[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 209 (Thursday, December 11, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8666-S8667]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on International 
Human Rights Day, which marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration 
of Human Rights in 1948.
  After the atrocities of World War II, world leaders understood that 
large-scale abuses do not begin with mass violence. They begin when 
governments cut off basic rights, freedoms, and silence their own 
people. The declaration was an effort to build a more stable and 
predictable world by setting clear rules for how governments should 
treat their citizens.
  More than seven decades later, we are again seeing election 
interference and political repression, attacks on journalists and civil 
society, war crimes committed with impunity, and a broader disregard 
for basic human rights. One of the clearest examples is Russia's 
invasion of Ukraine. To deny Ukrainians the freedom to choose their own 
future, Russia has bombed hospitals and kindergartens, executed 
civilians, and abducted Ukrainian children in an attempt to erase 
Ukrainian culture. And Ukraine is not the only place where the Kremlin 
uses coercion to control its neighbors and dictate their political 
direction.
  Last year, the Georgian Government took unprecedented steps to 
silence its citizens and weaken their democratic system. It passed 
repressive laws. It walked away from Georgia's constitutional promise 
to join the Euro-Atlantic community. And it cracked down on civil 
society and imprisoned political opposition, moves that align squarely 
with Moscow's interests. Leaders in Georgian civil society--including 
Nino Dolidze, the recipient of the National Democratic Institute's 
democracy award--have worked at great personal risk to defend those 
basic rights. Their fight is part of a larger global struggle.
  From Eastern Europe to Latin American and Southeast Asia, the pattern 
is the same: When authoritarian leaders feel threatened, they silence 
critics, shut down independent groups and dismantle the checks meant to 
hold them accountable. And the regimes that do this are the same ones 
that threaten regional stability and our own security, which is why 
supporting democratic movements and civil society abroad remains 
squarely in America's interests.
  This administration's funding cuts for democracy and election 
observation programs move us in the wrong direction. And directives 
telling U.S. personnel to avoid speaking publicly about how elections 
are run overseas only make it harder to call out abuses when they 
occur. The United States should not be stepping back; we should be 
stepping up.
  Few leaders understood these stakes more clearly than Madeleine 
Albright. At her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, she said, 
``Democratic

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progress must be sustained as it was built, by American leadership. And 
our leadership must be sustained if our interests are to be protected 
around the world. Do not doubt: those interests are not geopolitical 
abstractions, they are real.''
  I was reminded of that during a visit to Kosovo a few years ago. 
While standing at Secretary Albright's statue, an older man approached 
to thank us for her leadership and for the U.S. role in ending the war 
there. It was a clear reminder that when the United States stands with 
people fighting for basic rights, it makes a difference.
  On this Human Rights Day, we should take that lesson seriously. 
Supporting democracies and independent civic groups makes America 
safer. That takes U.S. leadership. So I urge my colleagues to back 
steady funding, credible election observation, and the resolve to call 
out abuses when they occur.

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