In our frequent conversations, different diaspora communities have some horrific stories. They may have family members back in China who are being held in forced labour camps for Uyghurs, or they may be members of the Falun Dafa community whose loved ones were captured and tortured and had their organs illegally harvested. The individuals who carried out these grotesque human rights violations enriched themselves and still have free ability to travel wherever they want.
You can look at the number of deaths that have occurred in Ukraine because of Russia's aggression and attacks. Families have often lost loved ones to sexual violence from Russian soldiers as they invaded over the lines in places like Irpin and Bucha. I've been there and met with the families, and they have loved ones back here. There's no recourse for them against the monsters who carried these things out under the direction of Vladimir Putin.
I talked to people in the Persian community who watched their loved ones thrown into prison outside of Tehran and then executed. The brutality that takes place on the streets is.... All they wanted was freedom, democracy and human rights, the things that we take for granted, which are being denied in so many other countries around the world. If we don't stand up and hold the people who are carrying out these atrocities and these genocides to account, nothing will ever change.
How do people become genocidal maniacs? They almost always start by being a corrupt foreign official who is stuffing their pockets illegally out of the government coffers at the expense of the citizens they're supposed to be representing and providing the public good for. You can look at somebody like Viktor Yanukovych when he was president of Ukraine. He stuffed his pockets and ran away to Russia as soon as the people turned against him. He was prepared to take away all of their rights and their civil liberties. In the process, he engorged himself on the public purse for his own personal benefit.