[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ONE YEAR UNDER ROUHANI: IRAN'S ABYSMAL HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
AND THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 19, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-202
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
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http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida--resigned 1/27/ GRACE MENG, New York
14 deg. LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida
LUKE MESSER, Indiana--5/20/14
noon deg.
SEAN DUFFY, Wisconsin--l--5/
29/14
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
TOM COTTON, Arkansas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida JUAN VARGAS, California
TREY RADEL, Florida--resigned 1/27/ BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
14 JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia Massachusetts
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina GRACE MENG, New York
TED S. YOHO, Florida LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
LUKE MESSER, Indiana--5/20/14
noon deg.
SEAN DUFFY, Wisconsin--5/
30/14
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Robert P. George, Ph.D., chairman, U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom................................ 9
Ms. Cler Baheri, member of the Baha'i community.................. 44
Mr. Hossein Alizadeh, regional program coordinator for the Middle
East and North Africa, International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights
Commission..................................................... 51
Mr. Amir Hossein Etemadi, former Iranian political prisoner...... 59
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Robert P. George, Ph.D.: Prepared statement...................... 12
Ms. Cler Baheri: Prepared statement.............................. 47
Mr. Hossein Alizadeh: Prepared statement......................... 53
Mr. Amir Hossein Etemadi: Prepared statement..................... 61
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 82
Hearing minutes.................................................. 83
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations: Prepared statement.............................. 84
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement.......... 87
ONE YEAR UNDER ROUHANI: IRAN'S ABYSMAL HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD
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THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa and
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committees met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. The joint subcommittee will come to
order.
After recognizing myself, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
Deutch, and Ranking Member Bass, for 5 minutes each for our
opening statements, I will then recognize other members seeking
recognition for 1 minute. We will then hear from our witnesses,
and, without objection, the witnesses' prepared statements will
be made a part of the record.
We thank you all for being here.
And members may have 5 days to insert statements and
questions for the record, subject to the length limitations in
the rules.
The Chair now recognizes herself for 5 minutes.
It was thought that the human rights situation in Iran
couldn't possibly get any worse than it was under the tyranny
of Ahmadinejad. During Ahmadinejad's 8 years in office, Iran
saw a precipitous increase in the numbers of prisoners of
conscience, journalists in jail, executions, and the ethnic and
religious minority communities all suffered a great deal.
Of course, we cannot forget the 2009 Green Movement in Iran
in which millions took to the streets to protest Ahmadinejad's
stay in power calling for reforms. This was an opportunity for
the United States to lend its support for a reform movement in
Iran, but instead the administration refused to support the
Green Movement, and missed a real opportunity to support change
in a part of the world that is resistant to peaceful change.
It is, unfortunately, a mistake we have seen with this
administration too often, and we are seeing the results of its
inaction and indecisiveness now. Then, along came the so-called
moderate, Rouhani, and the Western media and the administration
all tripped over themselves saying he was a man who could bring
reform to Iran.
What they were forgetting, or choosing to willfully be
ignorant of, was the fact that this Rouhani was the consummate
regime insider, handpicked by the Supreme Leader to be one of
the finalists in the Presidential selection. It bears reminding
everyone that no policy--domestic or foreign--gets enacted in
Iran without Khamenei's say-so, and that includes the Iranian
regime-sanctioned human rights violations.
Yet everyone wanted so badly to believe that Rouhani would
be this reformer, and just like he had done when he was Iran's
chief nuclear negotiator, he managed to pull the wool over the
eyes of many. But what we have seen so far in the 1 year since
Rouhani won the June 14, 2013, selection--and I call it a
selection because the people of Iran were given a false choice
of selecting one of Khamenei's handpicked choices.
Well, according to the most objective analysis, the human
rights situation in Iran has not gotten better, and in many
areas it has gotten worse. There have been over 670 executions
under Rouhani, and over 900 political prisoners remain in jail.
According to some human rights groups, Iranian authorities have
executed on average more than two people a day in 2014, many of
whom have been political prisoners or members of ethnic
minority communities.
But the wanton and flagrant human rights abuse practices
don't just end there. In Rouhani's Iran, the regime continues
to stifle free speech, freedom of the press, right to assembly,
jailing bloggers and social media users, and shutting down
media organizations, and jailing journalists. Some reports
indicate that there are upwards of 40 journalists and bloggers.
Iran has the world's second highest number of jailed
journalists, 100 human rights defenders, and hundreds of
religious minorities unjustly imprisoned in Iran.
One of the most endangered groups are the Baha'is, Iran's
largest non-Muslim religious minority, who have seen their
community constantly targeted for persecution and imprisonment.
There are over 150 members of the Baha'i community
currently in Iran's prisons, including Rozita Vaseghi, who, as
part of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission's Defending
Freedoms Project, I have adopted as my prisoner of conscience.
These prisoners of conscience are being held in Iranian
prisons merely for professing and practicing their religious
beliefs. And many, like Rozita, have been sentenced to harsh
prison sentences of 5 years or more where they are placed in
solitary confinement, subjected to cruel conditions, and denied
the medical attention they need.
Christians continue to be intimidated, harassed, and
detained, including U.S. citizen pastor Saeed Abedini, who was
just recently taken from his hospital bed, beaten, and thrown
back in jail, and who has suffered a multitude of injuries at
the hands of the Iranian authorities.
Then, of course, there is South Florida resident Robert
Levinson, who lives in Congressman Deutch's district, and his
family lives there, who was abducted in Iran over 2,500 days
ago and is now the longest held captive in U.S. history.
Despite Iranian promises to aid in the investigation and search
for him, they have been less than forthcoming.
The litany of cruel and inhumane human rights abuses that
continue to occur under Rouhani is seemingly endless. But
Rouhani knows that all he needs to do is smile and Tweet and
promise the U.S. and the West that he will cooperate on the
nuclear issue, and his transgressions against the Iranian
people will be forgiven or overlooked.
Is that really how we want America to project our foreign
policy? It is way past time for the administration to stand up
to these thugs and to stand up for the people who cannot stand
up for themselves. If we won't do it, who will?
I am pleased to yield to the ranking member, my good
friend, Mr. Deutch of Florida.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for
holding today's really important hearing. And thanks to all of
our witnesses for being here today as well.
As the world remains focused on Iran's illicit nuclear
program, we must not--we cannot ignore this regime, which is
still the world's largest state sponsor of terror, is
responsible for the detention of three American citizens, and
is one of the world's worst human rights abusers.
Today we will shed light on the continued grotesque human
rights violations that take place in Iran. June 14 marks a year
since Hassan Rouhani was elected President with the perhaps
reluctant support of some of Iran's opposition movement.
Unfortunately, despite Rouhani's campaign promises, the human
rights situation in Iran remains unchanged. Repression of basic
rights and discrimination against minority groups has continued
every single day.
Congress has passed, and the administration has enacted,
numerous provisions of Iran's sanction laws, both in the 2010
Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act,
and in 2011's Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act,
to ban visas, to impose asset freezes and travel bans on those
persons and entities responsible for human rights abuses in
Iran.
Just last week the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights
in Iran, whose mandate was renewed by the U.N. Human Rights
Council at the end of March, some 8 months into the Rouhani
presidency, expressed outrage over the alarming number of
executions that have taken place in Iran this year. Per capita,
Iran ranks first in the world in terms of executions. According
to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, more than 500
executions have taken place this year alone, but the Iranian
Government has only publicly reported on some 125.
A recent report by Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N. Special
Rapporteur, stated that there are at least 895 prisoners of
conscience and political prisoners incarcerated in Iran. This
includes political activists, religious minorities, civic
activists, students, journalists, and other civil society
leaders. Political prisoners face widespread physical, mental,
and often sexual abuse.
Iran continues to discriminate and to perpetrate egregious
abuses against minorities. The Baha'i, the largest non-Muslim
religious group in Iran, numbering somewhere between 300,000
and 500,000, endures denial for jobs and other educational
opportunities based on group membership, and faces
discrimination throughout the Iranian judicial system.
As of last year, 136 Baha'i were being held in Iranian
prison for religious reasons. And since 2005, 49 incidents of
arson have been reported on Baha'i property, without a single
arrest being made for these crimes. In 2010, seven Baha'i
leaders were arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Women are rarely afforded equal treatment in the judicial
system in Iran. In fact, Iranian courts regard the testimony of
a woman to be worth half of that of a man. Earlier this year,
an Iranian woman who had been sentenced to death by stoning for
adultery was released from prison after the international
community seized on her case. This is precisely--precisely why
constant pressure from the United States and our allies is so
critical.
Iranian women have recently been persecuted for posting
pictures of themselves without hijabs as part of the My
Stealthy Freedom Movement, established by an Iranian journalist
who has since been publicly denounced on TV. Women are subject
to fines by the morality police for failing to wear a hijab in
public. And, shockingly, there are now calls for a well-known
Iranian actress, Leila Hatami, to be publicly flogged after a
male director kissed her cheek at the Cannes Film Festival.
