chinese wife, Jessica
    Liu Zhiyu, on May 2, 2013. We were formally arrested on June 8, 2013,
    tried in 2014, and convicted under Article 225 of the Chinese Criminal
    Code for alleged illegal business operations outside the scope of our
    business license.
        My sentence was 10 years. My wife was sentenced to 8 years. Several
    of our staff received shorter sentences. I maintained my innocence
    throughout my imprisonment and served my full sentence. My wife was
    released earlier but was not allowed to leave China after her release.
        I am submitting this statement because during my incarceration I
    spent extended periods inside Shanghai Prison's General Hospital,
    located within the Nanhui Prison campus in Shanghai's Pudong District.
    There, I observed a repeated institutional pattern that I understood to
    be non-consensual organ procurement from prisoners. My observations
    were not based on one incident. They came from repeated hospital stays,
    repeated transfers through the building, views from hospital-room
    windows, encounters in corridors and controlled areas, and
    conversations with convict orderlies, doctors, and other prisoners.

    My imprisonment and transfer to the prison hospital

        After our conviction and the rejection of our appeal in 2015, I was
    transferred to Shanghai's Qingpu Prison in 2016. My wife was
    transferred to Shanghai Women's Prison.
        After exhausting legal remedies, I began a hunger strike in Qingpu
    Prison in March 2018. By May 2018, my health had deteriorated badly,
    and I was sent to Shanghai Prison's General Hospital at Nanhui Prison.
    From 2018 to 2021, because of my hunger strikes and related medical
    problems, I was moved repeatedly between Qingpu Prison and Nanhui. I
    describe this as 13 round trips, or 26 transfer legs. I spent much of
    that period inside the prison hospital and became familiar with its
    layout, personnel, routines, and movement patterns.
        During this period, I suffered kidney failure and immune-system
    failure. I required dialysis, IV fluids, antibiotics, tube feeding, and
    other treatment. I believe the prison authorities kept me alive in part
    because consular officials visited me. Chinese prisoners did not have
    that protection.

    Coerced consent and restraints

        As soon as a prisoner was admitted into the hospital, he was
    required to thumbprint a consent form. When I refused, I was placed in
    bondage, injected with a tranquilizer, and my thumbprint was taken
    while I was immobilized.
        This was not an isolated method used only against me. In the
    hospital, prisoners who did not respond to commands could be put in
    bondage. This included the deaf, the mentally ill, prisoners who had
    lost cognitive function, prisoners who refused food, Uyghur prisoners,
    and prisoners facing death sentences.
        Bondage meant being strapped by all four limbs to a bed, with
    another strap across the chest. Prisoners were tube-fed, attached to IV
    lines, placed in diapers, and sometimes catheterized so that they could
    remain strapped down for long periods. After extended bondage, the body
    became stiff and wasted. When my straps were opened to send me back to
    Qingpu, I could not move and had to be taken by wheelchair.
        I saw many immobilized prisoners. In the second room next to what
    prisoners called the ``last room,'' all nine patients were strapped
    down. In the last room itself, at any given time, I usually saw at
    least two or three of the nine patients strapped down. Bondage was a
    regular part of the hospital's control system.
        The daily care and control of these prisoners was carried out
    largely by convict laborers, known as laodong. They were selected from
    younger, stronger prisoners and worked as orderlies. They wore white
    overalls, carried notepads, had watches, moved around the building, and
    were trained by nurses. They also enforced discipline. They had
    privileges ordinary prisoners did not have, including better food, more
    movement, and contact with doctors and nurses. Patients, by contrast,
    often could not move, speak, write, read, or contact the outside world.

    The hospital did not function like a normal hospital

        The facility did not operate like an ordinary hospital with
    meaningful specialist care. Dr. Liu, who was head of the doctors, told
    me there were no specialists when I asked to see one. I saw no
    specialist wards such as cancer, cardiovascular, kidney, ophthalmology,
    or other ordinary treatment departments.
        The building had approximately five patient wings, each with around
    100 beds, or roughly 500 beds total. Yet I understood there were only
    about eight doctors, and from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. only one doctor was on
    duty for the whole facility. There was no proper ventilation and no
    shower. There was a dentist, but the only dental procedure available
    was extraction. There was no eye doctor. No new spectacles entered the
    prison or hospital for years; even a foreign consulate might have to
    press for a year to obtain new glasses for a prisoner.
        Several doctors, including Dr. Liu and others, told me they were
    military-trained or assigned through the military or prison medical
    system. I observed medical personnel wearing white coats over uniforms.
        What made the hospital especially strange was the contrast between
    the lack of normal specialist care and the size and activity of the
    surgery area. The facility did not function like a hospital designed to
    cure prisoners. It functioned like a prison holding-and-surgery
    facility.

