National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Madam President, we are on a motion to proceed to the National Defense Authorization Act, and there are so many different aspects of national security and defense that we touch upon. The Senator from West Virginia actually touched on one of them. A lot of people may not consider it that way, but the threat posed to the United States by transnational criminal groups operating out of Mexico and other parts of the hemisphere are a direct threat to the security of our people.

We had a hearing earlier today in our subcommittee, the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, and we heard testimony from government officials and the administration talking about the threats being posed.

Here is the bottom line. You have these multibillion dollar, multinational entities operating south of our border. We all heard about El Chapo Guzman and the Sinaloa Cartel, but there are others as well, and they are both growing poppy opiates, but they are also manufacturing synthetic fentanyl. There is a prescription version of fentanyl, but this is a synthetic, nonpharmaceutical version, and all of it, basically 100 percent of the stuff they are growing, is being trafficked directly to the United States. There is not a State in the Union or territory in our country or jurisdiction represented by any Member of the Senate which has not been deeply impacted by this war they are waging against us. So it was an insightful hearing and I think reminds us that on the one side we need to deal with treatment aspects because people who are dependent on an opiate substance are sick and they need help as if it is a disease, not a crime.

The other aspect of it is the people pushing the stuff into our country, deliberately targeting us. They are murderers. They are not just killers because they kill each other and innocent people, they are killers because they know the people they are selling these drugs to, they are deliberately trying to hook them on these drugs and they read and know the overdose deaths we have seen. There is an extraordinary growing military-to-military relationship between the national defense parts of our government and our partners in Mexico and other countries and will continue to be. There has to be because these groups need to be defeated or they will continue to spread their poison and death into cities, towns, and our States. Human Rights

Madam President, another aspect of national defense that people don't think about when people think about national defense is the issue of human rights. So much of the instability that is happening around the world that we have to respond to militarily out of our national security interests are driven by the violation of human rights.

Oftentimes our soldiers, sailors, our service men and women, when called to engage militarily or be present militarily in any part of the world, are also having to deal with the consequences of what is happening from a human rights perspective. Where it gets difficult is in many cases some of the countries that are violating the human rights of their people and others happen to be military allies of ours. It is always a balance that people argue, but no matter what our arrangements may be with any potential military partner anywhere in the world, we should never back away from the cause of human rights, for not only is it the right thing to do, which speaks to our values as a people and nation, but human rights is also a leading cause of instability. The violation of human rights leads to this instability. It is what causes people to take to the streets to try to get rid of their governments and their leaders.

So I come to the floor today to bring to your attention an ongoing human rights issue that weighs heavily on me and should weigh heavily on all of us. Every day people are unjustly detained, tortured, publicly shamed, and murdered, often at the hands of their own government. Here is what their crimes are: simply disagreeing with the government--disagreeing through journalism, blogging, peaceful organizing, or for simply being in a different religion. In jail cells all around the world, there are innocent men and women who wanted nothing more than to freely express themselves in the society in which they live.

The vast number of political prisoners held by repressive regimes is a sobering reminder of how much work remains to uphold basic human rights and advance democratic values. From Cuba to China, from Turkey to Saudi Arabia, people are suffering for exercising freedoms that our Creator gave them.

I say the phrase ``political prisoners,'' but I remind you that these prisoners oftentimes are ordinary people like us--people who dream of a greater future for their country, people who envision a better life for their families and loved ones. They are journalists, bloggers, many are human rights activists, educators. Some are politicians. We also have pastors, mothers and fathers and students.

America traditionally has been a voice for those oppressed. We as a country and as a people have engaged in what Ronald Reagan once described as ``the age-old battle for individual freedom and human dignity.'' It is unacceptable for America to forsake this legacy today, to turn its back on our fellow human beings who are losing their lives or being imprisoned for exercising their fundamental, God-given freedoms.

This is why last September my office launched a social media campaign we call hashtag ``expressionNOToppression.'' Each week we highlight a different political prisoner or prisoner of conscience in an effort to put a human face on the many who suffer from oppressive regimes around the world.

Today I come to share the stories of some of the people we have championed in the past year.

In 2014, Tibetan writer and blogger Dawa Tsomo was detained for breaking China's cyber laws by publishing articles that the government considered ``politically sensitive.'' To this day, she is missing. Today, China is one of the most repressive countries in the entire world.

In Cuba, matters are just as serious, if not worse. Beatings, public acts of shame, and termination of employment are well-known consequences of disagreeing with the Castro regime. The Castro regime has rearrested almost all of the 53 political prisoners it released as part of the supposed normalization of relations that President Obama undertook at the end of 2014.

Remember the 53 names on the list of people they were going to let go as part of the normalization? Virtually all 53 of them have since been rearrested.

The Cuban people know they deserve better. Groups throughout the island have continuously stood up against oppression. One of the most prominent is the group the Ladies in White or, in Spanish, Damas de Blanco. Many of those who make up this group are the wives and relatives of jailed dissidents protesting the unlawful imprisonment of their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers. So each Sunday following Catholic mass, the Ladies in White take to the streets in a silent march. They are often harassed, arrested, and even beaten by the Cuban Government.

In fact, this last Sunday, the leader of the Ladies in White was arrested. She will soon be placed on trial and can face between 3 months and 5 years in prison, but this sort of treatment hasn't stopped them. Week after week, these women continue to protest the Castro regime and fight for the freedom of their nation and of their loved ones.

In the disaster that has become Venezuela, due to its incompetent tyrant leader, Nicolas Maduro, a tyrant who is an incompetent clown, we have seen one of the most prominent opposition leaders, Leopoldo Lopez, arrested and sentenced to 13 years 9 months in prison on charges of terrorism, murder, and grievous bodily harm and public incitement-- sounds like pretty serious charges. Here is the reality. Leopoldo Lopez, who was the Governor of a prominent state in the country, was imprisoned for advocating for a constitutional democratic and peaceful change in the Venezuelan Government. That is why he is in jail.

