[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                     INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE 
                            CLOSING CIVIC SPACE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
                        GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
                      INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                            DECEMBER 9, 2020

                               __________

                           Serial No. 116-139

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
 
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Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
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                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                      
                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                   ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman

BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking 
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York               Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey		     CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia	     STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida	     JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California		     SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts	     TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island	     ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California	             LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas		     JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada		     ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York	     BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California		     FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania	     BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota		     JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		     KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas    		     RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		     GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia	     TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	     GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey	     STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland		     MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
                              

               Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
               Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
                                 ------                                

    Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 
                      International Organizations

                     KAREN BASS, California, Chair

SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, 
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota                 Ranking Member
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota                JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania       RON WRIGHT, Texas
                                     TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Lin, Joanne, National Director, Advocacy and Government Affairs, 
  Amnesty International USA......................................     7
Radsch, Dr. Courtney, Advocacy Director, Committee to Protect 
  Journalists....................................................    28
Kao, Emilie, Director of the Richard and Helen Devos Center for 
  Religion & Civil Society, Heritage Foundation..................    38

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    56
Hearing Minutes..................................................    57
Hearing Attendance...............................................    58

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record from Chairman 
  Bass...........................................................    59

                              AGH REMARKS

AGH remarks submitted for the record.............................    72

 
         INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE CLOSING CIVIC SPACE

                      Wednesday, December 9, 2020

                          House of Representatives,
             Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
            Global Human Rights, and International 
                                     Organizations,
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC,

