Representative Chris Smith / United States Congress (Left), Central Committee of the CCP in the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, China by Mirko / Stock.Adobe.com (Right)
Congressman Chris Smith, R-N.J., delivered an appeal for justice and legislative action July 8, as he marked the 10th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) brutal crackdown on human rights lawyers.
Speaking at a Capitol Hill symposium hosted by ChinaAid and IPK Media, Smith honored the courage of those targeted in the 2015 “709 Crackdown” and condemned the CCP’s escalating repression.
“Ten years ago, the Chinese Communist Party launched an unprecedented nationwide campaign targeting human rights lawyers and rights defenders,” Smith said, according to a press release from his office. “Across 23 provinces, more than 300 lawyers, legal assistants, and activists were detained on fabricated charges.”
Smith, who co-chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reminded the audience of the brutal tactics used during the 709 Crackdown.
“Many were forcibly disappeared for months, subjected to torture, and coerced into televised ‘confessions,’” he said, adding that at least 10 of those detained were later handed long prison sentences.
Smith noted that the 709 Crackdown marked the beginning of a broader campaign to dismantle China’s legal rights movement — and that repression of human rights lawyers has only intensified in the years since.
“Lawyers who challenge official abuse or defend the poor and persecuted are punished, disbarred, or jailed,” Smith said. “The regime has transformed the legal system into an extension of the Party apparatus, compelling lawyers to demonstrate fealty to the Communist Party and abandon cases deemed politically sensitive. This is the weaponization of law: turning instruments of justice into tools of repression.”
During his keynote address, Smith announced forthcoming legislation titled the “FREEDOM for Gao Zhisheng Act.” The bill would require the U.S. State Department to implement a strategy aimed at securing the release of political prisoners, including Gao Zhisheng, the renowned Christian human rights attorney who has been missing since 2017.
“[T]his legislation reaffirms our commitment to Gao Zhisheng — and to all those who have sacrificed everything in the pursuit of justice and truth,” Smith said. “Their voices may be silenced in China, but they are heard here.”
In addition to his proposed bill, Smith also urged the Senate to act on his “Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act,” which passed the House 406 – 1 earlier this year.
He described the practice in China as a “State-sanctioned system” of killing prisoners of conscience — often Uyghurs and Falun Gong practitioners — for their organs.
“It is murder masquerading as medicine,” Smith said. “Every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping, tens of thousands of young women and men — average age 28 — are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into communist party members and leaders.”
Smith reiterated that the US must not allow economic interests to eclipse moral clarity.
“We will continue to stand with and pray for Gao Zhisheng and those lawyers he represents,” he said. “We will honor the families who endure this suffering. We will share their stories. And we will ensure that US policy toward China is shaped not only by economic interests — but by moral leadership and an unwavering commitment to human dignity and freedom.”
