WASHINGTON, D.C.— Representative James P. McGovern (D-MA), Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Committee and Ranking Member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, wrote a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to rescind the appointment of a Uyghur genocide denier to a top position at the United States Department of State.

“There are few foreign policy issues that have garnered as much broad bipartisan support as the Uyghur issue. This is because their plight is compelling and their cause is just,” wrote Representative McGovern. “It is dismaying, and frankly outrageous, to have the Secretary of State undercut that legacy of bipartisan support and hang the Uyghur people out to dry.”

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appointed Darren Beattie to be Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. 

Beattie has a disturbing record of denying that Uyghurs suffer genocide (despite such a determination made by the State Department) and commending the brutal and repressive conduct of China’s government as a model for the United States. 

Secretary Rubio has also ordered a freeze on foreign assistance funding, which has stopped programming and caused layoffs at groups who advocate or Uyghurs and their human rights.

McGovern’s letter asks Rubio to resume foreign assistance that allows the U.S. government to help Uyghurs preserve their culture and identity against Chinese government repression.

Representative McGovern and then-Senator Rubio recently served as cochairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, when the bipartisan panel conducted a hearing and produced a report on findings that the Chinese government was subjecting Uyghurs to forced labor. They worked together to pass the McGovern-Rubio Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act – landmark human rights legislation that prohibits the United States from importing goods made with the forced labor of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.