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:02 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Karen Bass [chairwoman of the subcommittee] 
presiding.
    Ms. Bass. I note a quorum is present, and the Subcommittee 
on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 
International Organizations will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the subcommittee at any point, and all members will 
have 5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and 
questions for the record, subject to the length limitation in 
the rules. To insert something in the record, please have your 
staff email the previously mentioned address or contact full 
committee staff.
    As a reminder to members, please keep your video function 
on at all times, even when you are not recognized by the Chair. 
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves. And 
please remember to mute yourself after you finish speaking.
    Consistent with House Res. 965 and the accompanying 
regulations, staff will only mute members and witnesses as 
appropriate when they are not under recognition to eliminate 
background noise.
    I recognize myself for opening remarks.
    Pursuant to notice, we are holding a hearing on the 
International Human Rights and the Closing of Civic Spaces. I 
would like to thank our distinguished witnesses: Ms. Lin, the 
national director for advocacy and government affairs at 
Amnesty International; Dr. Radsch, advocacy director for the 
Committee to Protect Journalists; and Ms. Emilie Kao, director 
of Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil 
Society at the Heritage Foundation, for joining us today.
    We look forward to your suggestions on ways to enhance and 
better protect individual and collective human rights, 
particularly in the time of a global pandemic where governments 
may misuse their power to limit the rights of citizens.
    Today we hold this hearing on the eve of the International 
Human Rights Day, December 10, which is reserved to commemorate 
the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 
1948. By definition, human rights are fundamental rights and 
freedoms to which we are all equally entitled, without 
distinction, based on place of residence, gender, or national 
or ethnic origins, religion, sexual orientation, or any other 
status. Human rights are universal and inalienable, 
indivisible, independent, and equal and nondiscriminatory.
    Today we emphasize the importance of preserving 
international human rights by reviewing and finding solutions 
to the various obstacles confronting the protection and 
expansion of human rights for more people. Since 2019 the world 
has witnessed governments throughout the world take deliberate 
measures to limit rights and freedoms.
    I have highlighted human rights atrocities around the 
world, and I want to mention a few. Now, let me just be clear 
on the examples I am mentioning are in Africa, but we know that 
Africa is not the only place where human rights abuses are 
taking place. As a matter of fact, human rights abuses are 
taking place all over the world in just about every country.
    I personally have urged governments to cease internet 
blackouts and social media disinformation in countries, such as 
Ethiopia and Tanzania; to stop journalists from being detained, 
such as Matias Guente in Mozambique; stop the abuse of citizens 
who disagree with governments, such as Bobi Wine in Uganda or 
Maurice Kamto in Cameroon; and end electoral reforms that 
remove Presidential term limits, such as in Guinea.
    I have called out governments for abusing citizens because 
of their religious practices, called for the end of human 
trafficking and the displacement and mistreatment of migrants 
around the world. I have called out governments for election 
tampering, interfering with the judicial process, and using 
constitutions to manipulate Presidential term limits.
    And I have called out this administration on various issues 
with other Members of Congress, including the mass deportation 
of Eritreans and other countries where populations of people of 
color during President Trump's travel ban, and also currently 
what we are experiencing, which is resisting the peaceful 
transfer of power. We cannot accept this from our country. We 
most certainly cannot accept it from around the world. We have 
always been a beacon of hope and light for the world, and we 
need to continue to do that.
    Now, whether it is introducing legislation in 2017 to try 
and build a comprehensive strategy to address the humanitarian 
and security crisis in Yemen, encouraging the adherence of the 
rule of law and not support irregular unconstitutional 
transfers of power in Venezuela, or calling out Tanzania for 
internet suppression. I believe everyone should have 
fundamental basic human rights without constraint or fear.
    All of us should take a pause and reexamine our role as 
public servants, Members of Congress and members of a global 
society writ large. We must continue to follow these issues 
closely, create spaces where all citizens can discuss them, and 
support the changes necessary to protect and promote the human 
rights of every individual.
    I know my colleagues and I will be listening closely to 
your solutions of creating greater opportunities for inclusion 
and spaces to assemble peacefully and speak freely.
    I want to thank our witnesses for participating in this 
important hearing, and our committee is looking forward to 
hearing your recommendations on how to strengthen human rights 
on a global scale.
    I now recognize the ranking member for the purpose of 
making his opening statement.
    Thank you very much.
    Representative Smith.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Bass, for 
convening today's important hearing on the very, very important 
topic of human rights and on the eve of Human Rights Day.
    December 10, 1948, was, of course, the day that the United 
Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights, or the UDHR, and I would like to reflect in my 
remarks a little bit about the significance of that event and 
what preceded it and made it necessary.
    For the UDHR was born of the horrors of the Holocaust and 
World War II, as well as the imperfect attempt to achieve some 
sort of justice at the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes 
tribunals. Recall, the defendants at Nuremberg and Tokyo had 
broken no positive laws. Indeed, they controlled the power of 
the State, which dictated the laws.
    To dispense a modicum of justice to right the obvious 
injustice that had been done to tens of millions of victims, 
Robert Jackson, a prosecutor at Nuremburg who took a leave of 
absence from his duties as a sitting Associate Justice of the 
U.S. Supreme Court, referenced the need to apply, quote, a 
natural law that binds each man to refrain from acts so 
inherently wrong and injurious to others that he must know that 
they will be treated as criminal.
    It is this notion of a law above whatever the positive law 
may be at a particular time which likewise animates the UDHR. 
There are some rights which are so fundamental that the State 
may never take them away, regardless of its power it may wield 
at any given moment.
    We see this notion expressed, for example, in Article 26 of 
the UDHR, which States, and I quote, Parents have a prior right 
to choose the kind of education that should be given to their 
children, closed quote. This is a right that is prior to the 
State. In other words, it is grounded in nature and cannot be 
taken away by the State.
    These are the rights which our Declaration of Independence 
referred to as unalienable, having been endowed by our Creator. 
Foremost among those rights is, of course, the right to life, 
without which no other rights are possible.
    This notion of Natural Law is certainly compatible with a 
Judeo-Christian tradition, one that directly inspired the 
framers of the UDHR, such as Catholic Jacques Maritain, the 
Orthodox Charles Malik, or the Jewish Rene Cassin.
    But it is deeper and broader than that, much more deeper. 
It is not just Jeremiah and St. Paul who spoke about the law 
being written of the hearts of men and women, but Cicero and 
Confucius as well.
    Indeed as our witness Emilie Kao's notes and her remarks, 
UDHR drew from a diverse array of sources. Among its drafters 
was Peng-chun Chang who contributed a Confucian Natural Law 
perspective, the tao that is written in the heart.
    Thus I, and I know many others, categorically reject any 
notion that when we hold the government of the People's 
Republic of China to account for its cruelty, abuses, and 
violations of fundamental human rights norms that we are 
seeking somehow to impose a Western standard upon it. Far from 
it. These are universal norms, and they are very consistent, 
and they are consonant with the Chinese notion of a tao, or a 
law, which is above any positive law arbitrarily imposed by the 
State. The actions of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist 
Party must be judged according to this law and their mandate to 
govern, the mandate of heaven which the Confucians appealed to, 
depends on whether their actions conform to this norm. If they 
fall short, they are to be held to account.
    Thus, when I speak of the barbarism of harvesting organs 
from Falun Gong practitioners or the cruelty of forced abortion 
and its enormous deleterious impact on both women and children 
or the incarceration of millions of Muslim Uyghurs in 
concentration camps, or mass jailing of Hong Kong democracy 
activists, including the brave Joshua Wong unjustly jailed for 
the fourth time, or Xi Jinping's efforts to rewrite the Bible, 
the father that dictates to the Communist Party, I and many 
others are only seeking to hold the Chinese leadership to the 
noblest standards from within the Chinese tradition.
    As we hear from our witnesses today, I ask that we also 
reflect on what the source of the rights of which we speak. 
They do not come from the State, for as we saw in the horrors 
of World War II and the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide, the 
State which is the sole guarantor of rights can take them away 
and, in so doing, commit grave offenses against human dignity. 
Rather, the source must be transcendent, objective, and 
immutable.
    Again, Chairwoman Bass, thank you for convening this, and I 
too look forward to the testimony of our very distinguished 
witnesses.
    Ms. Bass. And as always, Mr. Smith, I always enjoy your 
presentation of history and taking us back to the origin and 
providing a wide context, appreciate that very much.
    I will now introduce the witnesses.
    Joanne Lin directs Amnesty International USA's policy 
advocacy program targeting Congress and the Federal Government. 
She leads and manages a team of eight human rights advocates. 
She has overseen advocacy initiatives to halt U.S. arm sales to 
the Saudi-Emirati coalition, to pressure Myanmar to halt 
atrocities against Rohingya, to release detained asylum 
seekers, and to mandate background checks on all U.S. gun 
sales. She is recognized as one of the Nation's premier experts 
on immigration and refugee law and policy. Ms. Lin has been 
named a top grassroots association lobbyist by The Hill in 2018 
and 2019.
    Dr. Courtney Radsch is the advocacy director at the 
Committee to Protect Journalists. As a veteran journalist, 
researcher, and free expression advocate, she writes and speaks 
about the nexus of media technology and human rights. She is 
the author of a book and several book chapters and articles 
about the Arab Spring, media, terrorism, and human rights. Dr. 
Radsch has participated in expert consultations at the United 
Nations, OSCE, and the E.U. On press freedom, countering 
violent extremism, online violence against women, and 
journalist safety. Dr. Radsch has worked as a journalist for 
the New York Times, in Dubai, and the Daily Star in Lebanon.
    Ms. Emilie Kao is an attorney who has defended religion 
freedom for the last 17 years. She worked on behalf of victims 
of religious freedom violations in East Asia and the Middle 
East at the State Department's Office of International 
Religious Freedom, the law office of Jus Cogens and the Becket 
Fund for Religious Liberty. Previously she worked at the United 
Nations in Geneva and the law firm of Latham and Watkins. She 
taught international human rights at George Mason University 
Law School as an adjunct law professor.
    Emilie is a graduate of Harvard Law School where she 
received a J.D. And Harvard-Radcliffe College where she 
received a degree in Near Eastern civilizations and languages.
    I now recognize each witness for 5 minutes. And without 
objection, your prepared statements will be made part of the 
record.
    I will first call on witness No. 1, which is Ms. Joanne 
Lin.