In Iran, the LGBT community is all but silenced.
Homosexuality is a crime. Iran is one of seven countries where
those engaging in consensual same-sex relationships can be
punished, and the punishment is death. Just this week, a
prominent LGBT poet was arrested. News reports apparently
accused him of trying to spread homosexuality, as his work was
published by publishing houses outside of Iran, because he is
not allowed to freely publish his writing inside his own
country.
Free speech and freedom of expression, freedom of the
press, are virtually non-existent in Iran. We must not allow
Iran to drop an electronic curtain on its people. The internet
and all social media in Iran is highly censored, despite the
fact that both President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif are
quite active on Twitter.
The U.S. has the tools to go after those who engage in this
kind of electronic repression, and we must use them. Executive
Order 13628, which authorizes the United States Treasury to
sanction those who engage in censorship or other activities
that limit the freedom of expression or assembly of the Iranian
people, must be utilized.
Madam Chairman, we could literally spend all day sharing
examples of all of the ways that the people of Iran are
deprived of their most basic human rights. The U.S. must
continue to speak out in support, as well as to implement
policies that bolster education and outreach to Iranian
society.
Human rights cannot take a back seat in negotiations with
Iran. We must commit ourselves, and we must continue to call on
every nation that we call a partner to not ignore what is going
on inside of Iran. Any country that values human rights must
stand up for those rights everywhere.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here, and I want to
thank you for what you do.
And, Madam Chairman, I yield back.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much for an excellent
statement, Mr. Deutch.
I am now pleased to yield to the chairman of the
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations, Mr. Smith of New Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I think,
again, working together, the two subcommittees, sends a very
clear and powerful message on issues, particularly as relates
to human rights in Iran. So, again, it is great to work with
you and your subcommittee.
Madam Chair, the end of this month will mark 2 years since
Pastor Saeed Abedini had seen or hugged his wife, Naghmeh, and
his children, Rebecca and Jacob. What started out as a
meaningful humanitarian trip to build an orphanage for children
suffering in Iran has tragically left Pastor Saeed's young
children fatherless for the last few years.
Pastor Saeed has been arrested in Iran before, but he was
released and told he could enter and exit the country for
humanitarian work if he agreed to cease pastoring house
churches. As Pastor Saeed's wife, Naghmeh, testified before our
two subcommittees in December, Pastor Saeed accepted the
Iranian requirement and turned to building an orphanage
instead, but Iran did not uphold its end of the agreement.
Pastor Saeed was arrested in September 2012 and remanded to
a prison notorious for housing Iran's worst criminals. He was
denied contact with his attorney until just before the trial.
The trial was a sham. It was not public. He and his attorney
were barred from participating in key portions of the trial,
following which a judge sentenced him to 8 years in prison,
supposedly undermining the security of Iran--what a cruel joke
that is--by sharing his faith and/or practicing Christianity.
A lot of the details are unclear, and discussion is very
difficult as the Iranian Government has denied Pastor Saeed
Abedini's own lawyers access to the judicial decisions. He has
suffered periods of solitary confinement, beatings, internal
bleeding, death threats, and continued psychological torture
during his 630 days in captivity.
Although Pastor Saeed was finally permitted to be examined
this winter by a private physician in Tehran, who determined he
needed surgery for internal injuries, he was denied any
necessary treatment. Instead, on May 20, just a few weeks ago,
Pastor Saeed was brutally beaten at the hospital in front of
his Iranian family and then returned to prison.
Unfortunately, Pastor Saeed isn't the only American held
under questionable and under dire circumstances by the Iranian
Government. Amir Mazeri Hekmati is a 31-year-old former Marine
who disappeared while visiting his family in Iran in 2011. He
was subsequently tried and sentenced to death on charges of
cooperating with an enemy state and accused of moharab, or
enmity to God. He has also been accused of being a CIA agent.
Mr. Hekmati has been an Iranian prisoner for more than
1,000 days on these trumped up charges. Meanwhile, his father
is dying of brain cancer and may never see his son again in
life.
The Iranian Government is also believed to have imprisoned
retired Federal FBI agent Robert Levinson. Mr. Levinson
traveled to Dubai, then to Iran's Kish Island, and hasn't been
seen since. In March 2011, the administration announced there
were indications that Mr. Levinson was being held somewhere in
Southeast Asia, but the Iranian Government has not lived up to
its promise to fully investigate his disappearance. He has now
been in captivity for nearly 2,500 days.
The false imprisonment of American citizens did not change
under President Rouhani, and one excuse proffered is that
somehow the Iranian legal system is organized differently than
the American legal system. Of course we believe that the
President has huge power. That said, we know that in the United
States the executive branch investigates, prosecutes, and
imprisons those convicted of crimes, and the role of the
judiciary is limited to the trial of cases and the hearing of
appeals.
In Iran, the judicial branch investigates and prosecutes
alleged crimes. The judiciary tries the cases, executes the
sentences, supervises the prisons, and runs programs that
purportedly rehab the prisoners. The Chief Justice is also the
official to whom requests for pardons are initially addressed,
for it is he who bears the responsibility of making
recommendations to the Supreme Leader for both pardoning or
reducing the sentences of convicts within the framework of
Islamic criteria.
I, therefore, respectfully call on the Chief Justice. We
have called on the President many times, and the Foreign
Minister. Many of us have conveyed strong views directly to
him, but now we call on the Chief Justice to help resolve these
cases that have become such a sore point between the United
States and Iran.
And, specifically, I ask that the Chief Justice visit or
appoint a personal representative to visit Pastor Abedini, Mr.
Hekmati, and Mr. Levinson, in the prisons where they are held
and that Chief Justice review the integrity of their trial
processes and instruct the Prosecutor General to release for
public review the full trial and appeal records, including the
evidence on which the court relied for each of their cases.
The Chief Justice is also asked to permit representatives
of the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran, Giulio Haas, to visit with
each of these prisoners and to report back to his government,
and to ours, on the state of their health and the conditions of
their imprisonment.
My reading of Article 156 of the Iranian Constitution is
that it is the judiciary's role to serve as the protector of
the rights of individuals and society and I call on the Chief
Justice to implement that.
Ironically, Iran wants the world to lift sanctions and
trust them with nuclear capabilities, despite continued and
violent disregard for fundamental human rights, not just for
Americans, but for countless other people, especially
indigenous Iranians. Pastor Saeed, Mr. Hekmati, Mr. Levinson,
are American citizens, but they have not had their freedom.
U.N. Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Dr. Ahmed
Shaheed, warned in March 2014, just a few months ago, that
hundreds of individuals reportedly remain in some form of
confinement for exercising their fundamental rights, including
179 Baha'i, 98 Sunni Muslims, 48 Christians, and 14 Dervish
Muslims.
Let me just note, in final, while I am grateful that the
President raised the case of Pastor Saeed in his call to
President Rouhani last September, the United States can and
must do more to secure his release and that of the other two
Americans. Naghmeh Abedini testified before our committee, you
will recall, Madam Chair, in December, and she said, ``While I
am grateful''--this is a quote--``for President Obama's
willingness to express concern about my husband and other
imprisoned Americans in Iran, during his recent phone
conversation with Iran's new President, Rouhani, I was
devastated to learn that the administration didn't even ask for
my husband's release when seated directly across the table from
the leaders of the government that holds him captive.'' She
said that right there sitting at that witness table.
She went on to say, ``My husband is suffering because he is
a Christian. He is suffering because he is an American. Yet his
own government, at least the executive and diplomatic
representatives, have abandoned him,'' according to Naghmeh.
``Don't we owe it to him as a nation to stand up for his human
rights and for his freedom? We need to redouble our efforts.''
And, again, with the deadline coming up on July 20, we have a
window of opportunity that cannot be squandered.
Yield back.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith, for a
very eloquent statement. I will now recognize members for 1
minute opening remarks, and we will begin with Mr. Connolly of
Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Imagine for a
moment you are a gay woman, Iranian ethnic minority, whose
working conditions are deplorable. You would like to take
action to improve your life. First, your successful effort to
join the workforce is commended, since it is something only 32
percent of Iranian women ever realize. And it is presumed your
husband did not object to your employment, because by law he is
allowed to. He can legally bar you from the workplace.
Second, you have eluded charges of consensual same-sex
sexual activity and have, therefore, avoided possible execution
or raids on your home. Third, like most Kurds, Arabs, Azeris,
or Baluchis in Iran, you have persevered through a lifetime of
government neglect and institutionalized discrimination.
And, finally, despite overcoming these significant
obstacles, you are nonetheless arrested for spreading
propaganda against the regime and forming socialist groups when
you seek to coalesce your workplace around the issue of
workplace safety.
The human rights situation in Iran is Medieval and remains
bleak, and it is very important we speak out about it.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. And thank you to the ranking
member for hosting this hearing.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. Well put.
Mr. Chabot, our subcommittee chairman, is recognized.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to commend
you and Chairman Smith for continuing this series of hearings
on Iran, perhaps the most dangerous regime in the world today.
