Public Statements
TLHRC Letter to Secretary Kerry Regarding the Continued Detention of Peaceful Activists in Indonesia
On June 18, 2015, six members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Congressmen Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA), James P. McGovern (D-MA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Randy Hultgren (R-IL), and Juan Vargas (D-CA), sent a letter to Secretary Kerry in advance of Indonesian President Joko Widodo's upcoming visit to the United States.
Today we commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. On June 3 and 4, 1989, peaceful pro-democracy protests led by students, workers, and others in Beijing's Tiananmen Square were violently crushed by Chinese government forces.
On May 13, 2005, in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, Uzbek government forces opened fire on thousands of demonstrators assembled to protest government corruption, repression, poverty, and official injustice. Hundreds of men, women, and children were killed.
Commission Co-Chairs Jim McGovern and Joseph Pitts released a letter to President Barack Obama today signed by 43 additional members, expressing deep and continuing concern over the continued suppression of civil, political and religious rights within the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the events that, over a period of eight years from 1915 to 1923, resulted in the deaths of over one and a half million Armenians, and the forced exile of hundreds of thousands more.
Once again Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been arrested for exercising his fundamental right to freedom of expression. Today his home was surrounded by security forces and he was taken away.
On March 27, 2015, Congressman James P. McGovern and Congressman Joseph R. Pitts, Co-Chairmen of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, sent a letter to Secretary Kerry urging his serious engagement on the worsening human rights situation of ethnic Uyghurs in China.
As Co-Chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, we are deeply concerned about recent reports alleging that on March 16th the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad attacked the town of Sarmin, Idlib in the northwestern part of the country using chemical weapons, specifically barrel bombs filled with chlorine gas.