In August 2024, a Falun Gong practitioner named Cheng Pei Ming became the first known survivor of China’s organ harvesting system. Two years later, researchers gathered in Montreal delivered an even more troubling update: the practice didn’t stay contained to Falun Gong practitioners. It spread to a second, much larger group — Uyghurs — and … Read more
On June 17, 2026, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced S.4009, the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, sending it toward a possible full Senate vote. It’s a bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and it arrives just days after the Supreme Court closed … Read more
On June 23, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court closed the courthouse door on a group of Falun Gong practitioners who had spent fifteen years trying to hold Cisco Systems responsible for helping China hunt them down. The 6-3 ruling didn’t decide whether Cisco actually built the surveillance tools the plaintiffs described. It decided something bigger: … Read more
Two groups of people call Shen Yun a cult — and they mean different things by it. Understanding who is saying it, why, and what they offer is the only way to think clearly about one of the most contested performing arts companies in the world. TodayWhy examines both sources of the “cult” label on … Read more
In the summer of 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched what would become the longest sustained campaign of religious persecution in modern Chinese history — targeting a meditation group that, by the government’s own earlier assessment, had done nothing but improve the health and morality of tens of millions of citizens: Falun Gong China. Twenty-seven … Read more
If you search for Falun Gong online, you will quickly encounter two sharply different characterizations: a persecuted spiritual movement whose practitioners have been tortured, imprisoned, and killed for their beliefs — or a dangerous “evil cult” that China was right to suppress. The gap between these descriptions is not a matter of interpretation. It is … Read more
In August 2024, a 58-year-old man named Cheng Pei Ming stood before a press conference in Washington D.C. and pulled back his shirt to reveal a 35-centimeter scar running across his chest. He was, investigators said, the first known survivor of China’s forced organ harvesting program. The reason there are so few survivors, human rights … Read more
Every year, thousands of people see Shen Yun’s advertisements plastered across bus stops, newspapers, and social media. Many buy tickets expecting an evening of classical Chinese dance. Few realize they are watching a performance born from one of the most severe religious persecutions of the 21st century — and that the Chinese government is actively … Read more