International Human Rights Day

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on International Human Rights Day, which marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

After the atrocities of World War II, world leaders understood that large-scale abuses do not begin with mass violence. They begin when governments cut off basic rights, freedoms, and silence their own people. The declaration was an effort to build a more stable and predictable world by setting clear rules for how governments should treat their citizens.

More than seven decades later, we are again seeing election interference and political repression, attacks on journalists and civil society, war crimes committed with impunity, and a broader disregard for basic human rights. One of the clearest examples is Russia's invasion of Ukraine. To deny Ukrainians the freedom to choose their own future, Russia has bombed hospitals and kindergartens, executed civilians, and abducted Ukrainian children in an attempt to erase Ukrainian culture. And Ukraine is not the only place where the Kremlin uses coercion to control its neighbors and dictate their political direction.

Last year, the Georgian Government took unprecedented steps to silence its citizens and weaken their democratic system. It passed repressive laws. It walked away from Georgia's constitutional promise to join the Euro-Atlantic community. And it cracked down on civil society and imprisoned political opposition, moves that align squarely with Moscow's interests. Leaders in Georgian civil society--including Nino Dolidze, the recipient of the National Democratic Institute's democracy award--have worked at great personal risk to defend those basic rights. Their fight is part of a larger global struggle.

From Eastern Europe to Latin American and Southeast Asia, the pattern is the same: When authoritarian leaders feel threatened, they silence critics, shut down independent groups and dismantle the checks meant to hold them accountable. And the regimes that do this are the same ones that threaten regional stability and our own security, which is why supporting democratic movements and civil society abroad remains squarely in America's interests.

This administration's funding cuts for democracy and election observation programs move us in the wrong direction. And directives telling U.S. personnel to avoid speaking publicly about how elections are run overseas only make it harder to call out abuses when they occur. The United States should not be stepping back; we should be stepping up.

Few leaders understood these stakes more clearly than Madeleine Albright. At her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State, she said, ``Democratic progress must be sustained as it was built, by American leadership. And our leadership must be sustained if our interests are to be protected around the world. Do not doubt: those interests are not geopolitical abstractions, they are real.''

I was reminded of that during a visit to Kosovo a few years ago. While standing at Secretary Albright's statue, an older man approached to thank us for her leadership and for the U.S. role in ending the war there. It was a clear reminder that when the United States stands with people fighting for basic rights, it makes a difference.

On this Human Rights Day, we should take that lesson seriously. Supporting democracies and independent civic groups makes America safer. That takes U.S. leadership. So I urge my colleagues to back steady funding, credible election observation, and the resolve to call out abuses when they occur.

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