As we discussed in the markup preceding this hearing, Iran
continues to be one of the world's leading abusers of
fundamental human rights. The example of the pies is only one
of many. The regime persecutes anybody who dares to speak
publicly, or not so publicly, against the regime, and often
issues death sentences to Iranians who are charged with
insulting Islam.
It has become pretty clear that the so-called moderate
Rouhani is just another in a long list of Iranian thugs whose
contempt for his own people's fundamental human rights and
religious freedom is readily apparent.
I want to thank you for holding this hearing, as I say, and
yield back.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Cicilline is recognized.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Chairman Ros-Lehtinen and
Chairman Smith, and Ranking Member Deutch and Ranking Member
Bass, for holding today's hearing on this very important issue.
I would like to thank the witnesses for their testimony
before the subcommittee this morning, and to say that it is
really a great honor to be joined by people who exemplify
courage and a deep commitment in the struggle against injustice
and human rights abuses.
Even as we continue to closely monitor negotiations
regarding Iran's nuclear capability, we also have a
responsibility to address other risks such as how Iran
threatens universal values of human dignity, equality, and free
expression. In a region of the world with a troubling record on
civil liberties and human rights, especially for women, girls,
and minorities, Iran stands out as particularly egregious.
In addition to reports of suppression of speech, lack of
due process, and discrimination against women and religious
minorities, I am particularly concerned about the status of
sexual and gender minorities in Iran. While nearly 80 countries
in the world still criminalize people for simply being lesbian,
gay, bisexual, or transgender, Iran is one of the few countries
that has the death penalty as a potential punishment, a
position obviously inconsistent with the most basic respect for
human rights.
So I thank my colleagues for calling this hearing and look
forward to the testimony of our witnesses, and yield back,
Madam Chair.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, sir.
And now we will turn to our panel, wonderful witnesses that
we have. First, we welcome Dr. Robert George, who is the
chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom. Dr. George is also the McCormick Professor of
Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in
American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He
has taught at Harvard Law School and is a senior fellow at the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Welcome, Dr. George.
Mr. George. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And we will just quickly introduce the
other panelists, and then we will begin with you, Dr. George.
We also have with us Ms. Cler Baheri, who was born and
raised in Iran, where she was denied entrance to universities
simply because of her faith. After leaving Iran, she was
resettled as a refugee in Canada before moving to the United
States.
Thank you so much for being with us, Ms. Baheri, and we
look forward to your testimony.
And, third, we are so pleased to welcome Mr. Hossein
Alizadeh, who is the Middle East and North Africa Regional
Program Coordinator for the International Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission. Mr. Alizadeh has worked over the last 15
years in Iran and throughout the region to promote equality and
to foster cross-cultural understanding and support for the
civil and human rights of all people.
We welcome you, sir.
And, fourth, we welcome Mr. Amir Hossein Etemadi, who is
the President of the Foundation for the Advancement of Human
Rights, as well as Editor in Chief of a Persian Web site that
covers human rights and civil society news in Iran. Because of
his role in student protests, Mr. Etemadi was imprisoned for 2
years and in 2010 was forced to leave Iran.
We welcome all of our witnesses. Your statements will be
made a part of the record, as I have said. And we will begin
with the esteemed Dr. George. Thank you, sir.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT P. GEORGE, PH.D., CHAIRMAN, U.S. COMMISSION
ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
Mr. George. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. The
beliefs defining Iran's regime remain strongly theocratic. Any
Iranian dissenting from the regime's interpretation of Shia
Islam may be considered an enemy of the state. Since 1999, the
United States annually has designated Iran as a country of
particular concern, a CPC, under the International Religious
Freedom Act. That means its government ranks among the world's
worst religious freedom abusers, subjecting dissenting Iranians
of every description to prolonged detention, torture, and even
execution.
The regime's human rights and religious freedom record must
feature centrally in any assessment of Iran since President
Hassan Rouhani took office last August. Madam Chairman, the
record, the picture, is bleak. Iran's already dire religious
freedom conditions have deteriorated during the Rouhani tenure,
particularly for Baha'is, Christians, and Muslims belonging to
minority Sufi and Sunni sects.
Even members of Iran's Shia Muslim majority have been
targeted, including Ayatollah Boroujerdi, whom I have pictured
here, who is a Shia cleric who advocates religious tolerance
and respect for the liberty of members of Iran's religious
community's minorities.
Dissidents and human rights defenders increasingly have
been targeted, and in several cases executed, for the crime of
``waging war against God.'' Many prisoners of conscience remain
in Iran's prisons. Some are noted in the appendix that I will
provide to my testimony.
Now, here is a snapshot of what we have----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Without objection, that list will be made
a part of the record.
Mr. George. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Here is a snapshot
of what has happened under President Rouhani. at least 135
Baha'is are imprisoned because of their religious beliefs, a
doubling of the number, Madam Chairman, since 2011. This past
May marks 6 years of incarceration for seven Baha'i leaders who
were imprisoned for following their consciences in matters of
faith.
I am sorry. This is the Baha'i seven.
Taking a cue from the regime and media, three Baha'i family
members this February sustained knife injuries from a masked
assailant's attack, and a local leader was murdered last
August. No one has been charged. The crime is committed with
impunity against the Baha'is.
Next to the Baha'is, Iran's theocratic government views
Protestants as its main competitor for Iranian hearts and
minds. As of February 2014, at least 40 were imprisoned,
detailed, or awaiting trial. Human rights groups inside Iran
reported significant increases in Christians physically
assaulted in prison, and that is meant to intimidate those
considering Christianity.
Farshid Fathi, a Christian pastor who ran a house church
network, was one of those injured. As you can see, he is a
young man.
Pastor Saeed Abedini, as several of you have mentioned, an
Iranian-born American minister of the gospel, is serving 8
years on the absurd charge of ``threatening Iran's national
security.'' Here is Pastor Abedini.
Last November he was transferred to another prison known
for its harsh conditions. In March, prison authorities beat
him, as was already mentioned. After he was sent to a hospital
in May, he reportedly was beaten again and returned to prison.
During the past year, U.S. policy has included public
statements, multilateral activity, and imposing unilateral
sanctions on Iranian Government officials and entities for
human rights violations.
At the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom,
we recommend the following, that the U.S. Government should,
first, include violations of human rights and religious freedom
within multilateral or bilateral discussions with Iran, and
work closely with our allies to apply pressure through
advocacy, diplomacy, and targeted sanctions.
Number two, continue to designate Iran a country of
particular concern, and take appropriate actions as enumerated
under the International Religious Freedom Act.
Number three, identify Iranian Government agencies and
officials responsible for the severe violations of religious
freedom, bar them from entry to the U.S., freeze their assets,
and, as per the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability,
and Divestment Act, take action. Next, enact for multiple years
the Lautenberg Amendment, a lifeline for religious minorities.
Finally, U.S. officials should speak out publicly and
frequently at the highest levels about human rights and
religious freedom abuses, advocate for the release of all
prisoners of conscience, and work with the international
community to hold authorities accountable. Representatives
should join the Defending Freedoms Project and the Tom Lantos
Human Rights Commission, as you, Madam Chairman, and the others
have done.
Now, in considering how to engage Iran, let us recall Eli
Wiesel's pledge to himself as a defender of conscience and
human rights. He said, ``I swore never to be silent whenever
and wherever human beings are suffering humiliation. We must
always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the
victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the
tormented.''
Iran's religious minorities are not waging war against God,
but the regime's theocratic rulers are waging war against basic
human rights of the Iranian people. Their abuses demand our
attention and action, especially because negotiations on the
nuclear issue really could divert attention from its
increasingly egregious human rights and religious freedom
violations.
We mustn't let that happen. The U.S. should insist that
Iran demonstrate its commitment to peaceful intentions abroad
by ceasing its war at home against its own people and their
rights.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. George follows:]
----------
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so very much, Dr. George.
Ms. Baheri? Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MS. CLER BAHERI, MEMBER OF THE BAHA'I COMMUNITY
Ms. Baheri. Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Hold on 1 second. Let us stop the clock.
Push the microphone and hold it close to your mouth. Let us
start the clock again.
Ms. Baheri. Got it.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Ms. Baheri. Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch,
and members of the subcommittee, my name is Cler Baheri. I was
born in Tabriz, Iran, and I am a Baha'i. I want to thank you
for giving me the opportunity to share my story with you.
I would like to request that my written statement be
included in----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Without objection.
Ms. Baheri. The Baha'i community of Iran has been the
target of systemic and severe state-sponsored persecution since
the Islamic Revolution of 1979. My family and my husband's
family have experienced this persecution firsthand.
When the revolution began in 1979, I was 12. My father,
Mehdi Baheri, had been serving on the local spiritual assembly
of Tabriz, the elected governing council of the Baha'i
community in that city. As a result, our house was raided five
times. And finally, in 1980, my father and several other
members of the Tabriz assembly, along with two other local
Baha'is, were arrested and imprisoned.
