(Minghui.org) Chris Smith, co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) and a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, issued a press release on July 18, 2025, condemning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong and interfering with Shen Yun Performing Arts.
U.S. Representative Chris Smith
At a widely attended human rights forum on Capitol Hill this week, Congressman Chris Smith underscored the severity and intensity of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP's) campaigns to suppress and silence the voices of dissidents and other pro-democracy advocates, including those who escaped to the United States, and wrote a press release, which is available at chrissmith.house.gov.
In his speech, Rep. Smith emphasized the CCP’s transnational repression tactics, especially those targeting Falun Gong practitioners. “Many here in this room are unfortunately familiar with the tactics the CCP uses to target individuals and groups, especially adherents to Falun Gong. Even the most peaceful demonstrations of freedom of expression have been targeted, including the Shen Yun Performing Arts shows around the world,” he said.
In particular, Rep. Smith described the CCP’s numerous threats against Shen Yun performances for “showing China before communism,” including the targeting of performance venues, event sponsors, as well as show performers and their families in China.
In 2024 Rep. Smith introduced a House legislation to impose property and visa-blocking sanctions on foreign persons who engage in transnational repression, requiring the Department of State to develop an anti-transnational repression strategy, and directing the State Department and the Department of Justice to train employees and the intelligence community at large on the warning signs of transnational repression, and also highlighted recent increases in the frequency of threats carried out by the CCP in the United States.
“In recent years, there’s been an uptick in these threats, even right here in Washington, D.C., as evidenced by the bomb threat called into the Kennedy Center this year in advance of Shen Yun’s performance,” he explained. “This is in addition to the sudden barrage of bomb and death threats directed earlier this year, not only at Shen Yun performers, but also Falun Gong practitioners and members of Congress supportive of Falun Gong.”
Besides the CCP’s suppressive acts of transnational repression, Rep. Smith also criticized the CCP’s barbaric and vicious practice of forced organ harvesting.
“Every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping, tens of thousands of young women and men—average age 28—are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into communist party members and leaders,” he continued. “These crimes against humanity are unimaginably cruel and painful. Between 2 to 6 internal organs per victim are extracted. It is murder masquerading as medicine.”
In closing, Rep. Smith discussed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act (H. R. 1503) that he introduced, which recently passed the House by a margin of 406 to 1. He also called on attendees to contact their Senators so that the bill would be brought to the Senate floor for a vote.
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