(Minghui.org) In its 2014 annual report issued on April 30, 2014, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended the State Department to designate China as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) based on “systematic, egregious, ongoing” abuses of religious freedom. 

The report highlights that the Chinese regime “has not sufficiently answered accusations of psychiatric experimentation and organ harvesting.” This would make it 15 consecutive years that China has been designated as a CPC.

It also points out the role of prisons and extralegal centers, also known as black jails or brainwashing centers, after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claimed to have shut down the labor camp system in 2013.

“China maintains an extrajudicial security apparatus, the 6-10 Office, to stamp out Falun Gong activities and created specialized facilities known as 'transformation through reeducation centers' to force practitioners to relinquish their faith,” the report states: “As many as 2,000 individuals are estimated to be detained in these extralegal centers. There are 486 known Falun Gong practitioners currently serving prison sentences.”

The report also contains a section about abuses of human rights defenders: “In the past year, officials beat lawyers who sought access to arrested Falun Gong and Protestants or to clients in 'black jails' where individuals are held without charge. In July, 13 lawyers were barred from assisting Falun Gong clients during their trial in the port city of Dalian.”

USCIRF emphasized in its transmittal letter to the US President, House Speaker and Secretary of State: “With religious freedom abuses occurring daily around the world against people of all faiths and none, it is critical that the United States bear witness to these violations and recommit itself to meeting these challenges.”

This year marks the 15 ^th anniversary of the establishment of USCIRF, an independent federal advisory body created by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) to monitor religious freedom abuses abroad for the US government.