In prison, my father was notified that because he was a
Baha'i, his employment as an accountant with the Ministry of
Health had been terminated, and salary owed to him was
canceled. And his retirement funds, which had accumulated over
the course of 24 years in the civil service, were repossessed.
My family and I would visit my father once a week. My
brother and I would take our report cards to show to my father.
He told us that he was happy that we were doing well in school.
Once he wrote us a birthday note on a piece of clothing that
was sent to us to be laundered. In the note he said he needed
us to understand that he was not in prison for any crime other
than his belief in the Baha'i faith, and that he wanted us to
fight for him by continuing to do well in school.
A few days before his execution, my father was taken in the
middle of the night into a room with one interrogator and a
tape recorder. The interrogator fell asleep and my father was
expected to continue to answer a list of questions that had
been put in front of him. This was his so-called trial.
After their trials, my father and the other Baha'is were
sentenced to death and held in solitary confinement for 24
hours. During this time, they were given the choice of Islam or
edam, which means Islam or death. This meant that if they
recanted their faith and declared themselves to be Muslims,
their lives would be spared. All of them refused. Instead, they
declared that they were Baha'is, and for this they were killed.
On July 29, '81, at the age of 47, my father, Mehdi Baheri,
was executed. And this is a picture of him.
My brother was 9 and I was 15.
When my family was informed of my father's death, one of
our relatives went to receive the body. The prison authorities
forced them to pay for the bullets that had taken his life.
Later that night, the executions were announced on the radio.
The announcer stated that my father and the others were
convicted of corruption on Earth and warring against God.
I finished high school in Iran in 1983. Though I had one of
the highest scores on the provincial exams, I, like many other
students across Iran, was denied entrance to university solely
because of my faith. The next year I left Iran alone, traveling
on the back of a truck through the desert into Pakistan. I was
eventually resettled as a refugee in Canada, and I now live in
Virginia with my husband, Naim Sobhani.
Naim is also Baha'i, and he is from Tehran. As a young man,
he was arrested and detained three times in Iran, twice for
playing jazz in private concerts, and once for possessing
educational material in his car for Baha'i children. When he
was arrested for having the children's material, he was
imprisoned for 2 months and was often held in solitary
confinement in a small room with no windows. He was 18 at the
time.
Naim was also denied admittance to university because he
was a Baha'i. Soon after, he left Iran alone, traveling with a
tribal guide through the western mountains into Turkey. After
being stranded in a mountain village for 5 days during border
skirmishes, he crossed the border into Turkey. He was also
processed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
and was resettled in Maryland.
Naim's father, Riaz Sobhani, is currently imprisoned in
Iran for his efforts to educate Baha'i youth. He had been a
successful civil engineer, but soon after the revolution he was
terminated from his job for being a Baha'i, and his salary,
pension, and savings were seized.
In the years following the revolution, Baha'i students and
professors were expelled from universities, and Baha'i youth
were denied the right to attend university. In 1987, Riaz, my
father-in-law, along with several other Baha'is, most of whom
were academics and professionals, who had also lost their jobs
after the revolution, came together to form the Baha'i
Institute for Higher Learning, known as BIHE.
BIHE is an informal network of classes designed to educate
young Baha'is in a range of subjects, such as biology,
engineering, psychology, architecture, and law. Materials and
funds are donated, and the classes are usually held in homes.
BIHE serves as the only viable avenue through which Iran's
young Baha'is can obtain higher education.
My father-in-law, Riaz, has been instrumental in BIHE from
the beginning, managing administrative work and hosting classes
in his home. For over 20 years, he and the other dedicated
faculty and staff of BIHE have been giving freely of themselves
to ensure that against all odds the next generation of Baha'is
has a chance to contribute to society.
In May 2011, there was a series of raids on dozens of homes
associated with BIHE. Riaz was arrested, along with several
other Baha'is. He and the others were initially held in
Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. In October, after a brief show
trial, he and six other Baha'i educators were convicted of
membership in the deviant Baha'ist sect, with the goal of
taking action against the security of the country, in order to
further the aims of the deviant sect and those of organizations
outside the country. They were each sentenced to 4 to 5 years,
with my father-in-law receiving 4 years.
After their sentencing, Riaz and the others were moved to
Rajai Shahr Prison in Gohardasht, Iran, where the male
prisoners were put in the same ward as the members of seven
imprisoned Baha'i leaders known as the Yaran. In the years
since then, other BIHE educators have been imprisoned. Thus,
there are now 12 individuals who are imprisoned solely because
of their efforts to educate Baha'is.
And this is a picture of the 12 currently in Rajai Shahr.
What my husband's family is now living through because of
my father-in-law's imprisonment is, unfortunately, nothing new.
Their experience with persecution started long before Riaz's
current imprisonment. Soon after the revolution, two of Riaz's
cousins were executed for being a Baha'i.
When Naim's little brother, Navid, who was 6 years at the
time passed away, they buried him in a small Baha'i cemetery.
Soon after, the cemetery was bulldozed and turned into an
agricultural field. A few years later, Naim's grandmother and
aunt were arrested and imprisoned for being Baha'is. They were
held in Evin for 1 year, in solitary confinement for part of
that time, and they were repeatedly beaten and tortured.
In the last several years, Naim's younger sister, Zhinoos,
and her husband, Artin, have both been imprisoned twice.
Zhinoos, who was also denied admission to university, completed
her studies in law with BIHE and is now working at the
Defenders of Human Rights Center, an organization founded by
Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, who has since----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Ms. Baheri, if I could impose----
Ms. Baheri. Sure.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [continuing]. A time limit on your
statement.
Ms. Baheri. Okay. Sure.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. So sorry to do so.
Ms. Baheri. Not a problem. I am almost there. In November
2013, President Rouhani released a draft citizens rights
charter. As human rights organizations have noted, it is a
restrictive and problematic document that raises very serious
concerns. One of these concerns is that the charter states that
the rights it enumerates apply only to religious minorities
recognized by the Iranian constitution, a group that excludes
Baha'is. In recent months, two Baha'i cemeteries were attacked,
one in Sanandaj and one in Shiraz.
I would like to thank the House of Representatives for
passing on May 28 H.R. 4028, which adds the desecration of
cemeteries to religious freedom violations under the
International Religious Freedom Act, and I hope that the Senate
and the President will agree to this much-needed provision.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Baheri follows:]
----------
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms.
Baheri, for your powerful testimony. We thank you.
Ms. Baheri. Thank you.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And now I am pleased to yield to Mr.
Alizadeh. Thank you, sir.
STATEMENT OF MR. HOSSEIN ALIZADEH, REGIONAL PROGRAM COORDINATOR
FOR THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, INTERNATIONAL GAY &
LESBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
Mr. Alizadeh. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Ranking Member
Deutch, and the distinguished members of the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs. Thank you for inviting me to testify today at
a hearing on Iran.
Almost 1 year ago, Iranians went to the polls to choose the
seventh President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Few people
in Iran had any illusions about a flawed electoral process or
the real power of the President in Iran. Over the past three
decades, elections in Iran have been filled with allegations of
vote rigging, intimidation, threats against candidates, and,
more importantly, widespread disqualification of independent
and opposition candidates by the electoral monitoring body.
Just last week, on the 1-year anniversary of his election,
the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, himself openly noted
that elections in Iran have the reputation of being a political
sham.
Unlike the United States, Iran's constitution allows
limited authority to the President of the country. The Office
of the President in Iran, for example, has no control over the
army, the intelligence, the police, or key foreign policy
issues. The real center of power in Iran's politics is the
Office of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has
the final political, religious, and military say. Furthermore,
the Ayatollah's office is exempt from regular checks and
balances.
Although these facts may be already known to the
distinguished members of the committee, a brief mention of them
may help us to set realistic expectations while evaluating the
President's performance and his accomplishments. The truth of
the matter is, within the political dynamics of the Islamic
Republic, the Office of President cannot be an engine of
significant change, even at the best of times.
On a bigger scale, it is neither realistic, nor logical, to
expect a self-declared theocracy, such as the Islamic Republic
of Iran, to function as a secular democracy. Over the past 12
months, the human rights situation in Iran has demonstrated no
significant improvement in comparison to the status of human
rights under former President Ahmadinejad.
The state has continued to carry out a high number of
executions, including the execution of political prisoners.
Other instances of human rights violations include
extrajudicial arrests, house arrests, juvenile execution,
mistreatment and torture of detainees, regular interference in
the privacy of citizens, the ban of free speech, and the
persecution of individuals based on their religious beliefs and
political opinions.
I would like here to specifically highlight the plight of
Iranian gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
Iran's penal code continues to prescribe the death penalty for
consensual same-sex relations. The official media and top
publications, and top officials, including Iran's Supreme
Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, regularly attack homosexuality as a
Western conspiracy and a sign of moral decay.
Individuals suspected of being gay, lesbian, or transgender
face systematic acts of violence and discrimination. Newspapers
are shut down for publishing opinion pieces about same-sex
relations. Security forces raid private parties of suspected
LGBT people and subject them to beating, humiliation, and the
confiscation of property.