Since the Venezuelan Government's crackdown on opponents began in February of 2014, dozens of innocents have been killed, thousands have been beaten and targeted for intimidation, and hundreds more have been jailed, not to mention that most of these political prisoners in Venezuela are men.

Do you know what happens to the wives of these men in jail when they go visit their spouses in prison? They are often stripped-searched by male guards in front of their families as the act of ultimate humiliation. This is what we are dealing with in Venezuela.

In late March of this year, the Venezuelan National Assembly passed a law that would extend amnesty to more than 70 prisoners in Venezuela because they had an election. Even though the Maduro government always steals the elections in Venezuela, the loss was so overwhelming they couldn't steal this election. So the opposition won control of the Venezuelan National Assembly, and they passed a law that extended amnesty to more than 70 political prisoners who are in Venezuelan jails simply because they opposed Maduro, not because they committed a crime.

To no one's surprise, the tyrant Nicolas Maduro promised to block it. He claimed it was unconstitutional. Only a few weeks later, he sent a law to the supreme court and urged them to overturn it. Four days after his request, the supreme court--a supreme court which is illegitimate because it is completely stacked with his cronies--granted him his wish and declared the law unconstitutional.

So that is why there has been a coup d'etat in Venezuela. That is why democracy has been canceled and why there is now tyranny. You have an elected national assembly being ignored, and you have a supreme court being stacked with cronies who are basically a rubberstamp for the tyrant. The result is the gross violation of human rights, most prominently of Leopoldo Lopez.

In Pakistan, we have seen proponents of religious freedom murdered for criticizing blasphemy laws. In March of 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister of Minority Affairs-- and, by the way, the only Christian to serve in Pakistan's Cabinet--was shot to death by the Pakistani Taliban outside of his mother's home. Five years have passed. The Pakistani Government has failed to bring his murderers to justice and have failed to reform the blasphemy law that continues to encourage violence, murder with impunity, and the marginalization of religious minorities. As a result, numerous other prisoners of conscience in Pakistan suffer behind bars.

Finally, as President Obama visited Vietnam this week, a Vietnamese blogger and human rights activist named Nguyen Huu Vinh was languishing in a state prison for having voiced the wrong opinions about his government.

These example are just a tiny window into the world of political oppression that exists today. Their cases are only a few that we have highlighted in our hashtag ``expressionNOToppression'' campaign.

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Mr. RUBIO. They span the globe from Angola to Laos, from Iran to Burma. All of these men and women were seen as a threat to the leaders of their nations. But I--and I agree the Presiding Officer as well--see them as heroes. Just because they aren't fighting on a battlefield doesn't mean they aren't putting their lives on the line for the greater good of their people and their nation.

In a country where we are free to express ourselves, it is hard to grasp this risk. It is difficult to imagine a prominent journalist in the United States fearing for his or her life solely for doing their job or to fathom a popular blogger facing the death penalty solely for expressing their thoughts. Well, this should be just as unimaginable, to jail independent journalists in the rest of the world.

The families of the prisoners I mentioned today have also paid a price. Most of these families spend their days and nights unsure if they will ever again see their loved ones. There are no visiting hours. There are no phone calls. In the cases of many on death row, their families often find out they have been executed on the state-run media. Children are being left to grow up on their own, wondering where their mother or their father has gone, wondering if they will ever feel their embrace again.

But there are reasons to be hopeful, for when free people speak out, it can make a difference in the lives of the oppressed. As a result of numerous international efforts, including our hashtag ``expressionNOToppression'' campaign, some prisoners of conscience have been released from jail and reunited with their families, although they may not be able to return to their home country. We saw it in the case of the Cuban street artist known as El Sexto, who was freed last October after 10 months in prison. We saw it in the case of prominent Azerbaijani human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif, who were released from jail only on the grounds of deteriorating health but have since been allowed to travel to the Netherlands for medical care and to be reunited with their daughter. Once released, many have agreed that our advocacy on their behalf was a great encouragement to them and their families and, by the way, likely resulted in better treatment or even a speedier release.

A few years ago, famed Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky testified on Capitol Hill. He said of himself and fellow prisoners of conscience in the USSR that ``we could never survive even one day in the Soviet Union if our struggle was not the struggle of the free world.'' We should take to heart this sentiment he expressed and embrace the struggle of political prisoners who languish unjustly as I speak.

We must do everything we can to raise awareness of the brutality taking place in repressive regimes around the world. We must not forget the hundreds of people who are being tortured or being deprived of their lives for trying to bring freedom to their land while illegitimate governments desperately cling to power.

Even with our strategic allies, such as Saudi Arabia, we can never stop insisting that they show respect for women, for all human life, and for the God-given fundamental rights of all people.

Oppressed peoples do not stay oppressed forever. Oppressive governments do not stay in power forever. Inevitably, the human yearning to be free and to achieve a better life for one's self and one's family eventually cannot be restrained.

Today, I pray for those who are victims of their own government. I pray for the release of prisoners of conscience and their families. I pray that our own country stands firmly by its principles by calling for the sacred right of every man and woman and child to be free. Tribute to Maggie Dougherty

Lastly, Madam President, on a point of personal privilege, I would like to take a moment to thank Maggie Dougherty, who has been a valuable member of my legislative team for the past 5 years and specialized in issues of human rights around the world.

Her expertise and, just as importantly, her passion on these issues have been invaluable to me and to my staff. Her service to our country, to the people of Florida, to the Senate, and to many individuals and families like the ones I just mentioned who suffer around the world will not be forgotten.

I thank you for your service, Maggie. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

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