I can assure you, Mr. Smith, we are raising this, we are talking about these issues.

I think it is important to--as this Commission, maybe one of the last bastions in the Congress of trying to stand on human rights as a whole and talk about the importance of our policies.

I cannot tell you that I feel like it is necessarily any better on the rule of law on human rights, stretching from religious freedoms to reproductive freedoms to many of the other issues that we have discussed in here.

But we cannot decouple economic growth from human rights growth, and, as a Nation, we need to hold those ideas up.

I think with the first couple of Presidents there was some movement, some movement, but I believe that under this current regime they have taken some big steps backward.

Please don't ever stop speaking about it. Please tell our story. Please tell what is going on. It is critically important.

Yes, I think so.

I think as a Nation, that we can't decouple our economic interests from our human rights and our values.

This Congress has no more passionate, committed human rights champion than Chris Smith.

I said, 'That is not so surprising. What is more troubling to me is that students here might not know what happened.'

in the spirit of trying to find a balance between compassion, smart economic policy, and being good stewards of taxpayer dollars, that is our responsibility