Chris Smith: “I want to thank my good friend for his very strong remarks today and his leadership, Brad Sherman as well, and, of…”

“I want to thank my good friend for his very strong remarks today and his leadership, Brad Sherman as well, and, of course, Jim McGovern, as chairman, and I, as the ranking member of the China Commission, for the work that we have been doing to try to bring light to this terrible human rights tragedy, this genocide that is being committed against the Uyghur people. Madam Speaker, Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping's ongoing genocide against the approximately 10 million Uyghurs living in Xinjiang in northwestern China demands action. Today, more than a million Uyghurs are in concentration camps. Millions more are harassed, beaten, raped, and tortured. S. 3744, which is nearly identical to legislation H.R. 649 that I and my good friend Mr. Suozzi and 136 bipartisan cosponsors introduced 17 months ago, requires the administration to categorize and report on the human rights abuses being committed by the Chinese Government and take specific steps to sanction China's officials for these abuses, including visa denial and asset blocking, the essence of the Magnitsky Act, which is the prohibition of all financial transactions by an abuser. Madam Speaker, at a 2018 congressional hearing, Mihrigul Tursun recounted her ordeal with torture, sexual abuse, and detention in one of Xi Jinping's concentration camps. She broke down weeping, telling us that she pleaded with God to end her life.…”