 STATEMENT OF MS. JOANNE LIN, NATIONAL DIRECTOR, ADVOCACY AND 
         GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA

    Ms. Lin. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member 
Smith, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Joanne Lin, 
and I am the national director for advocacy and government 
affairs at Amnesty International USA.
    This is a time of hope and a time of fear for civic space 
and human rights. On the one hand, new technologies have 
empowered activists to speak and fight for human rights. On the 
other hand, government censorship and reprisal, sometimes aided 
by Big Tech, is jeopardizing and silencing that human rights 
advocacy.
    Today I will address three global trends: First, internet 
shutdown; second, Big Tech complicity and censorship; and, 
third, government attacks on civil society.
    Trend No. 1, internet shutdown. Governments are 
increasingly shutting down internet access and, thus, stifling 
people's ability to get information to communicate and to 
organize. Activists rely on the internet, in particular 
encrypted messaging services, to document and share 
information. Without the internet, activists are forced to use 
nonsecure means of communication, such as phone calls, text 
messages, thereby increasing their risk of being arrested.
    To understand the interplay of internet restrictions in 
human rights, let's look at what has happened in Myanmar. In 
2019, the government-imposed internet shutdown in Rakhine and 
Chin States, areas where authorities have long persecuted 
religious and ethnic minorities. Over 130,000 Rohingya are 
interred in mass detention camps in Rakhine State.
    The internet shutdown lasted 14 months and took place at a 
time when access to information, whether about armed conflict 
or COVID-19, could literally mean the difference between life 
and death.
    Ten activists were convicted of protesting without 
permission, nine sentenced to prison terms. One poet activist 
was convicted for putting up a banner that read, quote, ``is 
the internet being shut down to hide war crimes and killing 
people?''
    Trend No. 2, Big Tech complicity and censorship. While some 
countries have imposed internet shutdowns, others are censoring 
content and turning to Big Tech as a partner. Just last week 
Amnesty published a report finding Facebook complicit in 
censorship and repression on an industrial scale in Vietnam.
    In 2020, Facebook complied with 95 percent of censorship 
requests by the Vietnamese Government. This staggering figure 
demonstrates that Facebook isn't just letting censorship unfold 
on its platform, Facebook is complicit in government 
censorship.
    Facebook's actions have direct human rights impact in 
Vietnam, a country with a record of repression, including 
jailing people for social media use. Of the 170 prisoners of 
conscience in Vietnam, nearly 40 percent have been jailed 
solely for their social media activity.
    Big Tech complicity and censorship isn't limited to 
Vietnam. Across the world, from Thailand to Turkey, governments 
are co-opting social media platforms to censor people's voices 
at scale.
    Trend No. 3, civil society under attack. A growing number 
of countries are cracking down on civil society and NGO's, 
including Amnesty sections in Hungary, Turkey, and India.
    In Hungary, a government-affiliated magazine published a 
list of individuals described as mercenaries paid to overthrow 
the government. The list included Amnesty Hungary staff, as 
well as other activists and academics. Some of the individuals 
on the list received threats of rape and death.
    In Turkey, police arrested and jailed the board chair and 
director of Amnesty Turkey in 2017. While they were released 
pending the outcome of their appeals, other activists have been 
locked up for years.
    While Amnesty has managed to survive in Hungary and Turkey, 
that has not been the case in India. In 2020, Amnesty India was 
forced to lay off all staff and cease all human rights work 
after its bank accounts were frozen. This followed years of 
intimidation by the government, including raids of Amnesty 
India offices and interrogation of staff and board members.
    The forced shuttering of Amnesty International in the 
world's largest democracy has sent a chilling message to civil 
society around the world.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Lin follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Bass. Thank you. Thank you very much.
    When we go to Q and A, you will have an opportunity to 
expand more. But I want to call on the next witness, Dr. 
Courtney Radsch. But I want to bring our witnesses' and our 
members' attention to a timer that you see. When you are 
looking at the layout, you should see a timer that is showing 5 
minutes.
    Let me call on Dr. Courtney Radsch.

STATEMENT OF DR. COURTNEY RADSCH, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE 
                     TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS

    Dr. Radsch. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member 
Smith, and other distinguished members of this subcommittee. 
Appreciate you hosting this important hearing and for inviting 
the Committee to Protect Journalists to testify.
    My name is Courtney Radsch, and I serve as CPJ's director 
of advocacy and communications. At CPJ we believe that attacks 
on journalists are attacks on international human rights and 
civic space. But such attacks have a compounding effect because 
they not only silence journalists, they impede reporting on 
other human rights, political, economic, and environmental 
rights.
    Humans have a right to engage in journalism and a right to 
access and exchange news and information, a right that has life 
and death consequences during a global health pandemic.
    It looks likely that the responses to the coronavirus could 
shift the long-term paradigm for journalism in similar ways 
that the war on terror fueled the global expansion of 
antiterrorism laws and, in turn, ushered in an uptick in the 
jailing of journalists that continues today.
    One of the most prominent ways that governments censor 
reporting is by outright criminalizing the act of journalism. 
And the COVID-19 pandemic has provided governments with a new 
excuse to further crack down on news organizations and 
journalists, mainly through restricting information that is not 
in line with the official narrative.
    Like journalist Hopewell Chin'ono who was arrested and 
charged with incitement for his reporting on alleged COVID-19 
procurement fraud within Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health.
    The result is a world in which the press is even less free 
to report at a time when the public needs reliable information 
more than ever.
    Due to the spread of COVID-19, imprisonment can now amount 
to a death sentence for the 250 journalists behind bars 
globally. Azimjon Askarov was a journalist in Kyrgyzstan 
sentenced to a life in prison for his reporting on human rights 
violations, and in July he died. His wife told CPJ she 
suspected he contracted COVID-19. Journalists in jail lack 
adequate access to healthcare, legal representation, and 
personal protective equipment.
    The U.S. Government should demand the release of all 
journalists behind bars during the pandemic, especially in 
allied countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey to name 
but a few. These cases are not atypical.
    We have also seen the expulsion of foreign journalists from 
countries, including China, Egypt, and Iraq, in retaliation for 
reporting on the pandemic and government responses.
    Another threat is the increasing use of fake news rhetoric 
and laws. In 2012, there was just one journalist behind bars on 
a false news statute. In 2019, there were 30. With the 
expansion of disinformation laws as governments seek to respond 
to the coronavirus, there is little doubt that these will be 
abused to restrict reporting and retaliate against a wide array 
of critical journalists.
    Several governments, like South Africa and Cuba, have moved 
to criminalize disinformation about the pandemic, and the 
governments have been using emergency measures to halt the 
sharing of opinions, restricts journalists' movements, and put 
on other sort of press freedom restraints.
    Finally, we are concerned about the proliferation of 
surveillance technologies that may legitimately be aimed at 
combatting the spread of the virus but are also prone to abuse 
as we saw with surveillance capabilities developed in response 
to the war on terror.
    Companies have developed and sold increasingly 
sophisticated spyware to government actors with dubious press 
freedom records under the guise of combating terrorism, but in 
many cases, these tools are being used to target journalists as 
in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Nigeria, and elsewhere.
    This year we have seen coronavirus technologies deployed 
quickly and it appears without human rights impact assessments, 
sufficient privacy controls, or adequate restrictions on their 
use outside of the current context.
    We are deeply concerned about what this will mean for civic 
space and independent media because once a technology is built, 
even if it is for the best of goals, the capability exists and 
there is no reverting back.
    We are grateful that so many Members of Congress are active 
on press freedom, but given the severity of the threats against 
the press, more must be done.
    And in my written testimony, I have made a series of 
recommendations, but I want to highlight just a few here. Pass 
the Protecting Human Rights During Pandemic Act, which has 
bipartisan support.
    Speak publicly about the importance of a free and 
independent press to democracy, especially as related to the 
pandemic.
    Ensure U.S. Government support and assistance, including 
through emergency visas and temporary relocation for 
journalists forced to flee because of threats.
    And protect the independence of U.S. Government funded 
media which have been the first or only source of information 
on COVID in some countries.
    Thank you for holding this important hearing and for 
inviting the Committee to Protect Journalists to testify.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Radsch follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Bass. Thank you so much for your testimony.
    Let me call on our final witness, Ms. Emilie Kao.

