More than half a million people around the world have signed a petition calling on the Group of Seven and other countries to take action against the Chinese communist regime’s practice of harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience.The petition, launched by Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) and The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China in July 2024, has garnered 505,970 signatures from 34 countries as of Dec. 15.The petition seeks to have the governments of the Group of Seven nations—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK—as well as Argentina, Australia, India, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan, take the lead in standing up against the Chinese regime’s crimes of forced organ harvesting. The abuse targets prisoners of conscience such as detained Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, and other ethnic and religious minorities.Weeks before their announcement, a global group of hundreds of lawmakers jointly pledged to advance legislation to ban forced organ harvesting.DAFOH said the petition campaign will continue, with organizers now aiming to reach 1 million signatures by June 2026.“We address the issue of forced organ harvesting directly to sovereign governments to inform them about the wish of the people to stop such horrible transplant abuse in our civilized world, while at the same time address it to the executive branch, the decision-makers in those governments,” DAFOH Executive Director Dr. Torsten Trey recently told The Epoch Times.“To see this support from people around the world is promising. Not only do we let people know what China has done in the past 25 years of persecuting Falun Gong, but we also create a platform for people to not stand idle but to contribute to ending it, one signature at a time.”Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline rooted in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Introduced to the public in China in 1992, the practice gained traction through word of mouth, attracting an estimated 70 million followers, according to official estimates at the time. However, by 1999, the Chinese Communist Party, perceiving the group as a threat to its rule, started a brutal campaign to eradicate it.The petition page highlights the findings of the London-based China Tribunal, which concluded in 2019 that the Chinese regime had for years engaged in forced organ harvesting on a significant scale, with Falun Gong practitioners being the primary victim group.Trey pointed out that his organization previously held a petition campaign to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights on the same issue from 2012 to 2018, drawing participation from more than 3 million people. However, that campaign ran into “a complex network of rules and regulations,” he said, and the United Nations ultimately took no verifiable action.It took three months to set up the current petition campaign, Trey said, noting that it will continue regardless of changes in the top leadership of these countries. Given the speed of signature gathering, he said, he believes that the petition has great potential to gather support from millions of people.“Every freedom-loving person and every person of faith wants to see this heinous, gruesome persecution and forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners being stopped,” Trey said.The petition urges the 14 countries’ leaders to issue a joint declaration condemning the Chinese regime’s forced organ harvesting, to call for its immediate end, and to implement an intergovernmental action plan. According to the petition, this plan should involve instituting measures to protect citizens from getting transplants in China, suspending transplant-related cooperation, holding annual parliamentary hearings on the issue, and beginning investigations to seek accountability.Susie Hughes, executive director of The International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China, told The Epoch Times that the large number of signatures collected so far “is a powerful signal that the world is no longer willing to ignore forced organ harvesting.”“This extraordinary global response shows that forced organ harvesting is no longer a marginal human rights issue,” Hughes said.“For our organization, it demonstrates the significance of a substantial body of evidence that has been independently examined by legal, medical, and human rights experts and is recognized as credible and compelling.”The persecution of Falun Gong continues to this day, with many practitioners of the spiritual discipline imprisoned in detention facilities, labor camps, and brainwashing centers. Minghui.org, a website dedicated to tracking the persecution of Falun Gong in China, has reported forced labor, torture, and deaths.DAFOH Deputy Director Harold King said he and many others involved are in awe of the various nonprofits that have held signing events around the world in support of the campaign.“People instinctively understand the danger that these crimes represent,” he told The Epoch Times.He said he hopes that the number of signatories will move politicians and policymakers to “consider the risks of working with the Chinese Communist Party in any domain.”
More Than 505,000 Sign Petition Urging Countries to Act Against CCPs Forced Organ Harvesting
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