Thurs., May 14: Rep. Chris Smith to chair hearing on forced organ harvesting“A Market Built on Victims: Stopping Illegal Organ Trafficking in China and Beyond”

On Thursday, May 14 th , Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), will chair a congressional hearing on the systematic, widespread, and nonconsensual removal of human organs for transplantation—often described as forced organ harvesting or illegal organ trafficking—occurring within the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Reports by researchers, human rights advocates, and medical ethics experts have raised serious concerns that prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, and other political and religious prisoners, have been targeted within a state-enabled transplant system. This hearing will bring renewed attention to evidence of forced organ harvesting in China, the relationship between religious persecution and transplant abuse, and how international medical, academic, commercial, and government actors have failed to confront or prevent these atrocities. WHAT : Congressional hearing on what the United States and its allies can do to address this heinous global crime and examine additional steps that can be taken to hold both PRC officials and organ traffickers accountable for their roles in perpetuating it. WHEN : Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 10:00 AM WITNESSES : (Partial list) Ethan Gutmann, Senior Research Fellow in China Studies, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation; author of The Xinjiang Procedure and The Slaughter Ambassador Sam Brownback, Senior Fellow, Pepperdine University; former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom; former U.S. Senator and Governor of Kansas; author of China’s War on Faith Jan Jekielek, Senior Editor, The Epoch Times; Host of “American Thought Leaders”; New York Times best-selling author of Killed to Order Kalbinur Sidik, survivor of China’s genocide and eyewitness to forced labor camps WHERE : 2247 Rayburn House Office Building and livestreamed here WHO : Chairman Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Co-Chairman Chris Smith (R-NJ), other members of the Commission, and witnesses ###