Victims who have lived through imprisonment and harassment by the Chinese government gathered together with human rights leaders on Capitol Hill today to speak out on the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao in the United States.

    Hu is receiving a high profile welcome from the Obama Administration—including a formal state dinner—prompting Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), other House members and human rights groups to criticize Hu’s harsh policies and China’s abysmal human rights record at a press conference.

    Smith said that last month President Hu gave proof to the world of his government’s moral puniness and fear – when he left the Norwegian Nobel Committee no choice but to place the Nobel Peace Prize on an empty chair–empty because Hu wouldn’t let Liu Xiaobo, a proponent of gradual democratic reform, out of his prison cell to receive the prize. Hu even had Liu’s wife and friends placed under house arrest for fear they would come to Oslo to receive the prize for him. Click here to read Smith’s statement.     “President Obama, as the 2009 Nobel Peace laureate, has an obligation to call for Liu’s release publicly and vigorously,” said Smith, a longtime human rights advocate in Congress, chair of the House Human Rights Subcommittee and Executive Committee Member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC). “Having led a group of members in nominating Liu for the prize, I was present in the Oslo City Hall for the empty chair ceremony, along with former Speaker Pelosi and Rep. David Wu. Over the years I have had the further privilege to meet a number of Nobel Peace laureates. There is a strong bond between peace laureates – they share an understanding that the world’s most prestigious award confers an obligation on them. I think that, for the peace laureates, the idea that they could meet personally with and throw a White House state dinner for a political leader responsible for jailing another laureate and not demand publicly for their fellow laureate’s release would be something absolutely unthinkable. I truly hope that in the next few days President Obama lives up to the award he received in 2009.”Click here to watch the press conference on CSPAN.

    Smith, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has traveled to China several times on human rights delegations, including before the 2008 Olympics, and has held 28 hearings on human rights China. He has also served as the Ranking Member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Last month, Smith attended the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo for political prisoner Liu Xiaobo, who was barred from attending by Hu’s government. In a 1994 press conference, Smith noted a break from the high priority of human rights in U.S. foreign policy under the Clinton Administration when it delinked human rights from Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status in 1994. 

    Speakers at today’s press conference included:

• Geng He, the wife of Gao Zhisheng, a well known political prisoner and China’s leading human rights lawyer;
• Ngawang Sangdrol, ex-political prisoner in Tibet, present in Tibet during Hu’s 1988-1990 tenure as party boss in Tibet, during which he presided over the most violent crackdown on Tibetans since 1959;
• Chai Ling, former student leader at Tiananmen Square, currently President, All Girls Allowed;
• Bob Fu, former political prisoner, currently President, China Aid Association;
• Harry Wu, former political prisoner, currently President, Laogai Research Foundation;
• Rebiya Kadeer, former political prisoner, currently President, World Uyghur Congress (WUC);
• Reggie Littlejohn, President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, and;
• Yang Jianli, former Chinese political prisoner, currently representative of Liu Xiaobo to Norwegian Nobel Committee, and President, Initiatives for China.