U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) was one of just two members of Congress, and the only member in the U.S. House, to receive a top score by on the newly created “International Religious Freedom Congressional Scorecard,” released for the first time last week by the 21^st Century Wilberforce Initiative. Smith, joined by top-scorer Marco Rubio in the Senate, was awarded an “A+” ranking for his dedication to religious freedom worldwide.

     “The world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis of international religious freedom, a crisis that continues to create millions of victims; a crisis that undermines liberty, prosperity and peace; a crisis that poses a direct challenge to the U.S. interests in the Middle East, Russia, China and sub-Saharan Africa,” said Smith, who has been a champion of religious freedom for almost four decades. “The freedom to practice a religion without persecution is a precious right for everyone, advocacy for this fundamental freedom should be an important part of U.S. foreign policy and I will continue to fight to protect the poor and persecuted globally.”

     Of the 25 House legislative actions that were scored, Smith authored and sponsored five of them: The Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (P.L. 114-281), Vietnam Human Rights Act (H.R. 2140), Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act (H.R. 5961), Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (H.R. 624) and H. Res. 354 (expressing concern for the safety and security of Jewish communities in Europe).

     “I am grateful that a group as important as the Wilberforce Initiative—named in honor of William Wilberforce, a British Lawmaker who was key in the abolition of slavery in the British Empire—is highlighting the essential role of Congress in advancing international religious freedom,” said Smith, Chairman of a House panel on human rights. “Most of the major international religious freedom initiatives over the past few decades came from Congress. I am proud to have worked on many of them with my good friend former Congressman Frank Wolf, one of the driving forces of this initiative and a modern Wilberforce himself.”

     Although not scored in the report, Smith chaired more than a dozen hearings in the 114th Congress focused on international religious freedom or anti-Semitism. The hearings were held through the House panel, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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