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Mike on Human Rights

I am committed to defending human rights, here and throughout the world. I have opposed trade agreements, like Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and CAFTA for Central America, in part because US negotiators did not insist on protections for human rights or the right to organize unions. I have paid particular attention to the human rights situation in China and worked for several years to help free Dr. Yang Jianli, a legal permanent resident living in Massachusetts, who was detained in China on April 26, 2002. Dr. Yang was involved in the Tiananmen Square Demonstration in 1989 and blacklisted from returning to China by the Chinese government. Dr. Yang returned to China in 2002 using another person's passport. He was subsequently detained for fifteen months incommunicado before being charged with espionage and sentenced to five years in prison. It is really Dr. Yang's work to bring democracy to China that led to his lengthy sentence, imposed despite his worsening health. I am grateful that Dr. Yang was finally able to return to his family after years of imprisonment. I have joined with Amnesty International in support of other prisoners of conscience around the world and with programs like "Scholars-at-Risk" at Harvard in defense of exiled dissidents.

I have worked also with the International Rescue Committee, the Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights and with the Political Asylum and Immigration Representation (PAIR) project to secure political asylum for survivors of torture and other atrocities and to reunite refugees and asylees with their spouses and children. I have long been concerned about violence against women and the Boston Rape Crisis Center turned to me during the Kosovo War when relief agencies, coping with sexual trauma on a scale they had never seen, needed training materials in Albanian. I secured, for the first time in our history, an authorization for services for victims of rape as a crime of war.

We must ensure that those who come to the US from other countries are treated fairly. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans faced discrimination based on their ethnicity and beliefs. I cosponsored legislation that condemned such bigotry and called for tolerance and acceptance.

As a firm believer in individual freedom, I oppose efforts to amend the Constitution to define marriage as being limited to a man and woman. If passed, the amendment would immediately supersede an individual's right to marry that is the law in Massachusetts and other states. I believe that the government's only role in a marriage should be recognition of the fact that it is a legal contract. If two consenting adults wish to enter into that contract, with all of its accompanying rights and responsibilities, then the government should not deny them that opportunity.

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