U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) sadly recalled the plight of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese political prisoner was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Dec. 10 in absentia in Oslo because the Chinese government would not allow him to attend. Smith submitted the following into the Congressional Record today:

    "Madam Speaker: In the theatrical adaptation of Victor Hugo‟s Les Miserables, Marius sings a haunting song – 'Empty Chairs and Empty Tables' – an expression of agony at the loss of his idealistic comrades, gunned down on a barricade. 'There's a grief that can't be spoken,' he sings, 'there's a pain that goes on and on. Empty Chairs and empty tables, now my friends are dead and gone…' ."

    "When prisoner of conscience Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2010, learned that he was selected, he wept and dedicated his prize to the martyrs of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre," Smith said. Click here to read Smith's remarks on the Congressional Record.

    Smith, a longtime human rights advocate in Congress, is the Ranking Member of both the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the Helsinki Commission, and Co-Founder and Executive Committee Member of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC). A member of Congress since 1981, he has chaired over 25 congressional hearings on human rights in China.

    In February 2010 Smith led a bi-partisan group of lawmakers in nominating Liu for the prize—at the same time nominating two other persecuted human rights advocates, Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng, to be joint recipients—as part of an international tide of support for awarding the prize to Liu. Earlier this month Smith’s resolution, H. Res. 1717, was debated on the House floor. It passed in a roll calll vote of 402-1.