Virginia’s Middlesex County Passes Resolution to End Organ Harvesting in China

(Minghui.org) The Middlesex County council of Virginia passed a resolution on August 3 condemning the persecution of Falun Gong in China and the crime of forced organ harvesting committed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Officials on the council thanked practitioners for providing the information, which helped them to understand the importance and urgency of the situation. 

Two practitioners spoke at the Middlesex County council meeting on August 3, 2021. The council passed the resolution on August 3.

Chairman of the Board: A Truly Sad Situation

Wayne H. Jessie is the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Middlesex County

Wayne H. Jessie, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said he was unaware of the forced organ harvesting by the CCP from Falun Gong practitioners and prisoners of conscience. 

“The CCP is inhumane to do this to its own people. It is really tough to think this kind of thing is happening, I cannot imagine any human being will do this to another person,” he said. “But it is happening in a communist country which is very, very disturbing and very sad.”

Impressed by the efforts of the practitioners, Jessie said this resolution will not only help local residents to be informed, but also further spread the message and help resolve the situation. 

Vice Chairman: It Is Genocide and Crime Against Humanity

Vice Chairman John B. Koontz talked about the significance of the resolution in an interview.

Vice Chairman John B. Koontz said he heard about organ harvesting for the first time three or five years ago. Back then he considered this something far away as if it had nothing to do with him. 

But when Falun Gong practitioners visited the council office last month and talked about their personal experiences, he could feel the reality of this tragedy in China. In fact, the CCP officials were not elected into office. When an American or someone from other countries requested organs for transplant, the CCP could do anything to meet that request for money, including torture and murder, he pointed out. 

He said that is nearly a terrorist act. It is absolutely a genocide and it is against humanity, he said. Many counties in Virginia have passed such resolutions, and he hoped this could happen in all states. 

He said that such resolutions could also be a bridge for the American public to learn how Falun Gong or other groups are suppressed in China. “That is why the awareness is critical on a grassroots level, because until you believe that organ harvesting is actually happening, Americans are very unlikely to take action,” he said. “But you can get people’s hearts and minds to understand that the CCP is literally destroying people--I think that is the only way to really bring changes here.” 

He pointed out that people need to be aware that the cheap Chinese merchandise in the supermarket comes from slave labor. He said, “Such exploitation is line with organ harvesting because the CCP does anything it can for its own benefit even if it means harming others or killing. When ordinary citizens in the U.S. are clear on this, they would know the connection between buying cheap goods from China and the suppression.” He added, “As many counties are passing resolutions like this, the U.S. federal government will hear this: we cannot tolerate this and we need to take action to stop the brutality in China.”

A PDF version of the resolution can be downloaded from here. Below is the full text:

“Middlesex County Board of Supervisors

“RESOLUTION

“To educate Middlesex County Residents and Medical Community on the Risks of Traveling to China for Organ Transplant in Light of Recent Reports of State-Sponsored Organ Harvesting From Prisoners of Conscience

“WHEREAS, extensive and credible reports have revealed mass killing of prisoners of conscience in the People's Republic of China, primarily practitioners of the Chinese spiritual practice of Falun Gong, but also other religious and ethnic minority groups, in order to obtain organs for transplants; and

“WHEREAS, The China Tribunal, an independent tribunal sitting in London chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, concluded on June 18, 2019, in a unanimous determination at the end of its year-long hearings, that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing and victims include imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement; and

“WHEREAS, the 2017 Freedom House report, ‘The Battle for China’s Spirit,’ states that ‘available evidence suggests that forced extraction of organs from Falun Gong detainees for sale in transplant operations has occurred on a large scale and may be continuing’; and

“WHEREAS, an investigative report published in June 2016 by human rights attorney David Matas, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, David Kilgour, and journalist Ethan Gutmann, estimated that China is performing transplants at a rate amounting to ‘an industrial-scale, state-directed organ transplantation system, controlled through national policies and funding, and implicating both the military and civilian healthcare systems’; and

“WHEREAS, Falun Gong, a spiritual practice involving meditative ‘qigong’ exercises and centered on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, became immensely popular in China in the late 1990s with multiple estimates placing the number of practitioners at upwards of seventy million (70,000,000); and

“WHEREAS, in July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched an intensive, nationwide persecution designed to eradicate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained extralegally in Chinese re-education-through-labor camps, detention centers, and prisons, where physical and mental torture is common. 

“WHEREAS, in June 2016, the United States House of Representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 343, condemning the systemic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from practitioners of Falun Gong and other prisoners of conscience; and

“WHEREAS, there has been little media coverage of this problem, yet dozens of Middlesex County citizens petitioned the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors to take up this matter; and

“WHEREAS, Middlesex County residents should be fully informed of the organ source in China before they make the decision to engage in organ transplant tourism in China and the Middlesex County Board should assist in raising awareness in this regard;

“NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors, that we condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the persecution of Falun Gong and the state-sponsored organ harvesting of all prisoners of conscience currently being carried out by the Chinese Communist regime; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we urge the United States government, to thoroughly investigate organ transplant practices in China and take all reasonable steps to end the practice of nonconsensual organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the residents and the medical community servicing Middlesex County and the immediate region be informed about the risks or travel to China for organ transplants to help prevent local citizens from becoming accomplices in state-sponsored forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience; and

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this resolution be provided to the Governor of Virginia, Virginia’s General Assembly, Virginia’s congressional delegation and two U.S. Senators, and the Virginia Department of Health.

“Adopted by the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors on August 3, 2021.”