Professors and students are forced to leave universities
for organizing academic discussions about gender and sexuality.
Even worse, acts of violence against suspected LGBT family
members often go unpunished and unnoticed. As a result of those
oppressive realities, every year hundreds of LGBT individuals
leave their home country and seek asylum in the West, including
the United States. I am one of them.
I am of course horrified by the human rights violations
occurring in Iran, but I do believe that Rouhani's presidency
provides an opportunity for the Iranian people and the
international community to successfully demand more freedom for
the people of Iran.
Unlike its predecessor, Rouhani seems to believe in less
government control, more international trade, and a stronger
role for academic and professional communities. No one can or
should mistake Rouhani for a champion of human rights. However,
he appears willing to make small improvements and seems to have
the political and social capital to do so.
The United States Government has a moral obligation to
provide opportunities and resources for the Iranian people in
order to give them broader access to information about human
rights standards and personal freedoms, especially through
funding technology to fight internet censorship and to develop
informative resources in Persian.
The political opening created by Rouhani's election should
be utilized through significant investment in public awareness
to counter the notion that human rights are not compatible with
Iranian traditions and values. Also, it is very important to
keep in mind that the authorities in Iran should take note that
the West is not really interested in its bottom line or
lucrative oil business.
They need to know that the international community cares
about human rights records of Iran and to take action of
positive and negative developments in that regard. More
importantly, human rights protection should not be a footnote
or in the fine print of bilateral and regional negotiations.
The United States and the West should speak loudly and clearly
about the importance of human rights and make sure to discuss
this topic in every conversation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Alizadeh follows:]
----------
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, sir.
And now, pleased to yield to Mr. Etemadi. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MR. AMIR HOSSEIN ETEMADI, FORMER IRANIAN POLITICAL
PRISONER
Mr. Etemadi. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Deutch----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Hold on a second. We will stop the clock,
and we will put that mike right in front of you. Thank you.
Mr. Etemadi. Thank you. Madam Chairman, Ranking Member
Deutch, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify before you today.
I am Amir Hossein Etemadi, a former Iranian political
prisoner and the current spokesman of Iranian Liberal Students
and Graduates.
What motivated me to speak at this hearing is the
continuation of the systematic and widespread violation of
human rights and suppression of basic freedom of Iranian
people, along with the efforts of the international community
to prevent the Iranian regime from achieving nuclear weapons.
Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran, under pressure of the
sanctions, has been forced to inevitably submit to parts of the
international community's requests on its nuclear case. It
would not be off the mark to claim that the election of Hassan
Rouhani in June 2013 was due to this pressure. On the contrary,
the noteworthy silence of the international community in the
face of human rights violations in Iran has encouraged the
Islamic Republic to further expand and aggravate violation of
the Iranian people's rights.
According to a report by human rights watchers, since
Hassan Rouhani's election, at least 750 people, including 38
political prisoners, have been executed. Almost all of them
were deprived of their rights to due process and a fair trial.
In the past year, arrests, issuance, and enforcement of prison
sentences for religious minorities, including Baha'is,
Christian converts, Sufis, and Sunni Muslims, have been
continued.
Rouhani's government, like its predecessors, does not
recognize followers of the Baha'i faith as a religious
minority, and they are still banned from attending
universities. On the other hand, despite all his promises
during the Presidential campaign to release the political
prisoners, especially Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Moussavi, and
Zahra Rahnavard, the Green Movement leaders have been under
house arrest since February 2011. Not only Mr. Rouhani did
nothing for them, even more journalists and bloggers, human
rights defenders, labor and civic activists, students, cyber
activists, and dissidents have been arrested in the past year.
Moreover, while Facebook and Twitter continue to be
blocked, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, and Hassan
Rouhani, along with other members of the government, such as
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, are active on these social
networks.
Iran State TV, which has a monopoly on visual audio media
in Iran, still has an important role in censorship and false
propaganda of the Iranian regime against its opponents.
Terrestrial jamming of satellite signals by transmitting rogue
and strong electromagnetic frequencies have been intensified
since the new government has taken office to an extent that
their possible health hazard and link to cancer have been
discussed in Iranian local media.
Ladies and gentlemen, at such time, I, as individual who
has experienced detention, torture, and harassment by the
Iranian regime for my peaceful political activities, ask you to
place the Islamic Republic's human rights dossier on the
nuclear negotiation table, and tie the final resolution of the
latter to settling of Iran's human rights file.
I believe that the U.S. and its allies at least could ask
Iranian authorities to be committed to their international
obligations on these specific cases. One, agreeing to a trip to
Iran by Mr. Ahmed Shaheed, United Nations Special Rapporteur,
on the situation of human rights in Iran, and granting him the
permission to freely meet with the victims of human rights
violations.
Two, ending transmission of rogue frequency aimed at
jamming satellite signals, in accordance with Iran's
obligations as a member of International Communication
Associations. Three, commitment to free elections, in
accordance with Declaration on Free and Fair Elections passed
by Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1994 to which Iran is a
signatory.
I would also like to ask you to, firstly, ensure full
adherence of the U.S. Government to the existing sanctions
against violators of human rights and those individuals
involved in crackdown and suppression of the dissidents.
Secondly, place Ayatollah Khamenei, Islamic Republic Supreme
Leader, and all the financial and military organizations under
his control, as the main responsible party and orchestrator of
human rights violations in Iran, on the list of the sanctions.
Keeping The Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order, EIKO, and
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, and their
subsidiaries on the list would have two results. It ensures
that the release of frozen Iranian funds, which belong to
Iranian people, would not be controlled by oppressive
organizations, and also it would intensify the pressure on the
violators of human rights.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Etemadi follows:]
----------
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, all of you, for
powerful testimony.
I will begin the question and answer period. We have heard
the harsh realities of the human rights situation in Iran. Dr.
George, sadly, Iran is not alone. Part of your Commission's
mandate by law is to review the ongoing facts and circumstances
of violations of religious freedom around the world, present
that in your annual review, make policy recommendations to the
President, to the Secretary of State, and to us in Congress,
with respect to matters relating to international religious
freedom.
How many countries are currently listed by the State
Department as a country of particular concern due to their
ongoing and systematic violations of religious freedom? How
many did your Commission recommend to be listed? When was the
last time a new country was designated as a country for
particular concern by the State Department?
And why does the administration repeatedly overrule your
Commission's recommendations? Is this symptomatic of the larger
problem that the United States is dropping advocating for
religious freedom and human rights so low on our foreign policy
agenda? Have we been using all of the tools available to us--
namely, sanctions--to promote religious freedom and human
rights?
And let me just ask the questions, and we will have all of
you respond. And, Ms. Baheri, thank you, again, for your
testimony, telling your story, a story that unfortunately is
not unique to just you as a member of the Baha'i community.
In your testimony, you talked about Rouhani's Citizen
Rights Charter, and this was part of his so-called reform
agenda. But, as you note, it raises very serious concerns, the
least of which that it still does not recognize the Baha'i as a
religious minority. Do you believe Rouhani has ushered in an
era of reform and moderation, or is he really just another man
in part of the inner circle of the Supreme Leader who has
managed to fool so many with his smooth talking and empty
promises, the so-called window of reform?
And, Mr. Etemadi, you have been a political prisoner of the
Iranian regime. In your testimony, you say that the silence of
the international communities, in the face of ongoing human
rights violations in Iran, has actually encouraged Rouhani and
the regime to even further expand these abuses and curtail the
rights of his people.
Has the rush by the media in the West to anoint Rouhani as
a reformer, a moderate, blinded us to his real nature because
we want to believe that he can change Iran? And the
administration's push for a nuclear deal without pursuing the
human rights track as well, has emboldened the Iranian regime
to continue committing these atrocities without repercussions.
And we will begin with Dr. George, if you could be brief in
your remarks.
Mr. George. Thank you, again, Madam Chairman. I want to
address one of the points you made well into your question, and
that is this question of silence, international silence,
silence sometimes from those of us here in the United States.
As I said in recent testimony to Chairman Smith's
committee, there is a time and place for quiet diplomacy, yes.
I can tell you some examples from our own experience at the
Commission where that time and place have existed, but most of
the time staying quiet simply encourages the human rights
abusers to continue the human rights abuses. Most of the time
what we need are vocal forms of resistance, criticism of these
abusive regimes, and that is certainly true here with Iran.
Madam Chairman, currently the State Department designates
eight countries as countries of particular concern, the worst
religious freedom abusers. These are Burma, China, Eritrea,
Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.
We currently are recommending eight additional countries.
Some of them have been our recommendations for several years,
but, as you noted, those recommendations haven't always been
taken. The countries that we are recommending but have not been
designated as countries of particular concern are Egypt, Iraq,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and
Vietnam. We list Pakistan at the very top of our list of
offending nations, which have not yet been designated as
countries of particular concern. If there is one country at the
top of the list that should be so designated, as I have
recently testified, that is Pakistan because of the horrific
abuses that take place there, including abuses, again, against
the Baha'i community.