STATEMENT OF MS. EMILIE KAO, DIRECTOR OF THE RICHARD AND HELEN 
 DEVOS CENTER FOR RELIGION & CIVIL SOCIETY, HERITAGE FOUNDATION

    Ms. Kao. Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member Smith, and other 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you so much 
for your invitation.
    My name is Emilie Kao. I am director of the DeVos Center 
for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation. All 
of the views expressed today are my own and should not be 
attributed to the Heritage Foundation.
    As we commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration 
of Human Rights in 1948, let us be aware of the new and gradual 
encroachments upon freedom, as well as the familiar ones.
    In 2019, the United Nations introduced the global strategy 
and action plan on hate speech. This strategy is well 
intentioned, but it follows the wrong path toward censorship. 
The U.N. Introduced the strategy in response to attacks on 
houses of worship, and though there is no internationally 
accepted legal definition of hate speech, the U.N. Strategy 
defines hate speech as any kind of communication that uses, 
quote, ``pejorative or discriminatory language about a person 
or a group on the basis of religion, race, gender, or other 
identity factors,'' closed quote. But pejorative and 
discriminatory are subjective terms and easily abused.
    First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who led the drafting of the 
Universal Declaration, warned that governments would seek to 
punish all criticisms under the guise of protecting against 
hostility.
    There are both principles and pragmatic reasons for the 
United States to oppose the new strategy. First, the Universal 
Declaration established the principle that all human beings 
have inalienable rights because of our unique human dignity. 
They pointed to our endowment with reason and conscience, but 
speech restrictions violate this human dignity. They subject a 
person's freedom to speak according to their reason and their 
conscience to supervision by the State.
    James Madison said that a person's opinion depends only on 
evidence contemplated by their own minds and cannot follow the 
dictates of other men. But hate speech, blasphemy, and 
defamation of religion laws require citizens to follow the 
dictates of other men.
    American law treats speech as an end in itself, not the 
means to an end, even a noble one. The Supreme Court recognized 
counter speech is the best way to effect reason and conscience 
and protected our interest in security by limiting speech that 
is likely to incite imminent lawless action. Hate speech laws 
do not work.
    European nations and Muslim majority countries have 
endorsed the U.N. Strategy, but evidence from those nations 
shows that speech restrictions radicalize extremists, and they 
do not protect the innocent.
    In the Middle East and North Africa, 65 percent of 
countries have blasphemy laws, arguing that they keep the peace 
by preventing insult to Islam. Professor Nilay Saiya's analysis 
of 51 Muslim majority States found that those which criminalize 
blasphemy are more likely to suffer from Islamist terror 
attacks than those that did do not.
    Amjad Mahmood Kahn warned that these laws create a sense of 
religious duty to silence those who are perceived as 
threatening the reputations of Muhammad, Islam, and Islamic 
governments.
    The implementations of radicalization are global. The 
Pakistani branch of the Taliban tells its followers that, 
quote, ``Zionist and crusader enemies of Islam are insulting 
the signs of Islam everywhere,'' closed quote.
    European governments are also enforcing restrictions on 
hate speech that offend religious sensibilities, but there is 
no evidence that their censorship reduces terrorism. According 
to the Pew Global Restriction Survey in 2015, Jewish people 
experienced more harassment in Europe than any other part of 
the world.
    There are three recommendations for broadening civic space. 
First, the U.S. should proactively urge the United Nations to 
rescind its strategy on hate speech, increase efforts to 
protect free speech and religious freedom, and adopt the U.S. 
Supreme Court's clear and objective standard of imminent 
lawless action.
    Second, Congress should encourage the President and 
Secretary of State to oppose any international efforts to enact 
hate speech restrictions that fall short of the imminent 
lawless action test, in addition to opposing blasphemy, 
hypocrisy, and defamation of religion laws as both House 
Resolution 512, which just passed, and Senate Resolution 458 
do.
    Third, America's global counterterrorism efforts and 
national security strategy should reflect the relationship 
between speech restrictions and terrorism. An open public 
square ensures that toxic narratives can be challenged by the 
truth that all human beings have inherent dignity and are 
created equal. Freedom offers the path toward greater justice, 
peace, and security.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Kao follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Ms. Bass. Thank you. Thank you very much. I thank you for 
your testimony and for all of our witnesses for taking your 
time out today.
    I will now recognize members for 5 minutes each, and 
pursuant to House rules, all time yielded is for the purpose of 
questioning our witnesses.
    I will recognize members alternating between Democrats and 
Republicans, and if you miss your turn, let our staff know, and 
we will circle back to you. If you seek recognition, you must 
unmute your microphone and address the Chair.
    I will start by recognizing myself.
    And I want to direct my first question to Ms. Lin. You 
know, I wanted to know what you think of the impact in the 
world that has happened because of what people are seeing here 
in the United States, whether we are talking about what is 
going on with the election, whether or not it was free and 
fair, the attacks on the media that we hear attacking 
journalists, talking about reporting fake news.
    If you do not like something, you call it fake news. And I 
wanted to know what impact you feel we are having on the rest 
of the world where we typically try to hold the rest of the 
world accountable, and now the world is looking at us a bit.
    So that is for Lin. I would also like Dr. Radsch to address 
that as well, especially in regard to journalists.
    Ms. Lin. Thank you, Congresswoman Bass, for that question.
    I mean, your question is the ultimate human rights question 
because we are all gathered here today to honor Human Rights 
Day tomorrow, and that Human Rights Day applies to all 
countries of the world, including what's happening right here 
in our borders. So, needless to say, people are looking at how 
we walk the walk, more so than how we talk the talk.
    2020 has been a devastating year for human rights in the 
United States. The summer of 2020 has made clear that Black and 
Brown people live in great peril and that police killings 
remain a very serious problem throughout the country.
    Now, clearly this problem is not limited to the United 
States. We have seen protests in Nigeria erupt this summer 
again calling out police brutality and protest movements taking 
to the streets demanding an end to SARS, which is their 
infamous police force there.
    We have also seen people take to the streets in every 
continent, whether it is Hong Kong, Belarus, Iraq, Lebanon, 
Chile, and this shows that the civic space is still very much 
