[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 116 (Thursday, July 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4799-S4800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Human Rights

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, America's strength is in our values. In 
that vein, I rise to talk about human rights and America's historic 
role as a defender of universal human rights for all peoples.
  I have been a member of the U.S. Commission on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe for many years. It is also known as the Helsinki 
Commission. The Helsinki Commission is an independent entity that 
brings together lawmakers and members of the executive branch to 
represent the United States at the OSCE, the Organization for Security 
and Cooperation in Europe, which was created to explicitly promote 
human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental, and military 
cooperation among its 57 member nations, including the United States 
and Canada, all the countries of Europe, and the former Soviet Union 
countries.
  When the Helsinki Final Act was signed in Finland in 1975, it 
enshrined among its 10 Principles Guiding Relations between 
Participating States a commitment to ``respect human rights and 
fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, 
religion or belief, for all without distinction as to race, sex, 
language or religion.''
  Few people have predicted the sweeping, largely unforeseen 
consequences of the adoption of this document. From this one provision, 
among the 10 that focus on human rights and fundamental freedoms, there 
were movements sprung that embraced the Helsinki process as a sword and 
as a shield. Independent civil societies coalesced around this basic 
principle and used the followup processes that were set in motion by 
the Helsinki Final Act to hold their governments' feet to the fire.
  In 1976, Congress established the Helsinki Commission with the 
mandate to monitor and report on compliance with the Helsinki Final Act 
and, most importantly, to press successive administrations to make 
human rights and democracy priorities in the conduct of U.S. foreign 
policy.
  In the subsequent years, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in 
Poland, and Watch Groups in Moscow, in Kyiv, and in Vilnius sprang up 
to push for the release of political prisoners and to defend the rights 
of those who wanted nothing more than to worship and to have the 
freedom to advocate for refuseniks and others who sought to reunite 
with their families across borders.
  Through what became known as the Helsinki process, Congress and 
previous administrations supported the rights of Lech Walesa, Vaclav 
Havel, Natan Sharansky, and countless others who emerged as leaders in 
their supporting of the historic transitions to freedom 30 years ago 
with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the end of communism, the 
unification of Germany, and as President Bush proclaimed, a ``Europe 
whole and free.'' The Helsinki process of monitoring, reporting, 
advocating, urging, meeting, and witnessing was a catalyst for these 
historic changes.
  Most importantly, at a time of historic transition, the countries 
participating in the Helsinki process all acknowledge that democracy 
was the only form of government that we could accept and that issues 
related to human rights and democracy were never matters of internal 
interference but were matters of direct and legitimate concern to all 
participating states. This means, quite frankly, that we have, under 
the Helsinki Accords, the legitimate right--I would say the 
obligation--to challenge the failure of any one of those 57 states in 
its meeting of its Helsinki commitments. That is why it is right that 
we in the U.S. Senate speak out against Russia or speak out against 
Turkey or speak out against any member state in the OSCE when it 
violates these basic principles.
  Over the July 4 work period, I was proud to participate in the 
largest delegation we have ever had to the annual session of the OSCE 
Parliamentary Assembly. The Parliamentary Assembly--facilitating 
lawmaker-to-lawmaker interactions and discussions--was established to 
complement the intergovernmental work being done. One of the OSCE's 
strengths is that there is a parliamentary dimension. It is not just 
government officials; it is also parliamentarians who meet to implement 
these commitments to human rights and good governance.
  The OSCE and its Parliamentary Assembly have been used to advance 
U.S. interests, including their support for human rights, free 
elections, combating anti-Semitism and human trafficking, and other 
initiatives that have come from the U.S. Congress that have then served 
as the foundation for U.S. positions and, ultimately, agreements that 
have been adopted by all 57 states that have participated in the OSCE.
  I remember discussions in the Congress that dealt with fighting 
modern-day slavery and trafficking and fighting anti-Semitism. We 
initiated them in the Congress. Through the Helsinki Commission, we 
raised them in the Parliamentary Assembly. They then got raised in 
Vienna, which is where the Ambassadors who represent all of the states 
meet, and they were adopted as policy in all 57 states. We have had a 
very positive impact.
  During this recent Parliamentary Assembly, I hosted an event called 
``Countering Hate: Lessons from the Past, Leadership for the Future.'' 
As I stated during the event--and I will underscore now--we have 
observed an uptick in hate-based instances across the OSCE region and 
beyond--from Pittsburgh and Poway to Christ Church. When we fail to 
act, we endanger not only the most vulnerable within our societies but 
the very foundations of our democracies.
  Given how much has been accomplished by the United States and others 
through the OSCE over the past 30 years, it is deeply concerning to see 
our own American President embrace a drawback of universal human rights 
in our own country and embrace dictators around the world, who rule by 
promulgating fear and hate.
  President Trump has called Turkish President Erdogan a ``friend'' and 
has shared love letters with the very brutal Kim Jong Un after calling 
him ``very talented.'' Turkey, which has been a member of the OSCE 
since its inception and a member of NATO, has witnessed a dramatic 
acceleration in President Erdogan's efforts to consolidate power and 
hobble his political opposition.
  His unrelenting pressure on the judiciary and purges of its ranks of 
judges and prosecutors have left respect for the rule of law and due 
process in crisis. Tens of thousands have been detained in sweeping 
dragnets following the failed coup, including independent voices from 
virtually every sector of society--opposition politicians, civil 
society activists, journalists, academics, and many more. These vast 
purges have had a chilling effect on the free press and the freedom of 
expression.
  The Committee to Protect Journalists considers Turkey the world's 
worst jailer of journalists, with 68 documented cases, although a local 
Turkish press freedom organization lists more than 130 who have been 
detained. Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey as the 157th out of 
180 countries for press freedom--its lowest ranking ever. Under 
emergency powers assumed by President Erdogan after the coup attempt, 
the Turkish Government closed around 200 media outlets.
  As for North Korea, Kim Jong Un has one of the most deplorable human 
rights records in the world.
  According to Human Rights Watch:

