WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Rick Scott released the below statement following the Hong Kong’s Legislative Council’s move to adopt the “Safeguarding National Security Bill,” known as Article 23 legislation, which takes another dangerous step at the whim of the Communist Chinese Party to strip the people of Hong Kong of their basic human rights and freedoms.

Senator Rick Scott said, “I was the first U.S. Senator to visit Hong Kong when the protests began in 2019, where I met with pro-democracy leaders, business and religious leaders and protestors who were fighting every day for their basic human rights. They told me stories of the complete oppression they experience under the rule of Xi and his evil regime. Xi’s response was to silence them with a new ‘National Security Law’ to punish the people of Hong Kong and jail pro-human rights leaders like Jimmy Lai who dared speak up. And now, this latest move by Hong Kong’s government to pass Article 23 legislation will only further strip the people of Hong Kong of their rights and freedoms and subject them completely to the Chinese Communist Party. Xi and his evil regime will settle for nothing but conformity and submission from every nation and every people – we’ve seen this in Hong Kong, and we’ll see it in Taiwan if President Biden doesn’t take this opportunity to stand for freedom and democracy by condemning Communist China’s oppression and human rights violation.”

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