The last designations by the State Department were in 2011,
I believe. We strongly advocate annual designations. If annual
designations aren't made, the designations become, in the words
of my colleague, the vice chairman of our Commission, Katrina
Lantos Swett, the daughter of the great Tom Lantos, the human
rights activist and Congressman, as she says, these
recommendations become part of the wallpaper and nobody notices
them anymore.
We really need the annual designations, and we are pressing
our leadership. Whether it is a Republican administration or a
Democratic administration, doesn't matter.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Mr. George. We want them to make these designations on an
annual basis.
Now, as far as why our recommendation----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And I am going to just stop you a second,
because I asked too many questions, but I am going to give a
chance to----
Mr. George. Oh, sure.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen [continuing]. Ms. Baheri to respond, and
Mr. Etemadi.
Ms. Baheri. Thank you. As you mentioned, with respect to
the Baha'is in particular, the rights discussed in the charter
apply only to religious minorities officially recognized by the
Irani constitution, which excludes Baha'is.
As to Mr. Rouhani's moderate practices, as an Iranian, I
have been hopeful. And, as a Baha'i, we are strictly non-
violent and obedient to the government we live in. We
participate in non-partisan politics.
We have noticed that in the last year, since Mr. Rouhani's
presidency, we have had cemeteries that have been desecrated,
we have had Mr. Rezvani killed, and a family stabbed in their
home in February 2014, and there has been no progress in the
investigation of their case.
Just as of yesterday, there was a report from the Baha'i
International News that in January this was the catalogued
anti-Baha'i articles that were on Web sites, and so forth. In
January, there was 55; in February, there was 72; in March,
there was 93; April, 285; and, in May, there were 366 anti-
Baha'i. So----
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much.
Ms. Baheri. Yes.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And Mr. Etemadi?
Mr. Etemadi. Thank you. Actually, the real problem in Iran
is under the hand of Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader. And, as I
said, the election of Hassan Rouhani was the result of
international pressure to decrease this pressure.
Actually, Rouhani doesn't have enough power to change the
situation of human rights in Iran, and I don't think, though,
even if he had, he would change anything here, because he is
not reformist. As we know, he is very close to Mr. Khamenei,
and actually I think it is to show--the regime to show him as a
reformist.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Pleased to yield to the ranking member, Mr. Deutch, for his
question and answer period.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here. It is almost
overwhelming. It is--the breadth of abuses in Iran is almost
too difficult for us to get our arms around. So I would like to
try to approach it a different way.
Dr. George, I know you focus on religious freedom, and I
appreciate what you do. Let me start with the other witnesses--
--
Mr. George. Sure.
Mr. Deutch [continuing]. Though. We are viewing all of this
as a human rights issue. But I would like you to speak to the
Americans, the American people, to help us understand, help
them understand what it means in each specific area. Ms.
Baheri, what would you say to the religious community in our
country to help them understand--help them feel the type of
persecution that the Baha'i undergo in Iran.
Ms. Baheri. Well, it is simple. It has been nothing except
wanting to practice our basic rights, to be able to be married
as Baha'is, to be able to go to school, to be able to continue
education, and all for the sake of really just being Baha'i and
refusing to recant your faith. Simple.
Mr. Deutch. Mr. Alizadeh, to the LGBT community in America
who are engaged, to the leaders, help them understand the
relevance of what is happening to the community in Iran.
Mr. Alizadeh. I just want to emphasize that the issue is
not specific to LGBT community. It is a broader issue and goes
back to----
Mr. Deutch. Mr. Alizadeh, I understand that, and I
appreciate it. And my point is, it is so broad----
Mr. Alizadeh. Right.
Mr. Deutch [continuing]. That for those of us who spend a
lot of time thinking about human rights issues and how to
uphold human rights, and universal human rights around the
world, that is how we approach it. I am trying to personalize
this for people who may not think much about Iran, perhaps
don't think much about foreign policy, but absolutely
understand and focus on their own community.
Mr. Alizadeh. It is as easy as this. As a person, your
individuality, your privacy, is constantly being violated and
scrutinized by the government. The government decides how much
rights you have based on who you are, what sexual orientation
or gender identity you have, even what gender you have.
As Congressman Smith pointed out, there is a difference
between the rights of men and women in Iran. So everything has
been categorized. And depending on which category you belong
to, your right differs. So for the LGBT community, they do not
exist--as former President Ahmadinejad put it, they don't
exist. The official narrative is that they don't exist;
therefore, they have no rights.
And so the government continues to violate the rights of
LGBT people on the basis that this is a form of perversion.
This is not a human behavior that can be recognized.
And I just want to point out something else. Just last week
the Parliament of Iran issued a formerly classified report by
the Minister of Education that shows almost 20 percent of
students in Iran have homosexual tendency. So we are talking
about a sizeable portion of population whose right is being
violated on a daily basis.
Mr. Deutch. I appreciate that.
Mr. Etemadi, for students in America who are engaged in
politics, for civic leaders, for community leaders, people who
just want to express themselves, can you talk about the type of
persecution they would experience in Iran?
Mr. Etemadi. I want to introduce my friend, Maryam
Shafipour. She is a student--actually, she is banned from going
to university after Green Movement protest in 2009. And after
Rouhani's election, she was arrested by Intelligence Ministry
just because she was active in the Presidential campaign. And
she was sentenced to 7 years jail, and since last July she is
in jail, and she should be in jail for another 3 years.
Maryam Shafipour is just one of my friends. Majid Tavakoli
has been in jail since 2009. Hamid Babai has been in jail since
2009, and many more of my friends are in jail at the moment,
and they will be in jail just because their peaceful political
activities.
Mr. Deutch. I appreciate it. Mr. Etemadi, just to finish,
as I said before, a lot of us talk about human rights. But to
look at those rights that are being violated, Ms. Baheri, to--
for Americans to understand--America, with freedom of
religion--to understand the type of persecution that the
Baha'i--and, Dr. George, as you pointed out, other religious
groups face in Iran.
And, Mr. Alizadeh, to think that--for Americans to stop for
a moment to think about what it would be like to be persecuted,
to be subject to death, frankly, because of your sexual
orientation; and, Mr. Etemadi, for you to help us understand,
for students, for people who take views that are in opposition
to the government, the threats, the possibility of going to
jail, the persecution that they face, that is I think how we
need to think about it here. These are tremendous violations of
universal human rights.
And, finally, to journalists who face the same thing in
Iran, to journalists in this country, I would suggest the same
thing. Think about what it would be like for you in Iran, and
let all of us be guided by those notions of how our own lives
could be turned upside-down because of what we believe, who we
are, the way we voice our opinions.
I am so grateful for your being here today to help shed
light on that for us. It is very moving testimony that I hope
moves all of us, not just on the committee, but as a nation.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Deutch.
Mr. Etemadi, thank you for underscoring the importance of
human rights being on the table when discussions of issues of
nuclear weaponry are at hand. How do you trust a totalitarian
regime on fissile material, on enrichment issues, whether or
not they have a bomb or plan on making bombs--it is plural, not
singular--when they so maltreat and torture and murder their
own people as well as three Americans who are being held
unjustly.
You know, Naghmeh Abedini testified at our hearing that we
had here in December, and before that at a Frank Wolf hearing
as part of the Lantos Commission, and at the Wolf hearing,
shockingly, the administration told Naghmeh that there was
``nothing we can do'' to help her. Astounding.
Thankfully, Secretary Kerry, when he heard that, did
reverse course at the State Department. But, frankly, it still
is not part of the negotiating. It may be somewhere on the
periphery, but far off the periphery it would seem to me.
Yesterday I chaired a hearing on human rights in North
Korea. We heard from Ambassador-at-Large from the Republic of
Korea, Ambassador Lee, who talked about a grand mobilization on
behalf of the North Koreans who are being decimated by the
newest Kim, Jong-un, and talked about the gulags and really
just laid out how horrific the mistreatment really is.
Andrew Natsios, Special Envoy to Sudan, formerly USAID
Administrator and now co-chair of a North Korean human rights
effort, talked about the abject failure of the nuclear talks
and the delinking of human rights to those and how human rights
had grossly deteriorated because they were not even on the
table and people were not subjected to relief that they might
have gotten.
The same issue is being replayed with Iran. We have done it
on trade issues with China. We are doing it on trade issues
with Vietnam and many others. But the North Korea and the
Iranian situations absolutely are appropriate parallels, and it
is very, very discouraging that it is not there front and
center. Again, how do you trust a regime that butchers its own
people?
I would say to Ms. Baheri, in 1983, I joined President
Reagan at the White House when they had a mobilization and
President Reagan spoke out boldly how alarmed and dismayed we
were at the persecution of Baha'i in Iran. And he talked about
the 150 men and women who had been hanged or shot since
Khomeini had come in. One of those was your Dad, obviously, and
my greatest sympathy, from all of us on behalf of the
committee, for your enormous loss.
