May 3, 2016 Press Release WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today Congressmen James P. McGovern and Joseph R. Pitts, the Co-Chairmen of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, issued the following statement in recognition of World Press Freedom Day: A free and independent media is a pillar of democracy. Yet media professionals today face alarming, and at times life-threatening, barriers to their work. In its 2016 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters without Borders documents a troubling worldwide trend of…

Mar 27, 2015 Press Release 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. Full text of the letter can be found here.

Apr 6, 2018 Press Release WASHINGTON, D.C. –​ Congressmen Randy Hultgren (R-IL) and James P. McGovern (D-MA), Co-Chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, wrote to the United States Ambassador to China asking him to raise the cases of detained family members of U.S.-based human rights advocates from China. The full text is reprinted below, and a copy of the letter showing signatures is available here. _______________________________________________________________ Dear Ambassador Branstad, As Co-Chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC),…

Apr 3, 2019 Press Release Washington, D.C. – Today Reps. James P. McGovern (D-MA) and Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, with U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), sent a bipartisan, bicameral letter urging the Trump Administration to swiftly impose Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary and Politburo Member Secretary, and other high-ranking Chinese officials complicit in gross human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other predominantly…