Chinese Operatives Increase Intimidation Tactics to Halt Production of Film on Forced Organ Harvesting

Threats of mass shootings. Bomb detonations. Systematic hacking.

At a rate of roughly one threat every two days over the past two months, threats in Chinese have been directed to the inboxes of journalists, theaters, the police, and local lawmakers, mostly based in the United States and Taiwan. The threats have one goal: to stop the screening of a film called “State Organs.”

“State Organs” has screened in 15 Taiwanese cities since October as well as in New York’s Manhattan, San Francisco, and Japan.

“You better think before you act,” one email shared with The Epoch Times read. The sender claimed to have obtained the personal information of staff members at four theaters in Taiwan. The theaters had scheduled viewings of “State Organs” and received threats that their staff’s information would be released if the screenings went ahead.

At least two emails came with images of guns attached, with warnings that shots would be fired at audience members if the theaters didn’t cancel the film. Yet another email, this time directed at a reporter, claimed to have implanted explosives in her media headquarters in Taipei that would be set off unless she deleted a report on the film.

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Ahead of a Nov. 30 screening hosted at Taipei’s city council, another message threatened possible knife attacks.

All of them, it turned out, were empty threats. Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau has opened an investigation into the threats and has increased security at the events. There were no explosives or other public safety risks upon inspection. The pattern, the police said, typifies the cyber harassment campaigns originating from mainland China.

To director Raymond Zhang, whose name was directly cited in one harassment email, it feels like certain elements of the film are playing out in real life.

“Coverup, threats, and intimidation … this is how Chinese authorities treated the victims’ family, this is what is now happening [in the United States],” he told The Epoch Times. The film production team said they plan to collect all the threats and submit them to U.S. law enforcement officials.

Forced organ harvesting is a topic heavily censored by China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), along with a closely related topic, the persecution of Falun Gong. Both of the missing family members featured in the documentary practice Falun Gong—a meditation practice with a focus on the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Up to an estimated 100 million Chinese, or almost one in 12 people, took up the self-improvement discipline before the CCP launched its nationwide suppression campaign against the practice in 1999.

The London-based China Tribunal in 2019 concluded that Falun Gong practitioners were a primary target for the CCP’s state-backed program of forced organ harvesting,…

There’s clear evidence that the Chinese regime is actively monitoring and censoring discussions and the free flow of information about forced organ harvesting, both in China and abroad.

Lawmakers, both at the congressional and the state level, have received calls or emails from Chinese diplomats pressuring them to recant their stance on the CCP’s hidden program of systematic forced organ harvesting.

In March 2023, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, which passed the House this summer, prompted a Chinese embassy official to write to the bill’s lead sponsor Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), proclaiming the measure “absurd” and telling him to stop “baseless hype and anti-China moves.”

In 2016, the Chinese consular officials drove from Chicago to Minnesota to call on state senators ahead of a vote on a resolution condemning forced organ harvesting. According to state Sen. Alice Johnson, the officials made no mention of the abuse itself but instead spent the entire meeting repeating the CCP’s hateful propa…

The tactics backfired and the measure won unanimous support.

Rights or Market Access

Releasing “State Organs” hasn’t been a smooth ride.

An Italian film distributor who initially expressed interest in bringing “State Organs” to the Italian audience in October 2023 made a U-turn the next day. The representative offered “deepest compliments” to the film’s content and pacing, but conceded that works on the persecution of Falun Gong “have always been pushed away by Italian broadcasters.”

A U.S. distributor was more blunt, telling his staff while a “State Organs” producer was present that taking on a film related to the CCP-persecuted Falun Gong would hamper their market access in China.

The roadblocks and threats haven’t discouraged Zhang. And if the harassment efforts are doing anything, he noted, it’s not in the way that Beijing might wish.

In Los Angeles, the acts of intimidation and threats of violence brought together a group of democracy activists, who staged a protest on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“Except for the CCP, no other regime in this world will make it a business to kill people for their organs,” the organizer said in a speech.

Weeks earlier in Middletown, New York, a local theater had to add temporary seating and then another viewing room to accommodate the crowd, Zhang said. Another screening in Manhattan’s Cinema Village that was scheduled to screen for a week was extended to two weeks by popular demand.

In Taiwan, where the bulk of the harassment campaign was concentrated this season, the screenings sold out and legislators attended to lend support, emphasizing that their attendance was an act of defending freedom. The scheduled month of screenings of “State Organs” has since been extended into December.

Taiwan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee found the issue disturbing enough to convene a hearing on it and asked the island’s top officials how they planned to respond to the regime’s attempts to interfere.

While it’s a matter of individual choice whether one wants to watch the film or not, it’s a national security issue if the CCP can “deprive ‘State Organs’ the freedom to have screenings in Taiwan,” Wang Ting-yu, chairman of the committee, told The Epoch Times. If they can do this today to one movie, he noted, in the future, they will do the same to threaten democratic elections and other activities.

Zhang said he bears no ill will toward the people who are trying to intimidate him and the public. Perhaps, he suggests, some of them are also acting under the regime’s coercion or have become too blindsided by the regime’s narratives. He hopes they can find a way to watch the film and decide for themselves how to view the issues addressed.

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