    The fourth-floor surgery area

        I have drawn a sketch of the fourth-floor layout from memory. The
    fourth-floor surgery area occupied a large, controlled section of the
    building near the elevator and away from ordinary visitor access.
    Visitors were generally kept on the first floor and did not go
    upstairs.
        Based on the symmetry of the east and west wings, and my experience
    moving through both wings on the third floor, I estimated that the
    surgery area could contain at least seven rooms. The exact number is
    less important than the fact that the surgery area was large, active,
    controlled, and hidden from ordinary visitors.

    The ``last room''

        As my condition deteriorated, I was moved to what prisoners called
    the ``last room.'' This room was for prisoners who could no longer be
    cured enough to return to manual labor. Many were elderly, terminally
    ill, or severely disabled. Others were younger prisoners whose
    illnesses had been left untreated until they could no longer work.
        The turnover in the last room was constant. Patients were taken out
    and replaced by others. Every morning, I could hear which bed numbers
    were scheduled for surgery. At first, I thought the surgery was a final
    attempt to save their lives. When I asked whether the surgery had
    succeeded, I was told yes. When I asked why the patient did not return
    to the room, I was told the patient was ``back there,'' with staff or
    laodong pointing to the rear of the building.
        Laodong orderlies identified the rear area as an incineration or
    cremation area. I saw smoke coming from the chimney in the area they
    identified.

    The surgery pattern and freezer cart

        The pattern I observed was repeated. A prisoner would be selected
    for surgery. Doctors would meet about the subject patient. In the early
    morning, the prisoner would receive a tranquilizing injection. Laodong
    orderlies would press the prisoner's thumb onto a red ink pad and
    thumbprint a consent form. The prisoner would then be rushed to the
    surgery area.
        By around noon, a mobile freezer cart would emerge from the surgery
    area and be transferred by elevator to a van waiting in the yard. The
    cart was moved quickly and under guard. The body or coffin was handled
    separately and later moved toward the rear incineration area by laodong
    workers.
        This separation was important. The freezer cart was not treated
    like an ordinary body. It was rushed, guarded, and moved to a waiting
    vehicle. The body or coffin followed a different route and was handled
    with far less urgency. From the repeated sequence--surgery, non-return
    of the patient, guarded freezer-cart transfer, and separate body
    disposal--I understood the freezer cart to be carrying organs or other
    valuable biological material.
        This same process applied to female prisoners as well. I saw women
    taken from the fifth floor to the surgery area, and they did not
    return. There were four ``last rooms'' that I knew of: two on the third
    floor, one on the fourth floor closest to the surgery area, and one for
    female prisoners on the fifth floor.

    The ``sleepers'' brought from outside

        In addition to the moribund prisoners already inside the hospital,
    I saw unconscious or deeply sedated prisoners brought from outside on
    rolling stretchers. Their limbs were restrained to the stretcher rails.
    They were accompanied by armed People's Armed Police personnel. The
    prisoners were taken quickly through the elevator and toward the
    surgery area.
        I witnessed this in several ways. I was repeatedly transferred
    through the hospital and more than once crossed paths with these
    unconscious, restrained prisoners. My room also had windows on both
    sides. From one side, there was a view toward the gate; from the other,
    I could glimpse internal traffic toward the surgery area.
        I recognized the role of the People's Armed Police because I had
    previously worked in Qingpu Prison's death-row cell block, Block Number
    Nine. In Qingpu, I had seen PAP personnel come to take death-row
    prisoners away in vehicles. I later saw similar PAP personnel in the
    prison hospital bringing unconscious, restrained prisoners toward
    surgery. Their uniforms, weapons, behavior, and the reaction of other
    prisoners and staff made clear that these were not ordinary hospital
    patients.
        Based on what I saw in Qingpu's death-row block and later inside
    Nanhui, I understood these ``sleepers'' to be death-row or execution-
    related prisoners being brought into the surgery process.

    Known deaths of prisoners

        I also personally knew foreign prisoners who died in custody. Two
    of my former Qingpu cellmates, Steven Lien from Canada and Francisco
    Rondon from Colombia, died after becoming seriously ill. I had shared a
    prison room with them and was present when they died.
        Their deaths shaped my understanding that seriously ill foreign
    prisoners were not meaningfully protected by medical parole or by the
    fact that foreign consulates knew about their cases. I believed medical
    parole should have been available to such prisoners. In practice, I did
    not see it operate meaningfully for foreign prisoners.