Not surprisingly, just like the Chinese, they made your
family pay for the bullets that murdered your father. Again,
underscoring why human rights have to be front and center and
not on the peripheral negotiations, if they are that.
So thank you for being here and bearing witness.
Dr. George, on the CPC issue, which you spoke so eloquently
to when you were here testifying before my subcommittee just a
few weeks ago, I think members have to realize since 2011 not a
single CPC designation has been made. That is also Frank Wolf
legislation, the International Religious Freedom Act and it
called for annual designations, and frankly, like you said,
wallpaper.
We don't have those designations and a robust enforcement,
there are some 18 prescribed sanctions that were meant to be
utilized when a country showed indifference or, worse, would
double down and make things even worse. You talked about how
things have gotten worse under Rouhani. Not even a designation
since 2011.
So I make a call again to President Obama. Designate CPC
countries. Do it now. And as you have recommended, there are
many more that ought to be added to the current list, again,
which are just languishing and there has been nothing done. We
don't even have an Ambassador-at-Large.
I say to my colleagues, I chaired the hearings and marked
up the bill for the International Religious Freedom Act in this
room back in 1998. This is not what we envisioned, a non-
enforcement of that very important piece of human rights
legislation.
So, Dr. George,I would like to ask you, you pointed out in
your testimony that official policies promoting anti-Semitism
have risen sharply in recent years, and Jews have been targeted
on the basis of perceived ties to Israel. Could you elaborate
on that?
You point out the issue of sanctions. You know, I wrote the
Belarus Democracy Act. We worked very closely with the
Europeans on who we sanctioned in the Lukashenka regime in
Minsk. The people on both sides that are sanctioned, it is
almost the same people, if not identical. You point out that
the European Union has 90 people that have been sanctioned to
our one, and you are encouraged that there is at least one, the
Mayor of Tehran, but where are the others? We have the law in
place to do it. Ninety to one. If it was a World Cup score, it
would be a blowout. We need to update and add to that list.
Mr. George. Yes, thank you, Congressman Smith. I will take
a moment to address the particular issues that you wanted me to
talk about. We have noticed--our staff has noticed that since
Rouhani assumed the presidency, there has been a toning down of
the anti-Jewish rhetoric that we had seen from government
officials during the Ahmadinejad period.
But what we haven't seen is any corresponding diminution of
the pressure against the Jewish community as there are still
20,000 Jews remaining in Iran, a fraction of what was once a
flourishing and large community there.
So, yes, there has been a toning down of the rhetoric, but
no real action to make things any better, any different for the
Jewish community. Like all the religious minority communities
in Iran, they are third-class citizens or worse, and always
subject to harassment of all sorts. So we don't have any good
news to report beyond the rhetorical side for the Jewish
community in Iran.
Were you asking me particularly about the Jewish community
in Iran? Because before your committee, of course, I talked
about----
Mr. Smith. You testified it has gotten worse.
Mr. George [continuing]. Anti-Semitism globally.
Mr. Smith. But also about the sanctions regime and its----
Mr. George. Yes. We need those annual designations. We
really do. You are right to urge the administration. We urge
the administration to do that. We urge every administration--
doesn't matter whether it is Republican or Democrat--to make
those annual designations, to call attention to the offenses,
and then to use those sanctions that are available under the
Act, which was passed by Congress, signed into law in the 1990s
by President Clinton. They are there to be used. They are
effective tools when they are used.
We saw this about a decade ago when the tools were used
very effectively against Vietnam when it was a very gross
abuser of religious freedom. We saw some real benefits for
persecuted religious people, Buddhists and Christians alike, in
Vietnam. We then removed them from the CPC list to encourage
the good behavior we had seen, to reward the progress that had
been made, and, unfortunately, they slipped right back into
their old patterns of behavior and became an abuser again.
And so we find ourselves in 2014 recommending that Vietnam,
for example, again be shifted over to CPC status. That is
another designation that we would like to have made. But we
need to follow the law here. We really need to make those
designations. They need to be annual. We need to bring pressure
on these regimes.
Mr. Smith. And, again, on the sanctions enforcement with
regard to holding individual violators, like we have done with
Belarus, Magnitsky Act, we have it now----
Mr. George. Exactly right. The tools are there in the
legislation to put travel restrictions on people, officials who
are responsible for the brutality and for the abuses, to freeze
assets. Those tools are available as well. You know, make the
people who are responsible for these human rights abuses,
whether they are actually committing the abuses, or whether
they are tolerating them and letting them occur with impunity,
make them pay a cost, make them suffer a cost.
The tools are there right in the legislation. Let us use
it.
Mr. Smith. Again, just before I yield back, Andrew Natsios
is one of the finest public servants I have known. Yesterday,
as I said, he talked about North Korea and the abject failure
of delinking human rights from the Six-Party Talks. We have
delinked human rights from the talks on nuclear issues vis-a-
vis Iran. It is a mistake.
My hope is it is never too late to relook at that, and I
would encourage the administration, especially with the
deadline coming up with the three Americans, but also on behalf
of those Iranians who are suffering daily indignities and
torture, to put human rights on the table and be bold about it,
have names and lists.
One of the things that Reagan did so excellently throughout
his entire time when he was President, and Shultz, when he was
Secretary of State, wherever they went, especially to the
Soviet Union, before they met with Soviet officials, they met
with the dissidents and they proffered a list and said, ``We
want progress on that, because it is linked to everything else
we do.''
Mr. Connolly. Would my colleague yield for just a question
on that?
Mr. Smith. Sure.
Mr. Connolly. Does my colleague agree that--because we just
passed, as you know, the North Korean sanctions legislation.
Does my colleague agree that there is a clear link between
sanctions and the elevation of the issues he so eloquently has
just described?
Mr. Smith. Well, definitely.
Mr. Connolly. I am sorry?
Mr. Smith. Sanctions I think, when they are judiciously
applied, effectively--and I think targeted sanctions are the
best, and I think our witnesses have pointed that out, you
know, we don't want to hurt the Iranian people. We stand with
the oppressed, not the oppressor.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. I was just picking up on the North Korea
thing.
Mr. Smith. Sure.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. Thank you so much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Thank you. And I recognize I guess--Mr. Cicilline, were you
next, or over here? Oh, Mr. Connolly is recognized. I am sorry.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chair, and I welcome our panel.
Dr. George, you are on the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom. But listening to your testimony and your
answer to questions, I am assuming you agree that we can't
cherrypick which groups we advocate for or which groups we say
deserve special protection.
It is the whole panoply of human rights and human rights
violations that we need to be concerned about. Would that be an
accurate statement on my part?
Mr. George. Well, I am here today----
Mr. Connolly. I know. That is why I read your----
Mr. George [continuing]. On behalf of the Commission on
Religious Freedom, so I am constrained by the legislative
mandate that we have to stay within those boundary lines. So
what I can talk about are religious freedom abuses.
Now, very often religious freedom abuses are linked to
other abuses, for example abuses of freedom of speech and
association, and so forth, with respect to religious
minorities. And so in those circumstances our Commission feels
as though it is within our mandate to call attention to those
abuses because they bear on religious freedom abuses.
Mr. Connolly. Right.
Mr. George. But there are nine of us. We represent a range
of viewpoints on a wide range of issues. We are united on the
basic commitment to religious liberty. But in order to avoid
anyone--any member of the Commission, including the chairman,
speaking out of turn, offering his own personal opinions, which
might not be shared by the other commissioners, we, in our
capacity as commissioners, and I in my capacity as chairman,
stay within the lines.
Mr. Connolly. Yes. But--all right. Let us stay within your
rubric. Would it be advisable if the Congress and the
administration were to decide what we are going to focus on
this year is the persecution of Roman Catholics in Iran.
Therefore, we are not going to be talking about the Baha'is or
Jews or any other religious group, because we are pretty much
focused on that one. What would that do to your mandate, and
what do you think--what kind of message would that send to
Iran?
Mr. George. Well, our mandate is to advocate on behalf of
the religious freedom rights of all people.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
Mr. George. So we don't distinguish----
Mr. Connolly. Right. That is my point. We don't cherrypick.
And although your mandate has to do with religious freedom, you
might take the point, by extension, that we don't want to be
cherrypicking human rights either, just as we don't within your
purview.
Mr. George. I am sure that is true, and of course there are
many important philosophical and political debates about the
nature of rights, the contours of rights, whether such and so
is in fact a right or is not a right. Those are disputes that
you have in the Congress and that we have among the American
people.
Mr. Connolly. How do you deal with sort of the cultural
barriers? So, for example, I mean, America was founded by some
pretty passionate founders who wanted to make sure that there
were careful boundaries--in fact, Jefferson referred to them I
believe as firewalls--between the state and religion. And some
of them actually professionally cut their teeth on exactly
that.
Madison spent his early professional career in my home
state of Virginia fighting against the established church of
Virginia. He wanted religious liberty for other non-
establishment groups, especially the Anabaptists.
