Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, today, brave men and women, boys and girls, are standing up and demanding that the Chinese Communist Party protect Hong Kong's autonomy, protect free speech, and defend human rights.
Despite these peaceful protests, the Chinese Communist Party is fighting back with brutality and violence. The police brutality that we have seen and the Chinese Communist Party's larger assault on the people of Hong Kong has been shameful. Just this past weekend, the Hong Kong police began attacking young, innocent students who were peacefully protesting that brutality. They were attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets.
These students' college campus was turned into a warzone, where no one was safe. Today, we have the opportunity to tell the world, these blatant human rights attacks and this campaign to bully Hong Kong into submission are not OK and America won't stand for it.
Last month, I traveled to Hong Kong. I met with many brave men and women who were standing up. I met with the dissidents, the pro- democracy protesters who are speaking out for Hong Kong's autonomy and free speech and basic human rights. Along with them, I dressed in all black to express my solidarity with the peaceful protestors who have taken to the streets.
Right now, in response to that protest, tear gas, sponge grenades, rubber bullets are being fired at university campuses in Hong Kong. In Xinjiang Province, millions of detained Uighurs and other religious minorities are languishing in concentration camps, and across China, Falun Gong practitioners are captured and murdered so that the Communist Party can harvest their organs.
Freedom from this brutality and the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party is the battle cry of the dissidents in Hong Kong. What have they been waving? American flags. What have they been singing? The American National Anthem--reciting quotations from our Founding Fathers who risked everything for freedom in America.
Madam President, I want to thank Senators Rubio, Cardin, Risch, Menendez, and all the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, both Republicans and Democrats who have joined together. This legislation the Senate is preparing to pass, the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, is important legislation. It is bipartisan legislation. I urge the House to take it up and pass it and pass it promptly.
The people in Hong Kong are engaged in an existential battle for liberty, and they should know and they will know, by our actions in just a few moments, that the people of America stand with Hong Kong.
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