       Kim Jong Un--who serves as chairman of the States Affairs 
     Commission and head of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea--
     continues to exercise almost total political control. The 
     government restricts all civil and political liberties, 
     including freedom of expression, assembly, association, and 
     religion. It also prohibits all organized political 
     opposition, independent media, civil society, and trade 
     unions.

  President Trump has been repeatedly willing to take the word of 
former KGB agent Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence services.
  On March 3, 2018, in speaking about Chinese President Xi during a 
private fundraising speech at Mar-a-Lago, he said:

       Xi is a great gentleman. He's now president for life--
     president for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to 
     do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a 
     shot someday.


[[Page S4800]]


  That is not who the President of the United States should be 
embracing.
  He has repeatedly praised Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. This is 
the same leader who independent press, civil society groups, foreign 
governments, and international organizations have all confirmed is 
engaged in the extrajudicial killing of his own citizens--work that 
President Trump praised as doing an ``unbelievable job on the drug 
problem.''
  Mr. Duterte himself, as a former mayor, has admitted to murdering 
people. That Mr. Trump would laud Mr. Duterte for his barbaric 
atrocities is outrageous and is another indication that instead of 
standing up for America's values, President Trump continues to endorse 
leaders around the world who violate the very principles that America's 
Founding Fathers enshrined in our Constitution.
  I mention our Founding Fathers not in passing, but as we recently 
celebrated our Independence Day on July 4, I quote from the Declaration 
of Independence, which set our Nation on a path with the ideal that we 
hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; 
and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
  So I was particularly troubled that within days of July 4, the Trump 
administration, through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, unveiled what 
he referred to as a Commission on Unalienable Rights. In his 
announcement, Secretary Pompeo called this new Commission ``one of the 
most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world 
since the 1948 Universal Declaration.''

  I, along with many colleagues in the U.S. Congress, fear that this 
Commission, whose purpose it is to advise the Secretary of State based 
on the principles of natural law and natural rights, will undermine or 
curtail State Department advocacy in critical human rights arenas, 
including women's health as well as LGBT rights.
  For 243 years, with all of her imperfections, America has been a 
beacon for peoples around the world. Those who have embraced natural 
law have not been welcoming. They peddle in hate and division. The ACLU 
notes that references to ``natural law and natural rights'' are code 
words often used to undermine the rights of women and the LGBT 
community. This is just the latest in a string of attacks on women and 
the LGBT community by this administration. If the President and the 
Secretary of State want to build on protecting human rights, they will 
work within the framework that the United States helped to establish, 
not question the definition or universality of human rights.