    Broader prison conditions

        In Qingpu Prison, I saw many elderly, disabled, and seriously ill
    prisoners. All prisoners were required to work if they were physically
    able, and even severely weakened prisoners were expected to report to
    the labor area rather than remain in bed during work hours. At various
    times, I remember making greeting cards for the UK store Tesco and
    packaging for Quaker Oats. Some prisoners had to push other prisoners
    in wheelchairs to the labor area because prisoners were generally not
    allowed simply to remain in bed during work hours. A prisoner had to be
    almost unable to work before being sent to Nanhui.
        I also saw prisoners at Nanhui who appeared to have been brought
    from outside Shanghai, including from Fujian Province. From this, I
    believed Nanhui served more than one prison or locality. I cannot say
    how many provinces used it, but it appeared to function as a central
    prison hospital facility for seriously ill or selected prisoners.

    My release and continuing hardship

        After I was released and deported at the end of my sentence, I had
    nowhere to go. I served my sentence in full because I never accepted
    the verdict and insisted on my innocence.
        Although my wife had already been released from prison, she was not
    allowed to leave China and was not allowed to have a passport. This was
    like continued punishment after serving the sentence. I went first to
    Sri Lanka and then to Vietnam to wait for her to somehow flee China. I
    was robbed several times by people in Vietnam and Cambodia who claimed
    they could help bring my wife out but failed to do so.

    Conclusion

        I understand that what I describe is grave. I am giving this
    statement because I lived inside this system and saw its routines over
    time.
        The organ-harvesting pattern I observed was repeated and
    institutional. Prisoners were restrained or incapacitated,
    thumbprinted, taken to surgery, and did not return. A freezer cart then
    moved quickly from the surgery area to a waiting van, while the body or
    coffin was handled separately toward the rear incineration area.
    Unconscious restrained prisoners were also brought from outside under
    armed PAP escort and taken directly toward surgery.
        Based on the repetition, the layout, the behavior of guards and
    laodong workers, the separate handling of the freezer cart and body,
    the lack of ordinary specialist medical care, and the large, controlled
    surgery area, I understood this as non-
    consensual organ procurement inside the prison hospital.
        I hope my statement helps the Congressional-Executive Commission on
    China understand what occurs inside Chinese prison hospitals and why
    these facilities require urgent investigation.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              Witness Biographies

        Ethan Gutmann, senior research fellow in China Studies at the
    Victims of Communism Memorial Fountation

        Ethan Gutmann is a senior research fellow in China Studies at the
    Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and co-founder of the
    International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China. He is the
    author of ``The Slaughter,'' co-author
    of the influential 2016 investigative report ``Bloody Harvest/The
    Slaughter: An
    Update,'' and author of the newly published ``The Xinjiang Procedure,''
    based on interviews with Uyghur and Kazakh refugees throughout Central
    Asia.

        Ambassador Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador at Large for
    International Religious Freedom, 2018-2021

        Ambassador Sam Brownback is a former United States Ambassador-at-
    Large for International Religious Freedom, a former United States
    Senator, and the 46th Governor of Kansas. He has spent decades
    advancing human dignity and religious freedom around the world. He
    currently serves as co-chair of the International Religious Freedom
    Summit and chairman of the National Committee for Religious Freedom. He
    is also the author of ``China's War on Faith,'' which examines the
    Chinese Communist Party's campaign against people of faith.

        Jan Jekielek, senior editor, The Epoch Times and host, ``American
    Thought Leaders''

        Jan Jekielek is senior editor at The Epoch Times and host of
    ``American Thought Leaders.'' He is a journalist, documentary
    filmmaker, and author of ``Killed to Order: China's Organ Harvesting
    Industry & the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary.''

        Kalbinur Sidik, eyewitness to the forced labor and internment camp
    system in the Uyghur region, and author of the forthcoming book ``Heart
    Full of Light: Love, Loss, and Survival Inside China's Gulags''

        Kalbinur Sidik is a survivor of China's genocide and an eyewitness
    to the forced labor and internment camp system in the Uyghur region. Of
    Uzbek ethnicity, she served for many years as an elementary school
    teacher before being forced to work as a Chinese-language instructor in
    internment camps. She has testified before Western parliaments and the
    Uyghur Tribunal in London and is the author of the forthcoming book
    ``Heart Full of Light: Love, Loss, and Survival Inside China's
    Gulags.''

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