Condemning Human Rights Abuses by the Government of Iran and Expressing Solidarity with the Iranian People

Mr. McCaul of Texas- Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of freedom for the Iranian people, and I want to thank Congressman Crowley and Congressman Lantos for their efforts in support of this resolution. I want to thank Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen for her tireless efforts to see Iran become a free and democratic state.

For nearly 30 years, Iranians have lived under the extremist policies of religious clerics. Their human rights violations against the Iranian people defy common belief. The Iranian people deserve, indeed desire, the opportunity to live in a free and democratic society.

This is the dream of the vast majority of Iranians, and we should help them make this dream come true. It has been far too long since we have looked at the human rights record of one of the most evil regimes of the modern era. We know that Iran is the single largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. And we know that their leaders wish to continue inflicting terrible pain and suffering on any group of people who do not share their extremist beliefs.

However, we must also remember the pain and suffering of the Iranian people at the hands of their leaders. Congress, the President, and the international community must address the excessive human rights abuses by Iran's Government. Since the Khomeini revolution in 1979, Iran has been ruled by a string of tyrants who use religion and politics as an excuse to persecute their own people.

Religious, ethnic, and gender discrimination are practiced every day by the Iranian judicial courts and the clerics who run them. People or groups critical to their government are given few rights under the law and no rights in practice.

The Government of Iran practices discrimination against its own people by denial of access to education and employment, seizure of private property, violent suppression of peaceful protest and freedom of assembly, arbitrary arrest and detention, physical and mental torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment such as public executions, hangings and stoning, and extra-judicial killings of dissidents and ordinary citizens.

Iran's clerical regime has been a serial abuser of human rights since it violently took over the country in 1979. But it is clear that since President Ahmadinejad took power, the abuse of Iranian citizens has increased. Under his rule, Iranians are tortured for simply practicing a different religion, for speaking a different idea, and even for not supporting the extremist mullahs.

The oppression of women under the Iranian regime is perhaps the most brutal and most offensive. Iranian women are not allowed to attend universities, to hold jobs, to drive a car. They are forced to cover their entire bodies in public. In many cases of rape, the accused man will not face any punishment, and the woman in question will be accused of fornication, will be imprisoned, and eventually put to death.

One case involved a young woman who was deeply in love with her husband, and without evidence or reason, and against the pleas of her own husband, was found guilty of adultery. She was buried alive up to her chest in Tehran and then stoned to death.

In other cases of abuse, people have been arrested, beaten, and even killed for eating during the month of Ramadan, or doing anything that the mullahs deemed inappropriate. According to Iranian law, the religious police can interrogate a suspect without a lawyer present, which allows them to beat prisoners until they confess, most often to a crime that they did not commit.

We must never forget these violations when we consider Iran's place in the international community. President Bush has attempted to engage the Iranian Government to end their illegal nuclear weapons program. This effort is crucial to keeping the world safe from a nuclear nightmare.

However, the effort must not end there. The United States and its allies must continue to pressure Iran to end the severe human rights violations against the Iranian people.

It is appropriate for us to raise this issue here today. This evening the President of Iran will address the world from the floor of the United Nations. His pleas and support of a nuclear Iran will fall on deaf ears. His continued defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions must end, and the international community must begin the process of isolating the Iranian regime until true reform in that country begins.

Human decency requires us to stand unanimously against Ahmadinejad's oppression of his own people. We must continue to pursue freedom for Iran through diplomacy, but we must also not shrink from our responsibility through the option of strength.

We must also pursue the policy of internal resistance and change from within Iran. The policies and extremist views of Iran's religious mullahs are not representative of the entire nation of Iran. There are many Iranian people who desire to be free and are willing to fight for it. I have met with them, and we should do everything we can to forward their cause.

Now is the time to save their countries, for them to save their own countries, for them to save their own societies and for them to save their own religion.

I would like to leave with a few powerful stories of Iranian citizens who were persecuted and killed at the hands of their own government. The first involved an innocent Iranian girl. The religious police will not even respect the private boundaries of the home. A young girl in Tehran was arrested for swimming in her home pool in a bathing suit. She was found guilty of causing a ``state of arousal'' in a neighbor, from whose house she could be seen. She was sentenced to 60 lashes, but she died after the 30th lash.

Another involved an Iranian photographer in 2003. A single mother, she had struggled to raise a child and to build a career in exile. Her son remembers her as a small but feisty and courageous woman who loved freedom. She left her son for a business trip to Iran and Afghanistan. She was arrested while photographing a group of people inquiring about their detained loved ones. She was interrogated and beaten for refusing to confess to being a spy. She died in a military hospital in Tehran as a result of her torture.

Another case involved a 52-year-old Iranian salesman, 1998. He believed in the Baha'i religion. In the eyes of the state, this made him the apostate, a member of the unprotected infidel community. He, too, was arrested and found guilty of converting a woman to his religion. He was eventually hanged in a public square on July 21, 1998.

These are just but a few stories that highlight the need for this important resolution, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support this resolution.