Former Official Calls for Federal Action on Beijing’s Repression of Falun Gong on US Soil

A former State Department official has urged stronger protection for Falun Gong practitioners amid escalating CCP threats in the United States.

Robert Destro, former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, speaks at a briefing about the Chinese regime's forced organ harvesting, at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington on Sept. 4, 2024. Alex Martin/The Epoch Times

A former U.S. human rights official, Robert Destro, has called on Washington to address the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners on American soil.

Destro served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor under the first Trump administration, and is a law professor at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law.

“The first thing I'd like [the U.S. government] to do is work on the repression of Falun Gong here in the United States,” Destro said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

“Like when you get on an airplane, they say, ‘Put your own face mask on first, and then help the people around you.’ We need to make an example of what’s happening here in the United States to Falun Gong.”

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation practice centered around the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It rapidly gained popularity in China during the 1990s, and by the end of the decade, it is estimated that there were between 70 million and 100 million practitioners.

However, in July 1999, fearing that Falun Gong’s popularity was a threat to its rule, the CCP launched a brutal persecution campaign, aiming to eradicate the spiritual discipline. Since then, millions have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, torture, forced labor, and forced organ harvesting. The communist regime has also used its state-controlled media and influence over foreign press to bolster the persecution.

Destro stated that the United States must begin by safeguarding Falun Gong practitioners within its borders.

“They need to enforce the Falun Gong’s rights here,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of Falun Gong practitioners here. Are they being harassed? Are they being threatened? We’ve got to tell that story.”

Transnational Repression

According to whistleblowers from within the CCP, Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2022 ordered a global escalation of repression against Falun Gong and Shen Yun Performing Arts—a New York-based dance company founded in 2006 to revive traditional Chinese culture and present “China before communism.”

According to a December 2024 report by The Epoch Times, in a secret meeting in 2022, Xi expressed dissatisfaction with previous efforts to silence Falun Gong practitioners, complaining that past measures had been ineffective.

According to Yuan Hongbing, a Chinese dissident who shared the details with the publication, Xi called for aggressive deployment of disinformation and lawfare to undermine Falun Gong globally, including by defaming the reputation of its founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi.

The effort is led by China’s Ministry of State Security and Ministry of Public Security under the supervision of the CCP’s top political-legal body, said Yuan, a former law professor at Peking University living in exile in Australia, who has maintained ties to Beijing’s top political echelon.

Xi is said to have specifically urged the use of social media accounts and mainstream media with no traceable ties to the CCP.

Since then, the CCP’s transnational repression efforts have ramped up in the United States.

Between March 2024 and June 2025, Falun Dafa Information Center documented 154 threat incidents—including bomb, shooting, and arson threats—targeting Falun Gong and Shen Yun’s theaters and training facilities. Most of these threats occurred on U.S. soil.

Cheng Peiming: Organ Harvesting Survivor

Destro noted that the documentary “State Organs: Unmasking Transplant Abuse in China” is “a great idea because it tells the story” of the CCP’s forced organ harvesting atrocities, with Cheng Peiming as the first known survivor.

Cheng, who began practicing Falun Gong in 1998, was arrested for his faith in 2001 and later subjected to forced organ harvesting at Daqing Fourth Hospital in Heilongjiang Province. He survived, bearing a 14-inch (35-centimeter) scar across his left side. Medical experts have verified that portions of Cheng’s liver and lung were surgically removed.

Cheng is also a victim of the CCP’s transnational repression. Since publicly recounting his story in mid-2024—including appearances in Washington and testimony at documentary screenings—he has encountered a series of alarming incidents.

Most notably, according to Falun Dafa Information Center, on Nov. 2, 2024, unidentified individuals broke into his home in New York state during the early morning hours. The garage door was forced open, two interior doors were left ajar, and deep tire tracks were found in the backyard. Cheng’s security system went offline for several hours during the incident. A police report was filed later that morning.

This was not the first such incident. In October of that year, after Cheng spoke at a screening of “State Organs” in Delaware, he discovered that his car had been intentionally scratched, according to Falun Dafa Information Center. On two separate occasions, it said, “nails were also found lodged in his tires,” and in one incident, this caused a tire to burst while he was driving.

Leaked meeting notes from an insider at Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau, obtained by Falun Dafa Information Center, reveal that Chinese authorities are pursuing a three-pronged strategy: coercing Cheng to return to China, persuading him to retract his testimony regarding organ harvesting in exchange for safety guarantees for his family, and, if those fail, eliminating him while staging his death as a suicide.

“[Cheng’s public testimony] has caused a big stir and the top leaders of the CCP have taken it very seriously ... all departments are dealing with Cheng Peiming, all wanting to take credit and get rewards,” the insider was quoted as saying by Falun Dafa Information Center.

A Threat to Everybody

Destro suggested that Falun Gong practitioners must tell their stories repeatedly to convince the public that transnational repression is a real problem and to urge the U.S. government to pay attention and take action.

He said that the threat posed by the CCP affects more than just Falun Gong practitioners.

“Repression is not just about Falun Gong. It’s about everybody,” he said. “What they did to cover up COVID was repression, too.”

The CCP’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020—including its concealment of the virus’s origins and early spread, as well as underreporting deaths—has been widely blamed for triggering the pandemic that resulted in millions of infections and deaths worldwide.

Zhang Yi contributed to this report.