David Curry, a commissioner for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is calling for the Biden administration to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and entities responsible for the death of Pang Xun, a Chinese journalist who died in jail in December at 30 years old for adhering to his faith in Falun Gong. Pang’s deceased body showed marks of torture all over, and his mother pointed to his back that was swollen up in red, likely due to beating.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has documented hundreds of similar sentencings of Falun Gong adherents in their latest report, “some of whom have tragically died in custody due to abuses.”
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that encourages adherents to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, and teaches a set of meditative exercises. It has been under a violent persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China since 1999, and millions have suffered from various forms of imprisonment during the campaign, and an untold number of adherents have died from the state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting.
Prison authorities claimed that Pang had died of hyperthyroidism, a condition that guards never mentioned during the family visits over the roughly 1.5 years of Pang’s imprisonment. Pang was sentenced to five years in prison for handing out informational flyers challenging the CCP’s state propaganda vilifying the practice in order to suppress it.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) believes “more people ought to be speaking out about” the human rights violations the regime has committed, and he recently filed a lawsuit against Beijing for concealing the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic and allowing it to spread to the world.
The State Department said that it “continues to consider all appropriate tools to promote accountability for those responsible for human rights violations and abuses in the PRC and elsewhere” and called on the PRC government to “immediately end its abuse and mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, release those imprisoned due to their beliefs, and address the whereabouts of missing practitioners.”
When defending a Falun Gong practitioner during a Feb. 17 court hearing in China, lawyer Xie Yanyi said the judge interrupted him at least seven times, eventually ordering the police to detain him. To Xie, it was a premeditated act designed to deprive his client of her right to legal defense.
David Curry, a commissioner for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is calling for the Biden administration to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and entities responsible for the human rights violations and abuses against Falun Gong adherents. The Commission’s latest report has documented hundreds of similar sentencings, some of which have resulted in death due to abuse. Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that encourages adherents to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, and has been under persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) has filed a lawsuit against Beijing for concealing the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic and allowing it to spread to the world, and the State Department is “considering all appropriate tools to promote accountability” and called on the PRC government to “immediately end its abuse and mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners.”