Chris Smith: “I thank my good friend for yielding and for his leadership, as well as Chairman Meeks. I especially want to thank…”

“I thank my good friend for yielding and for his leadership, as well as Chairman Meeks. I especially want to thank Chairman Keating for authoring this very, very important resolution and for his hearing that he held in March on the situation in Belarus. Madam Speaker, the resolution condemns Alyaksandr Lukashenka's ongoing and ever-worsening brutality and crackdown on peaceful protestors. As my colleagues know, the leading opposition presidential candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who almost certainly won the election in August and helped form the Coordination Council as a means to seek a peaceful transition of power, needs our consistent and robust support and encouragement. Today, Ms. Tsikhanouskaya is in exile in Lithuania, where she continues to rally the Belarusian people and the world and to demand democracy and human rights for her nation, no matter how long it takes. More than 8 months have passed since the stolen August presidential election, and about 5 months since President Trump signed the Belarus Democracy, Human Rights, and Sovereignty Act of 2020, which I authored. Let me point out to my colleagues that I first authored the Belarus Democracy Act in the year 2004. It was enacted into law and reauthorized in 2006 and 2011. What it did was focus on denying visas to human rights abusers and made people who are singled out ineligible for participating in our economy. In retaliation, I was told I could not visit Belarus.…”