{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415796", "\u201cFreedom of speech and religious liberty are not negotiable\u201dSmith condemns reports of transnational repression in U.S. after anti-CCP professor is blacklisted from U.S.-China Catholic conference", "2026-08-21", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), today condemned an alarming report that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials allegedly pressured the U.S.-China Catholic Association to remove a Purdue University professor and prominent religious freedom scholar from its conference because of his criticism of the CCP\u2019s persecution of Christians.\n\n\u201cIf these reports are accurate, this is yet another outrageous example of the Chinese Communist Party extending its long arm of repression into the United States,\u201d said Smith, who has chaired well over one hundred congressional hearings on human rights abuses in China.\n\n\u201cOver the past several years, I have been sounding the alarm that the CCP\u2019s persecution of political dissidents, journalists, and religious and ethnic minority groups is no longer confined within China\u2019s borders. We cannot allow Beijing\u2014or any other repressive regimes, for that matter\u2014to export that repression to U.S. soil and silence an American professor for exercising his freedom of speech,\u201d continued Smith.\n\nAccording to reports, Professor Fenggang Yang, who had been invited to deliver the keynote address at the U.S.-China Catholic Association\u2019s biennial conference in Houston, was informed that Chinese government officials had raised objections to his participation and demanded that his name be removed from the program. Yang was subsequently disinvited and reportedly asked to keep the circumstances surrounding his removal confidential.\n\nSmith argued that the allegations raise serious concerns about foreign interference, religious freedom, and free speech in the United States: \u201cAn American academic should not be removed from a conference at an American institution because Chinese government officials object to his views.\n\n\u201cAnd a U.S.-based religious organization should never be pressured\u2014or voluntarily agree\u2014to censor a scholar to accommodate the demands of a foreign authoritarian government. Americans must never surrender their constitutional freedoms to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party,\u201d he noted.\n\n\u201cThe CCP must understand that its authoritarian reach ends at America\u2019s shores. To confront the growing menace of foreign governments that seek to intimidate and silence dissidents on American soil, I have authored legislation\u2014the Transnational Repression Policy Act (HR 4829)\u2014that will compel the State Department to coordinate a whole-of-government strategy to disrupt networks that harass, surveil, or threaten activists, journalists, and other community leaders living lawfully in the United States.\n\n\u201cThe U.S. government must take seriously every effort by Beijing to intimidate or silence people living in the United States. Here, freedom of speech and religious liberty are not negotiable,\u201d concluded Smith.\n\n###", 1, "2026-08-22T05:24:59Z", "2026-08-22T05:26:16Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415796"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8574328385293484, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}