(Minghui.org) Known as the Home of Presidents, Virginia is the birthplace of eight U.S. presidents, including George Washington, the first president, and James Monroe, the fifth president. To further strengthen the American spirit of freedom and liberty, the county of Westmoreland unanimously passed a resolution on April 22 calling on the U.S. government to “thoroughly investigate organ transplant in China” and stop forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.

This is the 10th county in Virginia that has passed such a resolution this year to address this hideous crime. The newly passed resolution says solid evidence has confirmed organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and other religious and ethnic minority groups.

The resolution also warned, “Westmoreland residents should be fully informed of the organ source in China before they make the decision to engage in organ transplant tourism in China and the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors should assist in raising awareness in this regard.”

Below is the full text of the resolution:

To educate Westmoreland residents and the medical community on the risks of traveling to China for organ transplant in light of recent reports of state-sponsored organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience

Whereas, extensive and credible reports have revealed mass killing of prisoners of conscience in the People’s Republic of China, primarily practitioners of the Chinese spiritual practice of Falun Gong, but also other religious and ethnic minority groups, in order to obtain organs for transplants; and

Whereas, The China Tribunal, an independent tribunal sitting in London chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who was a prosecutor at the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, concluded on June 18, 2019, in an unanimous determination at the end end of its yearlong hearings, that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants is continuing and victims include imprisoned followers of the Falun Gong movement; and

Whereas, the 2017 Freedom House Report, “The Battle for China’s Spirit,” states that “available evidence suggests that forced extraction of organs from Falun Gong detainees for sale in transplant operations has occurred on a large scale and may be continuing”; and

Whereas, an investigative report published in June 2016 by human rights attorney David Matas, former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, David Kilgour, and journalist Ethan Gutmann, estimated that China is performing transplants at a rate amounting to “an industrial-scale, state-directed organ transplantation system, controlled through national policies and funding, and implicating both the military and civilian healthcare system”; and

Whereas, Falun Gong, a spiritual practice involving meditative “qigong” exercises and centered on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, became immensely popular in China in the late 1990s with multiple estimates placing the number of practitioners at upwards of seventy million (70,000,000); and

Whereas, in July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched an intensive, nationwide persecution designed to eradicate the spiritual practice of Falun Gong. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained extralegally in Chinese reeducation-through-labor camps, detention centers, and prisons, where physical and mental torture is common.

Whereas, in June 2016, the United States House of Representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 343, condemning the systematic state-sanctioned organ harvesting from practitioners of Falun Gong and other prisoners of conscience; and

Whereas, Westmoreland residents should be fully informed of the organ source in China before they make the decision to engage in organ transplant tourism in China and the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors should assist in raising awareness in this regard;

Now therefore, be it resolved that the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors urges the United States government to thoroughly investigate organ transplant practices in China and take full reasonable steps to end the practice of nonconsensual organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners; and

Be it further resolved that the residents and the medical community servicing Westmoreland and the immediate region be informed about the risks of travel to China for organ transplants to help prevent local citizens from becoming accomplices in state-sponsored forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience; and

Be it further resolved that copies of this resolution be provided to the Governor of Virginia, Virginia’s General Assembly, Virginia’s congressional delegation and two U.S. Senators, and the Virginia Department of Health.

Date of Adoption: April 22, 2021

Darryl E. Fisher, ChairmanBoard of SupervisorsWestmoreland County