Just one day after Rep. Smith was honored by an international organization dedicated to the defense of Christian minorities, the internationally-recognized human rights leader received a second award from a national coalition honoring his work in promoting religious freedom around the world.

On Thursday, Smith received the Thomas Jefferson International Religious Freedom Champion Award from the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, a group of representatives from key non-governmental organizations who work to advance international religious freedom issues and help prisoners of conscience who are punished for their faith.

He received the 2017 IDC Cedars of God Award on Wednesday from the group In Defense of Christians, for leading in the passage of legislation protecting and aiding vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities.

“As you all know well, people of faith and conscience are suffering and dying for their beliefs around the world right now,” Smith said on Thursday upon receiving the IRF Champion Award.

“There is so much more to do. People of faith around the world face genocide, torture, imprisonment, and severe restrictions on the most fundamental decisions of faith and conscience.” Here are Rep. Smith’s full remarks.

The evening before, at the Wednesday event, Smith was honored at the annual IDC Solidarity Dinner for his leadership in Congress in protecting persecuted Christians and other minorities. More than 500 people from around the world, including religious leaders, members of Congress, and human rights advocates, attended the dinner where Vice President Mike Pence was the keynote speaker.

Pence thanked Smith for his “tireless” defense of persecuted religious minorities around the world.  

Smith is the author of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, a significant upgrade to the landmark International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Smith’s bill was signed into law in December of 2016.

That law strengthened the role of the Office of International Religious Freedom within the State Department, made religious freedom training mandatory for all foreign service officers, created a list of prisoners worldwide detained for their religious beliefs, and added to the actions the U.S. can take against the worst violators of religious freedom.

It was supported by an ecumenical coalition of religious groups, as well as other religious freedom advocates and non-governmental organizations.

“The help and lobbying of this roundtable was critically important in passage of that bill,” Smith told the International Religious Freedom Roundtable on Thursday.

Smith was also the original sponsor of H.R. 390, the Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act, which passed the House in June. That bill would streamline U.S. assistance to persecuted religious minorities in Iraq and Syria through the aid groups that help them directly.

Additionally, it would fund criminal investigations into the atrocities committed against religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria that could eventually lead to the prosecution of the perpetrators.

Smith noted that “we are still appealing to the Senate to pass that bill immediately.”

Last December, Smith also led a delegation to Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where 70,000 Christians displaced by ISIS currently reside. He traveled at the invitation of the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Erbil Bashar Warda.

While visiting the aid camp, Smith met with genocide survivors, religious leaders, aid workers, and U.S. and UN representatives.

Smith has been a champion of religious freedom and human rights in the House, having traveled to over 50 countries and advocating for human rights. He has spoken out repeatedly against human rights abuses and curtailments of religious freedom, and has pushed for the release of many different prisoners of conscience.

“I am still moved by testimonies of those in China, Iraq, Nigeria, Iran, and Vietnam—whose faith will not falter even under the most unthinkable persecutions,” Smith said on Thursday.

“More than ever before, vigorous U.S. leadership and diplomacy are needed to address religious freedom violations globally,” Smith said.