alive, that even in spite of everything that has been testified 
about to today, that people are demanding that their voices not 
be silenced, and they are demanding greater government 
accountability and justice.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you.
    Ms. Lin. Okay.
    Ms. Bass. Let me go on to Dr. Courtney Radsch, especially 
when you hear people in rallies denounce the press in the 
United States. And so my question is really, what are you 
seeing internationally because of this, whether it is 
attacking, you know, one station or another?
    The other thing is what about journalists who are reporting 
false information? And one of the things that concerns me a lot 
is COVID, false information about COVID in terms of whether or 
not you need to wear a mask, whether or not you need to abide 
by the guidelines, or whether or not hydroxychlorquine, you 
know, is a cure.
    So I would like for you to respond to that. What impact are 
we having around the world?
    Dr. Radsch. Thank you so much for that question because it 
is really important because we have seen over the past 3 or 4 
years that the rhetoric around false news ricocheted around the 
world. We saw that governments of all shapes and sizes, from 
authoritarian through Democratic, adopted that rhetoric. But we 
saw an evolution this year, especially with COVID-19, through 
the adoption of legislation to criminalize fake news.
    So actually, yes, walking the walk very important, as 
Joanne said, but also talking the talk, both rhetorical and 
action oriented.
    The abuses that we saw during the protests over the summer, 
the antipolice violence protests and the more than 900 plus 
freedom violations that we have tracked with the U.S. Press 
Freedom Tracker have sent a very chilling signal around the 
world, both in terms of what the U.S. law enforcement, how it 
treats its own journalists, and in terms of dismantling U.S. 
leadership on press freedom and its ability to be a moral 
authority.
    Then when you couple that with your question about 
journalists reporting on false information, let's remember that 
how journalism works is that they are typically reporting on 
what politicians, doctors, scientists, and experts or the 
public are doing, saying, et cetera, so they are out there 
reporting.
    So one of the big problems is that a lot of misinformation 
and disinformation is being perpetrated by government 
spokespeople, whether that is President Trump or Bolsonaro in 
Brazil where there is, you know, one of the most popular videos 
out there is about hydroxychloroquine being a cure for COVID-
19, which obviously we know it is not.
    So the journalists are in a very challenging position 
because, on the one hand, they need to report what the experts 
are saying. On the other hand, journalism is the first draft of 
history, and we are in an unprecedented health pandemic during 
which the science is evolving, our understanding is evolving, 
so there is not necessarily a truth out there.
    And we need to look at that intersection and address the 
severe online harassment that then is perpetrated against 
journalists who are caught up in the politics of reporting on 
these issues.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you, thank you.
    Representative Smith.
    I think you are muted.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Did I get it?
    Thank you. Thank you to our witnesses.
    Let me just say we just celebrated the 20th anniversary on 
October 28th of the signing of the Trafficking Victims 
Protection Act, the law that I am the prime author of. It was a 
bipartisan law bicameral obviously. Article 4 of the Universal 
Declaration makes clear that slavery is an abomination and no 
one should be subjected to it.
    Perhaps you might want to speak to how well you think we 
are doing. I believe very strongly that the Trump 
Administration has done a tremendous job. The TIP office, run 
by Ambassador Richmond, has been very, very forthcoming and 
assertive in combatting human trafficking, so your thoughts on 
that.
    Second, Ms. Lin, you talked about Vietnam. Back in February 
2006, I chaired a landmark hearing on how Google, Microsoft, 
Cisco, and Yahoo were aiding and abetting dictatorships around 
the world, but it was focused primarily on China.
    You have pointed out that Facebook is complicit in 
censorship and repression on an industrial scale. Your thoughts 
briefly on how we can further combat the incarceration of so 
many people who are online and then aided and abetted--you gave 
95 percent of the censorship requests coming from Vietnam--that 
are followed by Facebook.
    I find that, you know, obviously very disturbing, but it is 
a trend in the world, whether they be in Africa or Belarus or 
any other country.
    Next, if I could, some of the stories that some of us on 
this side of the aisle find frustrating is that when 
unbelievably effective policies yield real results, like the 
rushed Warp Speed as it was called to get a vaccine, go 
underreported in terms of how it happened.
    You know, I actually asked--it is after the election, so it 
is probably easier for them to say it, but I asked my Governors 
on a Zoom call, Commerce--or not Commerce; Health Secretary 
what her view was of it, and it was nothing but accolades for 
the Trump Administration.
    I have never seen any of that, any of it in print anywhere. 
It may be in some conservative media, but not in the Washington 
Post or the New York Times, and that is disturbing, the 
imbalance.
    I really do believe that the press has an absolute 
obligation to ask the hard questions, but I do also think there 
needs to be--you know, when I took journalism classes, and I 
loved to write, I write op-eds all the time, I write my own 
speeches, but the three As, accuracy, accuracy, accuracy and a 
real keen sense of objectivity needs to be, I think, more 
embraced.
    And I think that would go a long way to telling the truth. 
That is all we ask; just tell the truth and ask the hard 
questions, but tell the truth. But Warp Speed got almost 
nothing.
    Next, on the issue of India, and I think, again, that is a 
very, very troubling state of affairs that the largest 
democracy tells the embassy international people, you are out. 
Maybe you want to speak to that very briefly with Modi because 
I do think there are other serious human rights abuses 
occurring under his watch, particularly in the realm of 
religious freedom.
    And, Ms. Kao, you know, maybe you want to speak as well to, 
you know, the blasphemy laws. You know, right in the Universal 
Declaration it makes very clear everyone has the right to 
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. The right 
includes freedom to change religion or belief. If you do that 
in some countries, what happens? You are executed. And I think 
we need to more aggressively assert that universally recognized 
human right.
    So our witnesses, please.
    Ms. Lin. Thank you, Congressman Smith, for the litany of 
terrific questions. I will go ahead and address the questions 
about Vietnam and India.
    So you were clairvoyant to have a hearing on Big Tech in 
India.
    Mr. Smith. If I could interrupt you, T. Kumar provided 
great testimony from Amnesty at that hearing.
    Ms. Lin. Yes. Thank you. He is my former colleague, and his 
contributions and legacy at Amnesty are still felt today. So 
thank you so much.
    Specifically I just wanted to highlight what we have seen 
in Vietnam is not limited to Vietnam, and we know that we are 
