Pardon the baseball analogy, but just as the World Series recently seized the attention of many Americans, another contest began in the U.S. Senate. Let’s call it the Human Rights Series.

On one side is our beloved Team Human Rights, comprised of players from around the world and led by stars from America. The opponent is none other than those despised Criminals Against Humanity, using players mostly drafted and managed by that regime in China, and owned and controlled by that old power-mongering tycoon hated by everybody, Jiang Zemin (former Chinese leader).

The U.S. House of Representatives has been clutch for Team Human Rights. In 2002, they unanimously passed House Concurrent Resolution 188, calling for the end of the persecution of Falun Gong in China. They stepped up to the plate and delivered a home run, resulting in a crucial win for Team Human Rights.

This October 4th, they did it again, unanimously passing House Concurrent Resolution 304 which condemns the persecution of Falun Gong not only in China but here on U.S. soil. According to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the one who introduced it, the resolution “focuses on reports and investigations on the use of fear, intimidation and oppression, often connected with violence, right here within the borders of our own country.”

The idea that a foreign government is behind the harassment, intimidation and even assaults on U.S. soil against American citizens practicing their beliefs should be enough to stir our entire team into action. Yet for some reason, our power hitters, the U.S. Senate, have been in a slump.

Wang Xia after torture in China. (FDI)

Resolution 188 never got through the Senate. Now 304 is sitting in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee waiting for sponsors. Time is running out. If 304 isn’t passed in the Senate by year’s end, it’s back to the drawing board. If the Senate delivers and passes a Senate Concurrent Resolution, that would be a grand slam to win a very crucial game against Criminals Against Humanity.

Consider some statistics. In the past five years that Jiang’s regime has persecuted Falun Gong in China, over 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been confirmed dead from brutal torture while in custody. At least 100,000 have been imprisoned in forced labor camps where human rights atrocities happen daily. One out of every 12 persons in China is a target of Jiang’s bloody persecution.

Wang Xia after torture in China. (FDI)

Yet numbers don’t tell the human story. The Falun Dafa Information Center recently published before and after pictures (reprinted here with permission) from shocking video footage smuggled out of China of Mrs. Wang Xia, a resident of Inner Mongolia. Before her two year detention in the Huhot City Prison, Mrs. Wang was a healthy and poised young woman. After, she is an emaciated 44 pounds woman, who constantly slips in and out of a coma. The pictures of her are chillingly reminiscent of those from the concentration camps in Germany during World War II. There are very likely many more like her in the prisons and labor camps across China.

This is not a game. Our Senate needs to get serious, step up, and pass HCR 304, for Mrs. Wang, for 100 million Falun Gong practitioners in China, for the very principles of human rights, for all of us.

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After the publication of the photos of Mrs. Wang, the police in Huhot threatened to arrest her again, notwithstanding her being on the verge of death. Mrs. Wang actively participated in the photos, explaining what had been done to her, and surely knowing what the likely reaction by the police would be to the photos’ publication. We should not let her courage be in vain.