On July 9th, 2015, officials in China detained over 300 lawyers and human rights activists. Using fabricated charges, many were put on trial and imprisoned. Others disappeared. Still others were tortured and forced into televised confessions. This was named the 709 crackdown after the date on which it began.

Ten years later, China continues to commit human rights violations. This past Tuesday, July 8, 2025, the China Aid Association & Shining Light Media presented a panel discussion on Capitol Hill: “Ten Years after the 709 Crackdown: Symposium on Rule of Law & Religious Freedom under Xi Jinping,” which included Family Research Council’s president, Tony Perkins, as well as Bob Fu, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for International Religious Freedom. They, along with other experts, discussed the various ways in which China is still violating human rights and how America can keep China accountable.

Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.) pointed out that 10 years after the 709 crackdown, the Chinese communist assault on the legal profession, particularly those who defend human rights, has not ceased.

“Lawyers who challenge official abuse or defend the poor and persecuted are punished, disbarred, or jailed. The regime has transformed the legal system into an extension of the party’s apparatus, compelling lawyers to demonstrate fealty to the CCP and abandon cases deemed politically sensitive,” Smith observed. “This is the weaponization of law, turning instruments of justice into tools of repression, forced disappearances, the pervasive use of torture, denial of due process, and absence of defense counsel. These practices violate China’s international obligations and contradict its own domestic legal standards.”

Almost every panelist also mentioned the horrific human rights assault of organ harvesting, which the Chinese Communist Party has been doing to targeted ethnic groups.

“Each and every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping, tens of thousands of young women and men, average age 28, are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into Communist Party members and leaders,” Smith emphasized. “It is murder masquerading as medicine. Ethnic groups targeted include the Uyghurs, who suffer from Xi Jinping’s ongoing genocide. … It has now morphed and evolved into a huge industrial-sized human rights abuse. I have many hearings. We’ve had several. We’ve heard from one doctor who actually did them.”

“Just this morning, the British Daily Telegram reported that the Chinese government has decided [that] by 2030 they will increase six more organ transplant centers in [the] Xinjiang region alone,” Fu remarked. “That will make Xinjiang with nine organ transplant centers with only 26 million people, with only 0.4% of the people signed [up] for organ donation.”

Although the House passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act almost unanimously (406-1) two months ago, Smith said they cannot get it out of the Senate. He urged everyone present at the panel to talk to their senators, asking them to bring the bill, H.R. 1503, forward. 

“We’ve passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, and Uyghur Forced Labor Act, among many other initiatives. All of them make some difference. They have not made the difference yet. So, we’ve got to continue striving,” Smith insisted.

Almost 30 years ago, the Chinese government agreed to uphold the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, though it still has not ratified the agreement. Dr. Sophie Richardson pointed out that China continues to violate that document.

“That document could not be clearer on the topic of religious freedom. People have a right to believe and to worship or not as they see fit. It’s an individually held right. And yet the Chinese government continues to insist that it’s a right that Beijing has to give or to take away or to regulate or to dictate. The Chinese constitution remains nakedly in tension with what international law sets out,” Richardson remarked. “[People have spent] five, 10, 15 years in prison on charges for having done things that are entirely protected under international human rights law.”

After detaining and imprisoning multiple human rights defenders in the 709 crackdown, China began its Uyghur genocide in 2017, forcing them into political re-education, labor, torture, and more. Just a year later, China began doubling down on persecuting its underground Christian population. This May, the CCP outlawed all missionary activity, officially criminalizing evangelism.

“You know, Solzhenitsyn got it right in his Gulag Archipelago,” Smith noticed. “He said, ‘You think communism is atheistic? No, it’s militantly atheistic. They hate God.’ It’s not a matter of just saying we don’t agree. They hate God. And everything they do in China today reflects that.”

“There are no better citizens than Christian citizens — those who seek to love their neighbor, live peaceably, and honor authority as Jesus taught,” Perkins declared. “[Jesus said] to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. But in China, the Communist Party sees that distinction not as virtuous but as dangerous. … They want the things that belong to God. And we cannot surrender those things which belong to God, to any government, to the CCP.”

Perkins referenced FRC’s recent study, “Chinese Families and the Impact of Religious Persecution.” “In interviews, nearly every participant shared a moment when their faith or their family’s decision to keep the faith was shaken by persecution. They recount scenes of being threatened at work, interrogated at school, or watched in their homes,” Perkins recalled. “Make no mistake, the goal of persecuting some is to intimidate all. China’s government believes that fear can silence the gospel. But I have news for them. It will not. … I saw a headline at Beijing Signals that a summit with President Trump must include concessions on Taiwan. Well, I would say the concessions need to be that China must ensure that religious freedom is a part of every conversation we have with them about trade.”

“America cannot be silent,” Perkins concluded. “We must engage China on its religious persecution. If we ignore the cries of the persecuted, we betray the very values we claim as Americans to uphold. Let us stand with the Chinese people,” he said. “Let us stand with the church in China. Not only with our words, but with our policies and our priorities. Your courage should awaken the courage of Americans to take the torch of freedom,” he urged. “Traverse the globe with the hope that every man, woman, and child was created by a Creator God to breathe free and to enjoy the choices that only God can give man. That is, to honor him and to choose him. Every human being has that right to make that choice, and America must stand with the Chinese people to have that choice.”