House unanimously approves resolution demanding China immediately release detained US citizen

The House unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday that calls on China to release Mark Swidan, the U.S. citizen who has been detained in China since 2012 and who was sentenced to death in 2019.

The resolution cleared the chamber in a 418-0 vote.

Swidan, a businessman from Texas, was arrested in 2012 on accusations that he was trafficking and manufacturing methamphetamine. The United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has said that Swidan was arbitrarily detained.

Swidan was in China to look for materials for his home and business, according to The Texas Tribune.

Swidan was convicted in 2019 and received a death sentence with reprieve. Earlier this month, the People’s Republic of China’s Jiangmen Intermediate Court denied Swidan’s appeal and upheld his death penalty sentence with a two-year suspended death sentence. State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel in a statement said the department was "disappointed" by the decision.

The resolution approved by the House on Tuesday said Swidan “is being unjustly and arbitrarily detained” by the Chinese government.

It specifically “demands that the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party immediately release Mark Swidan.” The measure also condemns Beijing for refusing to allow Swidan regular communication with his family, access to U.S. diplomats and “independent and competent medical care and evaluation.”

Additionally, the resolution requests that the U.S. government “deepen and prioritize efforts” to get Swidan released by “urging PRC counterparts at every level of engagement to release Swidan” and by “using the voice and vote” of U.S. diplomats in international forums to shine a light on Swidan’s case.

“Mark Swidan is an American, a Texan and a hostage of the Chinese Communist Party for more than a decade. We stand together to demand his release and an end to his torture by CCP officials,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the floor Tuesday.

“Threatening an American citizen with death for a crime that he could not have possibly committed is a brazen human rights' violation and a disgusting example of CCP’s hostage diplomacy,” he added.

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), the sponsor of the resolution, said he hopes the measure “will signal to China that this death sentence should not be enforced and that Mark should be sent home.”

Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) called the resolution “timely” and “urgently important," and said Swidan's situation is "a travesty of justice."