In The News

By Steve Lance

The House on Tuesday passed the bipartisan Falun Gong Protection Act, the first federal bill to target the Chinese Communist Party’s decades-long persecution against the spiritual practice. NTD caught up with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa), who wrote the bill at the Capitol.

Watch the interview here. The full transcript of the interview is below. 

Steve Lance: Congressman Scott Perry, thank you so much for joining.

Scott Perry: It's great to be with you. Thanks for the opportunity.

Steven Lance: It's great to have you, Congressman. You wrote a bill called the Falun Gong Protection Act. It finally passed through the House in unanimous voice votes.

Scott Perry: Right, voice vote.

Steve Lance: How important was it to get this passed, and what does it mean?

Scott Perry: Well, it's so important because the United States, as the beacon of freedom around the world, to be silent on what's happening over decades to the Falun Gong, especially things like the torturing, the incarceration, the forced organ harvesting, to not hear anything from the greatest free country on the planet, that silence is deafening. And so finally, we are in the arena of voices that say this cannot continue, you can't continue to do business with the Communist Chinese Party and have people buying Chinese products and so on and so forth, not knowing, not realizing that there's concentration camps in China where they forcibly harvest, they take they cut out the organs of the people that they're incarcerating. It's unconscionable and unbelievable. This is something out of the 30’s in the Third Reich with Josef Mengele, you know. So yes, we want to say something this is unacceptable you must stop it you must be held accountable for these atrocities.

Steve Lance: In a time where Capitol Hill can be so hyper partisan, how special was it for you that there were no nays, and everybody came together?

Scott Perry: Well, I think that all of America for sure and much of the world is looking for something that we can all agree on. And so, it is wonderful that every single voice said yes. Organ harvesting and the persecution of the Falun Gong, Falun Dafa, must end. Every single person in Congress said yes to that.

Steve Lance: Your bill also highlighted a situation with the United Nations where doctors against forced Oregon harvesting who's done a ton of research in investigating this organ harvesting. They gathered three million signatures, and yet the UN, the High Commissioner on Human Rights, has done nothing. Why do you think that is?

Scott Perry: Well, because China has influenced the UN. They don't want any of this to be known. Steve, understand this. In China, there's no waiting list for an organ transplant if you need one. Now, what does that mean? Most people don't even think about that. But what that means, practically, is that there's a ready supply of organs of any kind of any type what have you because they're taking them from living people. I mean it's the most horrific thing you can imagine and for the UN to be silent and for the UN to accept it and for the UN to not crack down on China. It cannot continue. We want to recognize that, we want to acknowledge that, and we want to put pressure on the UN to do the right thing. The United Nations, not just the nation of China telling everybody what to do and what to say and what to think and what not to see. We're the United Nations saying that this is unacceptable. It's outrageous.

Steve Lance: Talk to us about what message the sanctions that you put in that bill send to Beijing.

Scott Perry: I think the message is, and it should be, that anybody that's involved in that supply chain. And think about what that supply chain looks like, Steve. So, China might send people to the United States of America to practice and to learn organ transplant surgery, but if it involves at any time forced organ harvesting, you could be penalized financially greatly. And so, it's a hopefully we'll put a chilling effect on anybody in the supply chain anywhere because those organs are harvested in China, but they're not necessarily only sent to China. They might be sent all around the globe. If we find out that you're in the supply chain and you're involved in that, you're in trouble.

Steve Lance: This is the first time a bill of this sort to protect Falun Gong with sanctions and meaningful legal action has ever been passed in the House of Representatives. This comes about three weeks before the 25th anniversary of that persecution, July 20, 1999. What is your message to the practitioners who've endured persecution and are still facing life and death in China as we speak?

Scott Perry: That the world is awakening to these atrocities. Hang on. Hope should be alive. Hope needs to be alive. It's not happening fast enough, but it is happening over time. We are recognizing what China has done, not just us. Now the United States House of Representatives, hopefully soon the Senate, a presidential signature, and the world, and these atrocities can end, and these Chinese people that are just hoping to practice their religion, which is non-confrontational, they can do that freely, which is what all people all around the world want to do is follow their own personal beliefs.

Steve Lance: Congressman Scott Perry, thank you.

Scott Perry: Thank you.