[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
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
42-494 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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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
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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.]
APPENDIX
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