13th Virginia County Condemns Beijing’s 'Intolerable' Forced Organ Harvesting

Robert F. Babyok, Jr. (C), chairman of Louisa County board of supervisors, and local resident hold the resolution condemning forced organ harvesting in China, in Louisa County, Va., on May. 17, 2021. (Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times)

Three more Virginia counties adopted resolutions in May condemning the forced organ harvesting perpetrated by the Chinese Communist regime.

Since last year, officials from 13 Virginia counties have adopted resolutions against Beijing’s forced organ harvesting practices. In May, three counties of Virginia, including Caroline, Culpeper, and Louisa, had taken a stance against the issue.

“We want to make sure this message gets out because we feel it’s important,” said Robert F. Babyok, Jr., chairman of Louisa County board of supervisors. “All Americans should be aware of this travesty that’s happening in China.”

Residents are called to be “fully informed of the organ source in China” as “there has been little media coverage of this problem,” said the statement intended to curb organ transplant tourism to China.

"This is one step closer to maybe giving an answer to China and saying, 'Hey, enough is enough,'" Jack Frazier, one of the Board of Supervisors in Culpeper County, said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Jack Frazier, of the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors in Virginia, speaks at a board meeting on organ harvesting resolution on May 4, 2021. (Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times)

"It's just something that should not be happening. When you really look at it, it's murder," he said. "That's the only way that you can look at it. I mean, you cannot take people's organs and, you know, remove them from their bodies."

Allegations of China’s removing vital organs from prisoners, who died in the process, for transplant surgery first surfaced in 2006, and based on over 18 different kinds of evidence.

More evidence was then presented in extensive reports, including a judgment by an independent tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who previously led the prosecution of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes.

The London-based China Tribunal concluded in January 2019 that forced organ harvesting had taken place in China for years “on a significant scale,” with Falun Gong practitioners being the “principal source” of human organs.

Falun Gong, a spiritual practice, consists of meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

Twenty-two years ago, the Chinese communist regime launched a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong, and subjected more than 70 million adherents to harassment, detention, forced labor, torture, and forced organ harvesting.

The independent tribunal’s report mentioned that other minority groups such as Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists, and house church Christians are also subject to the abuse.

“In the strongest possible terms,” the Louisa County Board of Supervisors condemn “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.”

In the Epoch Times interview on May 13, Babyok said he hoped that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would “stop these intolerable, horrible procedures.”

“It definitely is a good approach,” said Babyok, speaking about the sanction against a CCP official announced a day before, “but it is maybe the first step ... in a long road.”  He expects there could be actual “enforcement,” not just sanctions, to stop the crime eventually.

On May 12, the State Department announced the sanction against Yu Hui, a former director of the agency tasked explicitly with persecuting Falun Gong in Chengdu city.

The legislation reintroduced in the Senate and the House may shed light on the issue.

In early March, U.S. lawmakers reintroduced legislation to stop China’s state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. If enacted, the measure would authorize the U.S. government to deny or revoke passports for people who engage in the illegal purchase of organs.

For years, there have been a number of congressional hearings and resolutions condemning forced organ harvesting. Texas Senate lawmakers unanimously passed a resolution in April condemning the Chinese regime’s forced organ harvesting and urging the United States to take a more aggressive stance on the issue.

Eva Fu and Sherry Dong contributed to this report.