seeing this trend extend across the world, to Thailand, to 
Turkey, to other countries of the world as well.
    And we have two sets of recommendations because we have two 
actors involved. We have the Vietnamese Government and we have 
Big Tech.
    So let me start with Big Tech for a moment, all right, 
because Big Tech is located in the United States. These 
corporations are all, for the most part, based in Silicon 
Valley. So we have three recommendations with respect to Big 
Tech.
    First, that all of the high tech companies need to adopt 
new content moderation and community standards policies that 
are grounded in international human rights standards, 
particularly the U.N. Guiding principle on business and human 
rights.
    Second, ensure monitoring and oversight bodies such as 
Facebook's new oversight board--they just had their first 
hearing last week--are empowered to make binding policy changes 
with respect to content moderation and transparency and not 
merely in individual cases.
    And, third, expand the mandate of Facebook's oversight 
board to include the evaluation grounded in human rights law of 
content moderation decisions that have been made pursuant to 
local law.
    So those are our recommendations with respect to Big Tech.
    Then when you look at the actual government, so here we are 
talking about Vietnam in particular----
    Ms. Bass. I am going to let you finish that point and then 
we will--because we are over time, but you go ahead and finish 
that point, and then we will come back to you a little later.
    Ms. Lin. Okay. Thank you.
    Two suggestions: One, that it is critical to call on the 
Vietnamese Government to end the harassment, arrest, 
prosecution, and imprisonment of human rights defenders and 
activists and to drop all charges against those, especially for 
those who were there for social media activity.
    And then urge the Vietnamese Government to repeal all of 
the oppressive laws that have criminalized or restricted the 
work of human rights defenders.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you.
    Representative Phillips.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Madam Chair. And to all of you 
witnesses here today, thank you for taking the time to be with 
us.
    I want to focus my first question on COVID and how it has 
impacted elections. I am particularly concerned about how 
coronavirus has impacted civic spaces and elections all around 
the globe, of course, even including here in our country.
    But we have seen elections delayed in Somalia, in Ethiopia 
and taken place with some limited engagement and restricted 
access in countries like Cote d'Ivoire.
    Starting with Ms. Lin, can you speak to how elections have 
been impacted by the restrictions on civic spaces and how COVID 
has influenced this dynamic around the world?
    Ms. Lin. Congressman Phillips, I actually am not 
[inaudible]. I can talk about the impact of COVID on civic 
space generally in terms of protest movement, but not on 
elections. So I do not know if there is another witness who 
could address your question more.
    Mr. Phillips. Okay. Yes, maybe, perhaps, Ms. Kao, is that 
something you might address?
    Ms. Kao. Thank you very much, Congressman Phillips.
    Actually, if I could, I would like to briefly address the 
way that the Chinese Government suppressed information about 
the coronavirus, if I may, because that is a massive human 
rights abuse that has not only cost the lives of millions of 
Chinese--millions of people around the world, as well as 
Chinese citizens.
    They suppressed the freedom of speech of Dr. Li Wenliang, 
one of the first doctors to encounter the coronavirus, and they 
continued to suppress the freedom of doctors and journalists 
who wanted to report on the coronavirus, including the 
important information about human-to-human transmission.
    I will let someone else speak to elections.
    Mr. Phillips. Okay. I do want to focus--our subcommittee is 
Africa, so I do want to try to focus your--Ms. Radsch, is that 
something you might address?
    Dr. Radsch. Yes, to some extent. So one of the things we 
have seen around the world is that elections are times when 
there are typically crackdowns on the press and it is a time 
when we see a lot of violence against the press.
    Belarus is an interesting case where it is a very 
repressive environment for reporters. One of the only 
independent outlets there that was the first one to actually 
report on COVID was RFE/RL, the U.S.--congressionally funded 
outlet of the U.S. agency for media.
    So that really underscores the critical role that 
independent media play in censorial countries that was 
undergoing a protest, and we saw massive protests erupt there 
in a place that has very restricted civic space.
    I think one of the things about protests and elections that 
we have seen, you know, kind of proliferate around the world is 
that, you know, part of the civic space are the streets, and so 
the streets are kind of the last outlet in many countries when 
other forms of civic space, like the pages of the newspaper or 
the airwaves or internet platforms, are not available to engage 
in those debates that need to take place during elections.
    And then that is part of the reason you see people going 
into the streets and you see protests. And then, of course, 
there is often an uptick in violence.
    Mr. Phillips. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you.
    To use the rest of my time, lets address some of the human 
rights questions that I have in Africa, clearly challenges in 
many nations, from protecting civilians from armed conflict, 
for any human rights activists from repression, opening up 
public spaces for dialog, and tackling discrimination and 
violence against both women and minorities.
    Ms. Kao, what--any recommendations from you relative to 
what the U.S. Congress can do legislatively to ensure that 
those governments are being held accountable and supporting 
those who are faced with discriminations?
    Ms. Kao. Thank you very much, Congressman Phillips.
    Well, further to my comments and to my written submission, 
I think it is really important for the United States to be very 
clear that at the United Nations there should be no promotion 
of restriction from speech because that is only going to narrow 
the civic space in Africa as well as the rest of the world.
    Authoritarian governments would love for, you know, the 
U.N. To support their restrictions on speech because, of 
course, they know that will increase their grip on political 
power. So that would be my primary recommendation.
    In addition to that, I would say continue to, you know, 
support the State Department's efforts to protect religious 
freedom. Ambassador-at-Large Sam Brownback has convened now 
three international ministerials on religious freedom that have 
been incredibly successful in bringing together multi level 
partners to protect religious freedom. We see the atrocities 
that Boko Haram is committing, and, you know, obviously, they 
are dedicated not only to eradicating religious minorities but 
also to no education for females; thus, their name.
    And so protecting religious freedom, protecting the ability 
of these religious minorities of all faiths to flourish in 
Africa is essential to the future of the government.
    Mr. Phillips. I appreciate that.
    My time is expired, so I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you very much, Representative Phillips.
