Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for their leadership, for their support for human rights in China and, indeed, around the globe. I also want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), for joining me in introducing this bipartisan resolution that has garnered over 180 cosponsors. Many may not know this, Mr. Speaker, but Mr. Connolly has been working on these issues ever since he was a staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I am proud to have introduced H. Res. 343 alongside my friend from Virginia, a resolution that condemns China's ongoing, gruesome practice of harvesting organs from nonconsenting prisoners of conscience and religious and ethnic minorities. Falun Gong practitioners have long faced an intensive persecution by the Chinese Communist Party and, according to Freedom House, in 2015, comprise the largest portion of prisoners of conscience in China. I was extremely disappointed to read that the State Department's latest human rights report for China quoted a Chinese official's unsubstantiated claim that any harvesting of organs from prisoners would now be voluntary. China has been well-known to produce the majority of organs it uses for transplants from executed prisoners, people who are deprived of their freedom, unable to give their voluntary and informed consent to donate their organs.…”