CECC “Faces of Repression” Hearing Puts Pastor Jin Mingri, Falun Gong and Uyghur Witnesses on the Record Before Xi’s Visit

VERIFIED FACT: One day before Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) held its hearing “The Faces of Repression: Prisoners, Families, and Communities Targeted by the CCP” in the Hart Senate Office Building on September 22, with Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) presiding as CECC co-chair. Lawmakers and witnesses used the hearing to urge President Trump to raise the cases of prisoners of conscience directly with Xi.

VERIFIED FACT (witness list, per CECC notice): The witnesses were Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, founder of Beijing’s Zion Church, released earlier this year after more than 260 days in detention; Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs (her sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, remains imprisoned in Xinjiang); Erping Zhang, spokesperson for Falun Gong; Nelson Wells Sr., father of detained American Nelson Wells Jr., imprisoned in China since 2014; and Tim Hunt, brother of detained American Dawn Michelle Hunt, also imprisoned since 2014. The hearing also took up the Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt Unjustly Detained in Communist China Act (HR 5491), introduced by Smith earlier this Congress.

SOURCE CLAIM (hearing testimony, per Falun Dafa Information Center account): In his opening statement, Smith appealed directly to Xi: “Today we appeal to Xi Jinping to release women and men of conscience and goodness as a tangible, good-faith expression of goodwill, benevolence, respect and strength.” Smith noted that the Commission’s 2025 annual report identified 485 Falun Gong practitioners among its cases of active detention. Testifying for Falun Gong, Zhang told lawmakers that eradicating the practice remains a top priority for the CCP, that the persecution has followed practitioners onto American soil through surveillance, threats, and lawfare, and that its tactics constitute “an emerging playbook that can be pointed at any group the CCP decides is a problem.” His cited statistics — including more than 5,300 deaths from abuse documented by the Minghui website since 1999 and more than 550 prison sentences last year — are witness testimony claims, not independently verified figures.

SOURCE CLAIM: CECC Ranking Member Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said he had written to the president with a list of prisoners of conscience to raise directly with Xi. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said the PRC’s targeted campaign against religious and ethnic minorities must be raised in any bilateral conversation: “To not do so is irresponsible.”

SOURCE CLAIM (contemporaneous interview): In an interview this week, Pastor Jin said the campaign against Christians appears to have accelerated since his release: “After my release, they tried to ram the cases through the system and tried to give the other eight cases a quick trial and make them have long sentences. Right now they are again pressuring the lawyers.” Jin also said Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife Pang Yu are behind bars with trials expected soon, and expressed the hope that “during president Xi’s visit, the other eight pastors will be released.”

VERIFIED FACT: Closing the hearing, Smith said the Commission would immediately contact Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ask that the witnesses’ cases be “front and center” at the summit — making this hearing the most direct congressional ask of the week on specific detainees. The White House’s midday readout of the September 24 bilateral, however, mentions no prisoners of conscience — despite the week’s full-court advocacy push.

Update, October 14, 2026

Nelson Wells Jr., the detained American whose father Nelson Wells Sr. testified at the September 22 CECC hearing covered above, was granted an eight-month sentence reduction on September 18, 2026, according to the Dui Hua Foundation’s Prisoner Updates #9 (published October 6, 2026). Dui Hua, which says it has advocated for Wells’s early release with the Chinese government for years, reports that the reduction comes amid continued appeals from his family.

Wells, from Louisiana, has been detained in China since May 2014 after being convicted on drug-smuggling charges. He was initially sentenced to life imprisonment; his sentence was commuted to 22 years in 2019, with release previously expected in 2041. He is serving his sentence in a prison in Chongqing. His family remains concerned about his deteriorating health, and his parents continue to urge U.S. officials to secure his return home — concerns his father voiced directly to lawmakers at the hearing, describing his son’s seizures and chronic pain after more than a decade behind bars.

The reduction shortens Wells’s term but does not resolve the family’s central demand — release and return home — which his father, the hearing’s lawmakers, and the bipartisan H.R. 5491 (the Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt Unjustly Detained in Communist China Act) continue to press.

Sources:

Falun Dafa Information Center — “Falun Gong Spokesperson Testifies at CECC Hearing Ahead of Xi Jinping’s Visit to Washington” (September 23, 2026) — https://faluninfo.net/falun-gong-spokesperson-testifies-at-cecc-hearing-ahead-of-xi-jinpings-visit-to-washington/
U.S. Representative Chris Smith — “Tues., Sept. 22: Rep. Chris Smith to chair CECC hearing ‘The Faces of Repression: Prisoners, Families, and Communities Targeted by the CCP’” (September 18, 2026) — https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415847
Zeale News — “Congressional hearing to examine CCP’s repression of Christians” (September 2026) — https://zeale.co/news/articles/congressional-hearing-to-examine-ccps-repression-of-christians
Newsline24 — Pastor Jin Mingri interview (September 2026) — https://newsline24.online/trump-xi-meeting-pastor-jin-christianity-b3054747-html/
American Family News — “Xi welcomed to Washington by GOP lawmaker unafraid to denounce China’s human rights abuses” (September 23, 2026) — https://afn.net/persecution/2026/09/23/xi-welcomed-to-washington-by-gop-lawmaker-unafraid-to-denounce-chinas-human-rights-abuses/
The Dui Hua Foundation — “Prisoner Updates #9” (October 6, 2026) — https://duihua.org/prisoner-updates-9/

CECC “Faces of Repression” Hearing Puts Pastor Jin Mingri, Falun Gong and Uyghur Witnesses on the Record Before Xi’s Visit

Update, October 14, 2026

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