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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, in 1948, the world came together to adopt the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to declare with one voice that every single person on Earth is ``born free and equal in dignity and rights.'' They declared that ``no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile''; that ``everyone has the right to freedom of thought'' and everyone has a right to ``freedom of opinion and expression.''

This is Yu Wensheng, a human rights lawyer based in Beijing. His rights are being denied to him because he is arbitrarily detained after being arrested for exercising freedom of expression and freedom of opinion.

Yu has a history of ruffling feathers in Beijing. He is known for criticizing the Communist Party, for supporting the ``Yellow Umbrella'' movement for rights in Hong Kong, and for taking on politically sensitive cases. Beijing has retaliated by destroying his legal career and making it impossible for him to practice law.

Yu Wensheng has been in Chinese custody since January of 2018 because he dared to publish an open letter calling for political reforms, such as holding fair elections.

The day after he published that letter calling for fair elections, law enforcement officers, including police and armored vehicles, confronted him while he was walking his son to school and forced him into a police vehicle on suspicion of ``picking quarrels and provoking troubles.'' Police had no regard for his son's safety at that moment. Authorities later added the charge of ``inciting subversion,'' a charge often used against human rights advocates and typically carrying a sentence of up to 5 years.

Two years would go by before Yu was allowed to speak to his wife; 2 years before he was allowed to speak to his son; 2 years before he was allowed to meet with his defense lawyers. During those 2 years, he was secretly tried and convicted. In June of 2020, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison--all without any defense lawyers present, without his family being even informed.

He suffered greatly during this incarceration. He was beaten up by a group of inmates and sustained injuries to his head. His right hand suffered nerve damage--damage that occurred in a previous detention-- and is now shaking so violently, he can barely use it. He has had to learn to write with his left hand.

His appeals have been denied. He was sent to serve his sentence in a prison 600 miles away from Beijing despite repeated requests from his wife that he serve out his sentence closer to home so his family could visit.

That type of action is the exact opposite of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, that declaration that no one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile. This man was subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, and exile simply for expressing the opinion that there should be fair elections. He is not alone.

Today, I will also highlight a Chinese journalist. Her name is Haze Fan. She worked in Beijing for Bloomberg, covering global business issues. Before working with Bloomberg in 2017, she worked for other major international outlets, household names like Reuters, CNBC, CBS, and Al Jazeera.

On December 7, 2020, just over a year ago, Ms. Fan was being escorted from her apartment by security officials. She was detained on suspicion of endangering China's national security, although a year later, the investigation into Ms. Fan is still ongoing, with no details of what she is accused of or even where she is held. She was a journalist, and a message is being sent.

Certainly, this is not consistent with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights that says that everyone has the right to freedom of thought and to freedom of opinion and expression because for being a journalist, she is being detained.

As I stand here at this moment, 127 journalists like Haze Fan are detained in China, according to the statistics compiled by Reporters Without Borders. It is no wonder that China is at the very bottom of Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, right there with North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Eritrea.

This is what is happening in a country that just 7 weeks from now will be hosting the Olympic Games--Games meant to be a celebration of camaraderie, physical achievement, and lifting up the human spirit. But it is Yu Wensheng and Haze Fan and all others like them detained by the Chinese Government for demanding the recognition that all are ``born free and equal in dignity and rights'' who deserve to have their spirits lifted up. They deserve to know where the world stands. Does the world stand with them?

Now, the United States and the United Kingdom, joined by Canada and joined by Australia--they have declared diplomatic boycotts of February's Games. I am very proud that the Government of the United States has declared this boycott. They said that they will not join the fanfare of the Games, helping China to disguise the egregious human rights abuses against individuals like these; that we will not stand with our diplomats at those opening ceremonies when China has stripped the political rights of every single citizen in Hong Kong. We will not have our diplomats there in opening celebrations, helping China cover up its genocide against the Uighur people. But tonight, I am wondering where the rest of the free world is.

You know, I was thinking a little bit about the history of France-- the history of France being very engaged in human rights issues. France stood with the United States as an ally when we fought for our freedom. France gifted our Nation with the symbol of freedom, the Statue of Liberty, whose torch is held up to the world. France authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen not in 1990 but in 1789--one of the very first documents laying out the foundations of human rights, defining individual and collective rights. Where is France tonight--standing with the United States and Canada and Australia? They are not there.

I am really disappointed to hear President Macron saying that any such boycott would be ``insignificant.'' Do you know what is significant? Going to the opening celebrations and helping China cover up genocide and stripping Hong Kong of political rights. It is not just significant and substantial, it is wrong.

France, we call on you to continue the tradition of fighting for freedom, the tradition that led you to stand with us, that led you to send us the Statue of Liberty, that led you to craft one of the first documents in the world for human rights in 1789.

The Education Minister of France argued that sport should be separate from political interference. When you put the Games in a nation engaged in genocide, you put the athletes in the middle of the worst of world horrors and ask them to be complicit in covering up by engaging in the Games as if nothing else was going on.

You know, it was 1936 that the Olympic Games were held in Hitler's Germany. He was already engaged in serious human rights violations. He turned down those violations during the Games, and the world said: Germany is coming back into the family of nations. We did not as a world highlight his ongoing crimes at that time, which emboldened him to horrific acts that followed soon upon the close of those Games. That was a mistake, to help Hitler cover up the human rights abuses of the Nazis, and it is a mistake for us now to help China cover up its horrific human rights abuses.

So I call on France to join us in this boycott, this diplomatic boycott, to say: Yes, it is too late for the Games to move. I regret that. I called on them to be moved. But it is not too late to strip away the pomp and circumstance of the opening Games. It is not too late to call out the serious, egregious conduct occurring in China--not some petty serious problem but genocide and the crushing of the entire state of Hong Kong, the entire entity of Hong Kong, in terms of their political rights.

France, join us, as you have over time, in standing for human rights.

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