A visit next week by Chinese President Hu Jintao to President Obama has prompted Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), other House members and human rights groups to focus on China’s abysmal human rights record at a press conference set for Tuesday.

    Only last month, Smith traveled to Oslo with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Chinese political prisoner Liu Xiaobo, who was barred from attending by the Chinese government. Smith led the successful drive to nominate Liu, a leader on Tiananmen Square, a dissident writer and imprisoned rights activist.

Who: 
    Congressman Smith (NJ-04), 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); Congressman Frank Wolf, TLHRC Co-Chair; other invited members of Congress. Human rights leaders will also speak to the press: Geng He, the wife of Gao Zhisheng, 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; also, Chai Ling, former student leader at Tiananmen Square, currently President, All Girls Allowed; Yang Jianli, former Chinese political prisoner, currently representative of Liu Xiaobo to Norwegian Nobel Committee, and President, Initiatives for China; 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.

When:   Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2010 at 2 p.m.

Where:  Room 2456 of the Rayburn House Office Building (on fourth floor)