    Representative Houlahan.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all 
of you for being here today.
    I have a couple of questions to followup on Mr. Phillips' 
lines or Representative Phillips' lines of questioning.
    One is that this committee is Africa, but it is also Africa 
and human rights. And so I have one question about our own 
history and what's happening in our own Nation right now in 
terms of police brutality. And I am interested and concerned 
about how we as a Nation can rightfully or try to condemn the 
Nigerian Government when we are, obviously, very flawed in the 
way that we are approaching our response to this kind of issue.
    Is there some way that the U.S. can be a better 
international model on the issues of civil rights and freedom 
of expression that you could recommend to this committee that 
we could be helpful with?
    Ms. Lin. So, Congressman Houlahan, thank you so much for 
the question.
    I really feel like your question is the question for 
everyone in the human rights community, whether we work on 
civil human rights or we work on international human rights. 
And, clearly, the United States history, the legacy of Jim Crow 
is still very much alive with us. The fact that police 
killings, that there have been 164 police killings of Black 
people between January 2020 and August 2020 is just proof 
positive that the work at home needs to be top priority.
    That being said, you know, I do think that the United 
States has historically played a leadership role in advancing 
human rights, international human rights. I think that it is 
critical for the incoming administration to return to all of 
the various international bodies and agreements that were 
exited in the last few years.
    And I think that is possible to do that with a dose of 
humility and honesty about our own history and that we can call 
for an end to police brutality in the United States at the same 
time that we are calling for an end to police brutality in 
Nigeria, that we can require that our police forces respond to 
peaceful protestors consistent with human rights standards here 
in the United States at the same time that we insist that they 
not use violence, excessive violence in Hong Kong, Lebanon, 
Iraq, and Belarus.
    So that is the challenge before us going forward.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you.
    And my next question, although not centered around Africa 
per se, has to do with women's issues and gender-based violence 
and then that aspect of human rights. Specifically, Poland, 
which is where my heritage is from, and the fact that the 
Justice Minister has announced they have withdrawn from the 
Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention against violence 
against women.
    And I was wondering what sort of long-term effects that 
might come from disengagement from issues, on the part of the 
United States, on gender-based violence will have on the rights 
of women globally. And how can we as a Nation effectively 
encourage Poland and other countries like Poland, who are 
reversing their progress on this issue, to change course?
    Ms. Lin. Again, I am happy to start off with the answers 
here. So gender-based violence, again, is a scourge that still 
afflicts the United States and every country in the world, and 
we have seen this exacerbated in the time of COVID as people 
around the world have been shut in, many people in countries 
where there have been true lockdowns, in situations where 
people have lost jobs and sometimes have lost healthcare and 
are facing other economic pressures.
    So attacking gender-based violence as an affirmative human 
rights issue is going to be a top priority for the next 
Congress, the incoming administration.
    I am sorry, I do not know the particulars around Poland. I 
do have colleagues who do, and so I could get back to you on 
that.
    But, needless to say, the United States needs to address it 
at home and challenge and require all countries around the 
world to do the same.
    Ms. Houlahan. And, Ms. Kao, do you have anything to add to 
that?
    Ms. Kao. Thank you for the question, Representative 
Houlahan.
    I think it is important for the United States to engage in 
international human rights institutions. It is also important 
for the United States to keep those institutions accountable to 
their mandate.
    One of our primary concerns at the Heritage Foundation with 
the U.N. Human Rights Council has been the lack of 
accountability. We have seen human rights violators, like 
China, like Venezuela, like some of the worst countries in the 
world, be elected to the Human Rights Council, and now they are 
in charge of actually choosing the experts that do the 
investigations of human rights around the world.
    So we would love to see reform at the U.N. Human Rights 
Council in that area of accountability and as well also getting 
rid of the anti-Israel bias in singling out Israel for more 
condemnation than any other State, because we do believe that 
international organizations can play a very constructive role, 
and we would like to see the U.N. Human Rights Council do that.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you to everybody. And my time has run 
out, and I will yield back. And I apologize, I am zooming off 
to a Women in Peace and Security conference at 3 o'clock, but 
thanks for having me today.
    Ms. Bass. Wonderful. Thanks for coming, Representative 
Houlahan.
    Representative Smith, are you still with us?
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    Let me just, if I could, I am a great believer in being 
inclusive of all of the information that should be on the 
record. Now, I do not like how Donald Trump handles press 
conferences. I just do not like it at all. But on the previous 
administration, James Risen, you might recall, who called Obama 
the greatest enemy of press freedom in his generation, the 
Associated Press were very, very upset--and I would be 
interested to know what some of our witnesses think--very upset 
when trying to find who was leaking what, you know, spied on 
everyone after then.
    With Risen, it started under George W. Bush in terms of the 
Espionage Act, was carried over to the Obama Administration; 
but I am not sure--and if you have got information, that would 
be fine--that that kind of spying on the press was done during 
this administration.
    Again, I think the press have an absolutely critical role 
to play in ferreting out information, protecting our liberties 
and our rights by being so proactive, but I think there has to 
be a sense of responsibility.
    And, you know, Risen, you know, was revealing things that 
some people did not want out. And we all remember the Pentagon 
papers going back many, many years ago. I am grateful that the 
press reveal information that we need to know that gets, you 
know, hidden and becomes part of a clandestine operation that 
needs to be exposed.
    So I just--my sense is that we need to call out everyone 
who abuses press freedom. And, unfortunately, you know, a 
caricature gets produced about what is really happening, what 
is not happening, and I do not think any President should, you 
know--and openness and transparency is what we ought to be 
pressing aggressively for.
    Yes, there are some State secrets that could be injurious 
to our national security, but there are also State secrets that 
are, you know, branded that in order to preclude any kind of 
scrutiny by anyone outside of a certain group of people.
