Delaware Festivalgoers Voice Outrage Over Forced Organ Harvesting in China

Amid cultural celebrations at the Baila Con Dover Latin Festival at the Green in historic downtown Dover, Delaware, on Aug. 29, an informational booth hosted by local Falun Gong practitioners drew steady attention from festivalgoers, civic leaders, and political candidates seeking to raise awareness of human rights abuses in China.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline and meditation practice with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The practice was first introduced to the public in 1992 and quickly grew by word of mouth to reach an estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners in China by the decade’s end.

In July 1999, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), fearing that Falun Gong’s popularity threatened the regime’s power, launched a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice. Since then, many have suffered arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and even death from forced organ harvesting.

Volunteers at the festival demonstrated the gentle Falun Gong exercises, distributed educational literature, and collected petition signatures supporting S.4009, the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act.

Introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and reported by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 27, 2026, the bill seeks to impose sanctions on foreign persons facilitating organ trafficking, mandate comprehensive U.S. State Department reporting, and prevent American medical institutions from aiding abusive transplant practices. A companion measure, the Falun Gong Protection Act (H.R. 1540), passed the House of Representatives unanimously in May 2025.

Firsthand Experience With the Practice

Several festival attendees took time to learn the exercises directly from practitioners.

Paul Skivers, an administrative assistant with the Capital School District in Dover, stopped by out of curiosity and learned the exercises. “[The] exercise is good. It’s just more stretching and stuff like that. It helps,” Skivers told the Epoch Times, adding that he felt “pretty good” afterward.

Vanessa Alstos, an event vendor selling plant-based wellness and beauty products, also learned the movements and purchased the practice’s foundational text, “Zhuan Falun.”

“I am very interested in learning different techniques of harnessing energy naturally,” Alstos said, noting that the movements left her feeling “very relaxed.” She emphasized the value of holistic health and supported efforts to shed light on human rights abuses in China.  

Organ Harvesting Condemned

For many festivalgoers, the booth provided an eye-opening look into the CCP’s 27-year campaign of suppression against Falun Gong, including state-sponsored forced organ harvesting from living prisoners of conscience.

“I was horrified. That’s just a horrible thing,” Dr. Robert Buckley, clinical director at Optimus Injury Treatment Center, said upon learning the details.

“The Lord gave us all free will … we all should be able to have that belief, and there should be no organization that takes that away from us,” Buckley said after signing the petition for S.4009.

He criticized the commodification of human beings, saying, “The sanctity of life and these people that have a soul and a living spirit, to use them as a farm to harvest their organs” is unconscionable. Buckley also noted that major media outlets often fail to report such atrocities because of differing agendas.

Chelsea Prest of Dover, Delaware, expressed similar shock after speaking with practitioners.

“It sounds like a kind of a genocide almost happening for the last 27 years,” Prest said. Describing the forced organ harvesting as “just horrible,” Prest noted that while she intends to research the details of the Senate legislation further, “it sounds like something that I would want to support because you know that just sounds awful.”  

Leaders Urge Action and Awareness

Medical and political figures underscored the responsibility of the international community to take a firm stand.

Dr. Mike Katz, a pediatric critical care anesthesiologist and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Delaware, addressed the issue from a medical standpoint.

“I spent my entire life and my career in medicine, healing people and helping people live healthy lives,” Katz told the Epoch Times. “When I heard about this, it was just in disbelief that humans could do this to other humans. That was to make money. That was essentially organs on order worldwide, and that the government of China was aware of this.”

Katz reaffirmed his commitment to the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, stating, “Our country, the United States of America, has an obligation to commit to making sure that we do everything we can to stop this sinful and horrible, essentially execution of humans in China.”  

Earl Cooper, Republican candidate for Delaware’s at-large congressional seat, praised the Falun Gong volunteers for their advocacy, commending them as an “outstanding group wanting to be able to fight for justice” against overseas persecution.

Dover Councilman David Anderson, an ordained Christian minister, signed the petition alongside his wife.

“As a Christian minister, I am very much sensitive to religious persecution whether it’s what’s happening in Nigeria or whether it’s what’s happening in China, we all have to stand together because once you open that door to persecution, the government has the power to persecute anyone,” he said. Calling forced organ harvesting evidence of the inhumanity of totalitarian communist regimes, Anderson emphasized the importance of public grassroots education: “When you shine the light on things, the darkness disappears. It starts to recede.”