(Minghui.org) The Columbus Arts Festival is a three-day outdoor event held along the Scioto Riverfront from June 12 to 14, 2026. Practitioners in Ohio participated in the popular event, introduced Falun Dafa and collected signatures to support US Senate bill S.4009, the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act.
The festival is considered one of the top 10 arts festivals in the nation and had an estimated 500,000 visitors during its three-day run. It included a market with roughly 250 exhibitors, four performance stages, and dozens of food vendors.
Practitioners participated in the Columbus Arts Festival and collected signatures to support Senate Bill S.4009. (Minghui.org)
People Sign the Petition
Practitioners distributed flyers about the act and explained what Falun Dafa is and its principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, as well as its five exercises.
Many festival attendees talked with practitioners about the issue of forced organ harvesting and commended them for exposing this human rights violation in China. Many signatures were collected to urge Ohio senators to co-sponsor the bill.
One attendee said that she was familiar with the issue of forced organ harvesting because she read the book Killed to Order, written by investigative journalist Jan Jekielek, about the issue.
The petition forms were delivered to Ohio’s two senators’ offices.
Bill S.4009 Background
The Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act is a bipartisan bill introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D). It provides measures for sanctioning perpetrators of forced organ harvesting and requires the State Department to establish reporting measures for monitoring China’s transplant abuses.
A similar bill, H.R. 1540, was passed unanimously in the House of Representatives on May 5, 2025.
Forced organ harvesting is a crime where organs are removed from a victim without their consent. This often kills victims in the process, and their organs are then sold to buyers at a high price. The United States government, along with prominent human rights organizations, medical professionals, and the United Nations, have raised alarm about this act.
The China Tribunal in 2019 found that Falun Gong practitioners were one of the largest victimized groups, if not the primary group, in China’s forced organ harvesting operations.
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