US Lawmakers Denounce CCP’s ‘Unrelenting’ 23-Year Persecution of Falun Gong

A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers has decried the Chinese communist regime’s campaign to eradicate the spiritual practice Falun Gong, an ongoing persecution that is now in its 23rd year.

“For far too long, the Chinese Communist Party has abused their power and committed egregious human rights violations against those who practice Falun Gong,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a statement. “Over the past two decades, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been imprisoned, and tortured, and murdered by the CCP.”

“But perhaps more unsettling than this unrelenting persecution is that China has been able to commit its atrocities with impunity,” Cruz continued. “I unequivocally denounce China’s inhumane treatment of Falun Gong’s adherents and demand that the CCP protect their lives and their freedom.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaks during a hearing to examine U.S.-Russia policy at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Dec. 7, 2021. (Alex Brandon/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline with slow meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Since its introduction in 1992, the practice spread quickly in China with around 70 to 100 million people practicing by the end of the decade, according to official estimates.

Seeing the practice’s popularity as a threat, the CCP launched an expansive campaign of persecution on July 20, 1999. Since then, millions have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with more than over 4,700 documented deaths as a result of persecution, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. However, owing to strict censorship in China, the actual death toll is likely to be many times higher.

“I take this moment, not only to speak out against the persecution of Falun Gong