{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=397777", "<span class=\"kicker\">Intl Human Rights Day Weds. Dec 10</span>Smith cites rights violations in China, Vietnam, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria, other nations; Honors retiring human rights leader Rep. Wolf", "2014-12-10", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Promoting and protecting human rights should be a central part of U.S. foreign policy around the world, including in dealings with rising powers such as China, developing nations like Sudan and Nigeria, and every other nation where human rights violations occur, said Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) today. The Chairman of the House congressional panel that oversees global human rights issues, Smith marked Wednesday, Dec. 10, as the anniversary of the founding of International Human Rights Day. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cChina, which today continues to defiantly imprison Nobel Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo and over a thousand other documented political prisoners, remains among the world\u2019s worst human rights abusers,\u201d said Smith, co-chairman of the U.S. Commission on China and chair the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. \"On International Human Rights Day we remember how far we have come and how far we\u00a0still have to go to ensure that all individuals can enjoy the fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, press and association. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe\u00a0need to support true defenders of human\u00a0rights and hold accountable\u00a0the abusers.\u00a0It is the\u00a0abuser that jailed Liu Xiaobo, that attacked Malala and assassinated Shabazz Bhatti in Pakistan, that maintains gulags in North Korea, that spreads\u00a0anti-Semitism\u00a0and\u00a0sectarian violence, and trafficks young woman into\u00a0sexual\u00a0slavery,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThese are intolerable abuses that occur much too often.\u00a0But I remain hopeful\u00a0today because\u00a0I have seen how the universal demand for freedom\u00a0can break down the walls of tyranny.\u00a0That is what we celebrate on International Human Rights Day because we\u00a0believe that\u00a0good will triumph over evil,\u00a0that the desire for basic human rights will\u00a0correct many of the world's wrongs, and\u00a0that,\u00a0despite the seemingly unassailable power of the abusers, that power is fleeting because of the millions of people working to promote human rights around the world.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Smith chose Wednesday, Human Rights Day, to introduce the \u2018\u2018Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Support Act of 2014\u2019,\u201d because religious freedom is so central to human rights, including our own First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. The legislation is named for one of the leading voices in the U.S. Congress, Congressman Frank Wolf (VA-10). Wolf, who is concluding his final term after 34 years in Congress, authored the landmark International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which established both an independent commission and a State Department office wholly dedicated to safeguarding\u2014via sanctions if necessary\u2014religious freedom. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAt home and overseas, Frank Wolf\u2014the William Wilberforce of the United States House of Representatives\u2014has been an indefatigable defender of human rights and human dignity,\u201d Smith said on the House floor today. \u201cWhether it be helping a young mother in a refugee camp in Sudan or political prisoners in Russia or jailed pastors in China or any number of the marginalized and persecuted, Frank Wolf has sought to protect and rescue.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Regarding the many challenges to religious freedom, Smith said, \u201cToday Christians and other religious minorities, such as Yezidis, Shabaks, and Turkmen Shiites are not just facing a long winter without homes,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey are not just hungry and thirsty and wandering from village to village in Northern Iraq and Kurdistan.\u00a0 They are facing annihilation\u2014genocide\u2014by \u00a0fanatics who see anyone who does not subscribe to their draconian and violent interpretation of Islam as fair game for enslavement, forced conversion or death.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though there are so many human rights abuses throughout the world that one would be hard-pressed to address them all in a single day, Smith noted Vietnam\u2019s documented use of forced labor and horrendous record on human trafficking, and jailing prisoners of faith, such as Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest who has been jailed and tortured for his beliefs, stand out. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe Vietnamese government\u2019s violations of religious freedom against Buddhists and Christians are severe and ongoing,\u201d said Smith, author the Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2013, H.R. 1897, which was approved by House of Representatives in 2013 but has not been taken up by the Senate. \u201cThe restrictions and jailing of labor and democracy advocates, discrimination against ethnic Montagnards and the pervasive censorship of the Internet are far too harsh for Vietnam to be given trade benefits or security assistance it wants from the U.S. As Vietnam seeks entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its generous trade benefits, the U.S. should be conditioning any new\u00a0\u00a0 economic and security assistance on real advances in freedom and human rights.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Smith has also pressed the Nigerian government to fight for the hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped earlier this year by the notorious terrorist group Boko Haram. The congressman visited the country and held congressional hearings on the Nigerian crisis. He led the fight to have the U.S. State Department declare Boko Haram a terrorist organization in 2013. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI met in Abuja with one of the Chibok girls who escaped early on in the ordeal,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThis brave young woman has suffered much\u2014was clearly traumatized and in emotional pain.\u00a0You could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes\u2014as she sat motionless recounting her story.\u00a0Yet she spoke of her concern not for herself, but her friends and classmates who remain in captivity. I met with a Muslim father of two girls abducted from the Chibok school.\u00a0Fighting back tears, he said the agony was unbearable.\u00a0The story of his daughters underscored the fact that Boko Haram brutalizes Muslims as well.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Smith has also pushed for the return of U.S. children abducted or unlawfully held in other countries\u2014an act which he describes as a blatant human rights violation\u2014 including Brazil, Japan, Tunisia, India and other countries by non-custodial parents. His parental child abduction bill, The Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act, H.R. 3212, was signed into law in August. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Human Rights Day was first proclaimed in 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly.\n \u00a0\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "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": ["http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=397777"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5533489640802145, "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"}