    So that would be one thing that I would be concerned about. 
I do think--and maybe we can speak to it again, but the idea he 
have what is happening with the media giants. And I think, Ms. 
Lin, you really hit that very, very strong, and I have been 
hitting it for 20 years.
    I remember when the power shifted for Republicans to 
Democrats, my good friend, Tom Lantos--and I was his ranking 
member--called a hearing, and we had Yahoo come and testify, 
and Jerry Yang--we had a reporter's mother. Shi Tao had gotten 
10 years.
    Yahoo gave up all the information about his personally 
identifiable information when what the secret police of China 
simply came in and said, ``give us everything you have on Shi 
Tao.'' They did. He went to prison for 10 years.
    Well, Jerry Yang was sitting in the audience, and Lantos 
and I, Chairman Lantos at the time, pressed hard. And he was 
almost like doing mea culpas about what he had really been a 
part of; but they quickly revert back.
    And I think if anything, Facebook is truly being complicit, 
as you said so eloquently earlier, with what these 
dictatorships are doing. Making a little more money does not 
help, and T. Kumar said this at my hearing in 2006. He goes, 
the argument is that this will open up society, having an 
internet, having this, having that. That one is controlled by a 
dictatorship.
    I remember going to an internet cafe--and I will finish 
with this--in Beijing, and I typed in the Dalai Lama. Blocked. 
Typed in George W. Bush. Blocked--no, I got that he is--I typed 
in myself. I was blocked. Typed in all of these names, and it 
was like--then I typed in Tiananmen Square, just as I did at my 
hearing. Beautiful pictures. I typed in massacre at Tiananmen 
Square. Nothing, all blocked.
    And, again, when I asked Amnesty--not Amnesty; Google and 
Cisco, Yahoo, and Microsoft under oath, because I swore them 
all in, how do you know what to censor? Who tells you? It is 
the government. But they wouldn't tell us what words, what 
phrases, you know, how this really works.
    So they just--my belief was, then and now, they get a 
request, they honor it, and then they say they are honoring the 
laws of that country, the laws of a dictatorship.
    So, you know, these social media, these others, they have 
an affirmative obligation, and we have got to push harder and 
harder to ensure that they do not become, you know, the willing 
dupes of these dictatorships.
    So thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
    Ms. Bass. You are very welcome.
    I wanted to ask a few more questions. You mentioned 
Facebook, and I think it was Ms. Lin that talked about Facebook 
and censorship. You know, we have a challenge here where there 
are some problems. I mean, there are some things Facebook does 
need to censor.
    And I just wonder how you deal with that because, you know, 
one of the things--and I know our ranking member knows what I 
am talking about--you know, they put out deliberate 
misinformation. And I do not mean that Facebook is doing it, 
but they allow for it to be out there or they allow for foreign 
intervention. And so how do you deal with that?
    I would also like to ask that slightly different with Ms. 
Kao, because it sounds like you do not think speech should be 
limited, you know, at all. And I am just wondering how you deal 
with that when it is deliberate misinformation, when you are 
calling and rallying people to something that could be violent, 
telling people to turn out, and that is something that we 
criticize other governments for.
    So I am not sure where you land on that. So I would ask 
that of Ms. Lin and Ms. Kao.
    Ms. Lin. Well, thank you for the question, Representative 
Bass and Representative Smith, about Facebook. So 
Representative Smith raised this very important issue. Money is 
a big factor here. So if you look at Facebook's revenues in 
southeast Asia, one-third of their revenues flow out of 
Vietnam. That is a huge market share.
    And then you also need to look at the history of a 
particular country's human rights record. So even though 
Vietnam has ushered in all these economic reforms, it remains a 
very repressive society. If you look at any type of freedom 
measure, whether it is freedom of press, freedom of speech, 
freedom of expression, it is still a very closed society.
    Ms. Bass. Well, excuse me, I was really referring to 
Facebook here. In other words, I understand what you are saying 
about Vietnam, but what about--because we do have problems with 
Facebook. We do. So I do not know if your position is that you 
just allow anything to be on, but, I mean, it has caused a lot 
of problems here.
    Ms. Lin. Yes, no. I think that what you are raising is a 
very important issue. And I do think that--I do not have an 
answer for how to handle it here in the United States. I am not 
going to pretend that it is a simplistic one size fits all.
    If you look at, for instance, Thailand, which is a country 
neighboring Vietnam, where there, again, Facebook did close a 
Facebook group with over a million members that were 
criticizing, expressing criticism of the Monarchy, which is 
illegal under Thai law, again, that happened in recent months 
in a country that is more open than Vietnam, but still is more 
closed than the United States.
    So I think what you are asking about, Congresswoman Bass, 
is a hugely important question, but I think it requires a 
separate hearing in and of itself, because you are right, how 
it breaks out in each country is very, very challenging for all 
the reasons that I and the other witnesses have mentioned 
today.
    Ms. Bass. Okay. Ms. Kao.
    Ms. Kao. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass, for raising this 
important question. So I do think that speech which incites 
imminent lawless action should not be protected and it is not 
protected, because the Supreme Court in Brandenburg versus Ohio 
said that speech that is likely to incite imminent lawless 
action does not receive the protection of the First Amendment.
    I share your concern about other speech, you know, that may 
be hurtful, it may be insulting, it may be offensive, it may be 
bigoted, but I believe that the best way to address that kind 
of speech is through counterspeech, because counterspeech is 
what persuades people. It is what changes their hearts and 
minds. Silencing people and censoring them does not change 
their hearts and minds, and I think that narrows the civic 
space and it reduces the contact between people who hold 
different opinions.
    I think today's hearing is so important, because we are 
talking about opening the civic space. And opening the civic 
space is what allows for more interactions between people who 
hold different opinions, to learn from one another, to debate 
one another, to disagree with one another.
    And so that is why it is important to keep that space open 
and to allow people to say something that may be, you know, 
something that causes disagreement or even offense.
    Ms. Bass. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
    And let me thank the witnesses for appearing today, for 
taking time out of your schedule. I think this was a very 
important hearing, and I want to thank especially Ranking 
Member Smith and the other members that attended the hearing.
    And, with that, we are adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:06 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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