Adherents of Falun Gong and community supporters gathered in Philadelphia’s Chinatown on Saturday to hold a public rally to expose the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) state-sponsored campaign of forced organ harvesting and to urge the U.S. Senate to swiftly pass pending bipartisan legislation opposing it.
The CCP, fearing that Falun Gong’s popularity threatened the regime’s power, launched a brutal persecution campaign in July 1999 aimed at crushing the practice. Since then, untold numbers of practitioners have suffered arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and forced organ harvesting.
Survivor Recalls Narrow Escape
A central moment of the rally came from survivors’ testimony. Tian Zhongfeng, an 82-year-old practitioner originally from Anhui Province, China, shared that she suspected she was close to being killed for her organs after her March 2006 arrest.
“I was handcuffed to a bed, and a doctor checked me every morning, saying my health was all right,” Tian said. “Although the doctors and nurses refused to talk to me, they kept injecting me with drugs, hurting me terribly. When I overheard a phone conversation between a security guard and her family, I knew it was an operating room for heart surgeries, making me suspect I would become a victim of organ harvesting.”
Tian recalled a strange visitor who evaluated her while she was incapacitated.
“When I told him I was detained for practicing Falun Gong, the security guard asked him to talk outside on the balcony. The guard said, ‘Her body is very good, just her head was injured once in the past.’ When the man left, he looked at me again without talking. The way he looked at me was weird, as if he was looking to buy me.”
After Tian resisted and called for help, she said, a sympathetic physician quietly intervened during a shift, leading another doctor to pronounce her organs damaged following an unusual injection. She was returned to a labor camp and subsequently released to her family before eventually fleeing to the United States in 2012.
“My bones felt like they were freezing, while my skin felt like it was on fire. My legs were stiff, and I had sharp pains from time to time,” she recalled of her condition upon returning home.
Medical Advocacy Against Global Complicity
Dr. Jessica Russo, representing Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), addressed the crowd on the systematic nature of China’s transplant abuses. “The most egregious form of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners, one more evil than anything we have seen in our lifetimes, is forced organ harvesting,” Russo said.
“Forced organ harvesting is the killing of innocent people for their organs. In China, prisoners of conscience make up the victim pool, with Falun Gong practitioners being the largest group of victims, as well as Uyghurs, Tibetans, house Christians, and others.”
She said the practice operates on an industrial level distinct from global black markets.
“Forced organ harvesting in China is driven by financial gain; it is considered to be a $9 billion industry, but primarily, it is a crime of genocide,” she said.
“A follow-up study in 2016 examined the number of organ transplants performed in China, which was found to be between 60,000 and 100,000 per year. Yet the number of voluntary donors in China is small—about 0.03 percent, or just over 300,000 people. Compare this to the U.S., which has 145 million people on the donor list and yet conducts only about 40,000 to 45,000 transplants per year.”
Russo also warned against Western complicity in sustaining these operations.
“Transplant centers in the U.S., and there are many in Pennsylvania, train Chinese surgeons who will likely go back to China and commit these murders. Pharmaceutical companies—28 in total, mostly based in the U.S.—are conducting clinical trials in China for transplants, and medical supply companies are providing materials for China’s transplants,” Russo stated, urging attendees to contact lawmakers and sign the petition for S. 4009.
“Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said, ‘Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’”
A Call for Action
Aaron Bashir, president of the nonprofit American Real Voice, gave an impassioned speech highlighting the universal moral obligation to defend persecuted groups.
“Just imagine that because of your beliefs and your faith, someone takes you to a hospital and takes your organs away,” Bashir said.
“Your kidney is gone, your heart is gone, your liver is gone, and no one even knows about it. By the time your family finds out, it is too late. ... I urge all of my colleagues, I urge all politicians, regardless of party lines, to please say yes to this bill to support and protect the Falun Gong community.”
In an interview with The Epoch Times during the rally, Bashir said: “People need to know that someone’s brother, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter, someone’s father, or someone’s husband and wife is dying every single day. As a human being out of good conscience, and as a Christian who loves God and other humans, I cannot ignore that.”
Speaking to The Epoch Times ahead of the rally, Delaware state Rep. Michael Smith said the United States must defend victims of authoritarian regimes.
“The atrocities committed by the Chinese Communist Party against the people have been horrendous, and we need to take a stand about that as Americans,” Smith said. “I think America has always been a welcoming country, and sometimes we have to signal to the people living here in our country who have come from those oppressive areas that we have their back.”
Dr. Mike Katz, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Delaware and a former state senator, echoed the need for federal accountability.
“As a physician, I can tell you I’ve spent my career looking out for the safety and health of every human being, not only in the U.S. but around the world,” Katz said. “And I call on our senators and members of Congress to make sure they are signing on and supporting bills for our government to cease forced organ harvesting in China.”
Public Voices
During the rally, local residents and visitors stopped by information displays to learn about the issue and sign petitions directed to U.S. senators.
Jesse Deussing, a business owner from Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, voiced shock upon learning about the forced organ harvesting in China.
“Oh my gosh! I can’t believe they are doing this kind of stuff. It’s illegal, and they shouldn’t be able to do it. It’s not right—they kill people alive,” Deussing said. “I know that’s horrible, and they shouldn’t be able to do that. We need to call somebody, and we are going to call the governor to tell him he needs to stop this and help out.”
Trish Lockett, a Delaware special education advocate, highlighted the broader human duty to intervene.
“In America, we have a lot of different things going on with our political state right now, and I think campaigning out very important news happening around the world is crucial. As a human, no matter what country you reside in, we should always be willing to support and protect one another,” Lockett said.
Amy, a security professional from Alexandria, Virginia, remarked on the need for continued public rallies.
“We’ve learned about the organ harvesting in China from the CCP. I knew a little bit about it, but I didn’t know how bad it was. ... It’s super important. We need more protests like this to give out that kind of information and spread awareness.”
Mula, an artist and writer from Maryland, signed the petition on-site to demand institutional accountability.
“Official action is needed. We have representation, and we need to speak to those representatives so they listen. A petition is one way to do that.”
