[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18341]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                HONORING INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY

  The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, today, December 10, is International Human 
Rights Day. Sixty-five years ago in 1948 the first 58 members of the 
United Nations, fresh from the wounds and memories of World War II, 
adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They put aside 
profound disagreements about their political, economic, and social 
ideologies, their cultural and their religious differences.
  Together they created a document remarkable for its breadth of human 
rights protections and outlined a bold vision of a world built on the 
premise that ``all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and 
rights.'' The Universal Declaration articulated mankind's greatest 
aspirations to respect and protect the dignity of every person, 
regardless of his or her race, ethnicity, beliefs, or social standing.
  The Universal Declaration became the cornerstone for developing 
international standards for the protection of human rights and helped 
inform the moral and legal basis for legislative action here in 
Congress. I am privileged to be the cochair of the bipartisan Tom 
Lantos Human Rights Commission, dedicated to promoting human rights and 
educating our congressional colleagues on the importance of standing up 
for human rights.
  Through hearings and initiatives, we have focused on some of the most 
critical human rights challenges around the world. This year we began 
the Defending Freedoms Project, where Members of Congress can adopt 
prisoners of conscience. I congratulate those Members who have adopted 
prisoners and boldly advocated for their release. I invite all my 
colleagues to join the Commission in its Defending Freedoms Project.
  As my colleagues are aware, the U.S. Congress has a long history of 
standing up for the disenfranchised and the abused. It has stood on the 
side of immigrants and championed the rights of those whose governments 
forbid them to emigrate. It has worked on behalf of the disappeared and 
tortured in Chile and the gulags of the former Soviet Union. It has 
stood up for the rights of workers, journalists, and other human rights 
defenders. I hope this Congress and future Congresses will not abandon 
that history, but will continue to stand up for the rights of the 
disenfranchised, not just abroad but right here at home.
  Along with my colleague Frank Wolf, I am proud to carry on the 
tradition as the bipartisan sponsors of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of 
Law Accountability Act, which Congress approved last year and the 
President signed into law. The Magnitsky Act responds to the ongoing 
pattern of brutality against those speaking out for truth and justice 
in Russia. It bans U.S. visas and freezes the assets of some of 
Russia's gross violators of human rights, and affirms our commitment to 
safeguarding human rights and fighting impunity regardless of where 
such transgressions occur.
  In an increasingly interconnected world, the Universal Declaration 
challenges us to place our commitment to human rights firmly and 
uncompromisingly at the center of our foreign policy. Too often we fail 
this test. For example, despite China's relentless crackdown on the 
Tibetan people, we continue business as usual with China. The toll of 
this oppression on human dignity is seen in 19 self-immolations--
Tibetans' desperate protest against China's policies and an appeal to 
the world for action.
  The Universal Declaration also demands that we press our friends and 
allies when they are responsible for human rights abuses. In Bahrain, 
since the 2011 uprising, we have seen reports of torture, multiple 
cases of forced confession, and the unjust prosecution of medical 
personnel. Peaceful political and human rights leaders have been 
arbitrarily jailed to the detriment of political reform and stability. 
Instead of leveraging our good relations with Bahrain to achieve 
greater respect for human rights, we have chosen to renew military 
sales and abandon our past demands for increased human rights 
protections.
  Finally, International Human Rights Day reminds us to recommit to 
respecting human rights in our own Nation. We must eliminate torture in 
all our policies. We must work harder to prevent human trafficking on 
our own soil, and we must protect and advance such basic rights as 
access to adequate food, a fundamental human right under article 25 of 
the Universal Declaration. Forty-eight million Americans, including 16 
million children, don't have enough to eat in this country. Yet in 
September, we saw devastating cuts to our SNAP program, with maybe even 
more on the way in the final version of the farm bill. The Universal 
Declaration and our own American values demand that we do better.
  With the passing of one of the greatest champions of human rights, 
Nelson Mandela, I would like to close with words he offered in this 
very Chamber to a joint meeting of Congress in 1990:

       To deny any person their human rights is to challenge their 
     very humanity. To impose on them a wretched life of hunger 
     and deprivation is to dehumanize them.

  As we remember Nelson Mandela, let us draw inspiration from his 
dedication to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration, 
and let us rise to the challenge of that document's vision to respect, 
protect, and promote the human dignity of every person so that we might 
achieve a more peaceful, just, secure world.

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