Chris Smith: “Mr. Speaker, I urge every member of this body to support House Resolution 364. This strongly bipartisan resolution urges…”

“Mr. Speaker, I urge every member of this body to support House Resolution 364. This strongly bipartisan resolution urges the introduction and passage of a resolution on human rights in the People's Republic of China at the 54th session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission which began yesterday and runs to the 24th of next month. If any government deserves to be the subject of a U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution, the Beijing regime does. In its testimony before my subcommittee last month, Assistant Secretary of State John Shattuck made it very clear that ``. . .the government of China continues to commit widespread and well-documented abuses in all areas of human rights.'' He also testified that there have not been any major improvements in that situation during the last year. As detailed in the State Department's country reports on human rights practices in China, those abuses included extrajudicial killings, the use of torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, forced abortion and forced sterilization, the sale of organs from executed prisoners, and tight controls over religion, speech, and press. Persecution in some areas, such as the captive nations of Tibet and East Turkistan, even intensified during the past year.”