And so to what extent--to what extent is it a cultural
issue? Iran doesn't have that tradition. Iran is an
overwhelmingly unitary denomination, and you could--one could
understand--not justify, but one can understand, therefore,
there is going to be tension when people are sort of outside
the norm religiously.
How do you, in your mandate, and to what extent does the
United States, have to understand the difference between, you
know, you are crossing a boundary that we cannot accept, and
that is persecution and not justified, versus cultural identity
that we have to try to respect and work with.
Mr. George. Well, that is an excellent question,
Representative Connolly. You are right. Iran is different from
the United States in that we do have the separation--what we
call the separation of church and state. That is not a phrase
that exists in our constitution, but it describes the basic
theory of the relationship of the institutions of religion and
the institutions of government under our constitutional system,
and especially, of course, under the First Amendment. They
don't have that. They don't have that state-church separation.
But our state-church separation should not be interpreted
to mean a separation of religion from public life. Religion has
always played a very important role in our public life. George
Washington, in his farewell address, noted that religion and
morality are essential the flourishing of any community of
freedom, any political order that aspires to be a set of free
institutions.
John Adams said that our constitution is for a moral and
religious people and will serve well no other. So we can
understand the relationship between religion and state in other
societies, including in Iran where religion is an important
part of the picture, because religion is an important part of
the picture in the United States.
And we don't see it as something separate. We don't say
Martin Luther King should not have spoken in terms of the Bible
or the brotherhood of all men and attacking racial injustice
and segregation. So we don't have the Laicite system, for
example, of France and some other European jurisdictions. We
don't treat religion as the enemy of politics or something that
is purely private and should never be brought into the public
square.
Culturally, we value the role of religion in public life.
Mr. Connolly. Stipulated.
Mr. George. So the big difference of course is, do we
respect the right of everyone, irrespective of faith, including
those who have no faith, those who are atheists, who are
unbelievers, to follow their consciences precisely in matters
of faith. We believe in that very strongly. We did from the
beginning in the United States. It is written into our
Constitution.
Even before we had a First Amendment, our Constitution has
a prohibition of religious tests for public offices. Anybody of
any faith can hold any office under the United States. And we
have committed ourselves, as have many other nations, including
Iran, to international human rights standards with respect to
religious freedom.
So we are really simply asking Iran to live up to those
standards. We are not saying disestablished religion. That is
not our plan. We understand you can have a different system
from ours. We are just saying respect the equal rights of
freedom of religion for the Baha'is, for the Jewish community,
for the Christian community, for the minority Muslim
communities, whether they are Sunni or Sufi or whatever they
are. That is really all we are asking.
We are not trying to be cultural imperialists and impose
the American system. We understand they have a different
system. That is okay. We are not trying to force them into a
Jeffersonian constitution. But we do say live up to the
requirements that you yourselves have signed on to in
international documents by respecting the religious freedom of
the minorities.
Mr. Connolly. I think that is a very important statement
and distinction.
Mr. Chairman, if I can just ask one more question,
different topic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Alizadeh, you said--am I pronouncing that correctly?
Mr. Alizadeh. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. You said, ``I want to highlight LGBT
persecution.'' And I wanted to kind of come back to the theme I
was asking Dr. George in his lane about you can't cherrypick
which denomination you are going to protect. It is the whole
thing.
I am a little concerned that sometimes some of my
colleagues want to highlight certain human rights abuses, and
never talk about others. And it seems to me that if we are
going to be consistent, and we are going to hold somebody to a
norm, every group is entitled in a society to human rights
protection, whether they be Baha'is, whether it be women,
whether they be gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
Could you talk to us a little bit about that? Because I am
really worried that if some of our human rights advocates here
in the Congress kind of conspicuously never talk about that, we
send a signal unintentionally to the regime that is not a
signal we want to send. But maybe I am wrong. What is your
sense of that?
Mr. Alizadeh. Mr. Congressman, I just want to thank you
very much for highlighting the cultural problems. The root of
the issue in Iran is cultural issues, and I think that that
needs to be acknowledged and highlighted.
We talk about a region that has seen a number of rounds of
regime changes and revolutions in neighboring countries, and
one after another we see that the situation is getting worse in
terms of the rise of minorities and respect for human rights in
neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, in Egypt, in Syria. In all of
those countries we see that a simple regime change does not
result in improvement of human rights.
I just want to acknowledge that this is a social problem,
and we need to deal with it as a social phenomenon. As such, we
have to invest in the society. We just can't hope for a regime
change or the change of the President's approach to fix the
issues.
But going back to your question, I want to mention that we
really think that this is not about LGBT people. It is about
sexual rights, about autonomy over your body, about the rights
of individuals to decide who they want to love, and about equal
rights between men and women. So this is a broader issue. We
are not really talking about a specific segment of the society.
I am very aware that when we talk about Iran we are talking
about a society where heterosexuals don't have rights. If you
are walking down the street with your boyfriend, you know, as a
woman, you can be arrested. And any form of sexual encounter
outside marriage, heterosexual marriage, is a crime.
So this is outrageous. So when we talk about LGBT issues, I
want to emphasize that we really hope the right will be
provided to all Iranian citizens, regardless of their sexual
orientation and gender identity. This is about the right of
individuals to decide what they want to do with their body,
regardless of the interference of the government. The
government does not have the right to tell people what to do in
the privacy of their houses.
People can decide what they want to do with their body and
talk about the issues that they are interested in. And a lot of
issues when we talk about LGBT issues are also related to
general rights, such as right of freedom of speech, right of
freedom of assembly. So we are not really talking about a very
specific segment of the society or a very specific subcategory
of rights. We are talking about the general rights that
everybody in the society is entitled to.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your graciousness.
Mr. DeSantis. No problem. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes himself for a period of 5 minutes.
I appreciate you guys coming. You know, I think this issue of
Iran is very important. And I would just like to say before I
ask my questions, I was really alarmed this weekend when I was
hearing rumblings, not just from the administration, but from
members of my own party, that the way to deal with what is
going on in Iraq is to work with Iran. And I think that that
has died down a little bit, and I think rightfully so.
We do not have mutual interests with Iran. They are
diametrically opposed, and they are a mortal enemy of the
United States. And I think that the imposition of a Sunni
Sharia state in the Levant is contrary to our national
interest, but I also think we have to recognize Iran is a
mature terror state and a mature Sharia state. So aligning to
them would not serve our national interest.
And I would just say, given that, I am concerned about the
administration's decision to continue to send money to this
unity government with the Palestinian authority. They may have
a veneer of technocratic leadership, but Hamas is a part of
that government. That money is going to end up going to Hamas
in one way or another, given that money is fungible. And guess
who that aligns us with. That aligns us with Iran, because they
send money and they fund Hamas.
And so I am going to be working with some of my colleagues
to stop that money while Hamas is a part of that government.
And I think that is very important.
Professor George, I appreciated what you said, and I think
you described kind of our history with religious liberty and
establishments very ably. But I wonder, in terms of viewing
Iran--and I think you said, look, they are going to have their
own system. Maybe they have an established church or whatnot,
but it is more than just that.
I mean, these Ayatollahs, their version, you know, how they
want to have a Sharia society, it is much more than just
religion. It is a whole kind of sociopolitical, totalitarian
ideology.
And so you could look at, like, the United States. Even
after the Constitution, we had states like Connecticut that had
established churches still, but they were not active in that
way. So I guess this idea of Sharia being so broad seems to me
to be more than just about whatever religion you believe in,
because there are millions and millions of people who are
Muslims who do not subscribe to the overall political ideology
that comes with that.
Mr. George. Yes. That is absolutely right. You can have an
established religion. In the United States, we prefer not to
have that. We disestablished our churches in the States. I
think the last ones died out in the 1830s. But Britain has the
Anglican Church. It has an established religion. But it is
respectful of the rights of religious minorities.
I lived in Britain myself for 5 years, so when I was a
graduate student, and as a visiting scholar, I was not a member
of the established church, but I was entirely free to practice
my own religion. So we wouldn't want to say to the British,
``Well, you have an obligation under human rights to
disestablish the Anglican Church.'' They might for their own
reasons wish----
Mr. DeSantis. But that, and when you lived there, the
Anglican Church did not permeate society to the detriment of
other people, right?
Mr. George. That is exactly right.
Mr. Connolly. Although they do discriminate against our
Catholic people on who can be on the throne.
Mr. George. Yes. I think that is still true. Yes, I believe
that is still true. But you have put your finger on the real
problem. It is not that there is an official religion as such;
it is that in the name of this theocratic rule, a kind of
totalitarianism is imposed. All dimensions of life are under
control of the theocratic rulers.
No one else's rights are respected. No one who is not a
member of the faith. And even those who have dissenting
opinions about politics within the Shia faith are persecuted. I
mentioned one of the Ayatollahs showed a picture of--I will do
it again here--Ayatollah Boroujerdi, who himself is a Shia, but
is, nevertheless, persecuted because he speaks out on behalf of
the rights of non-Shia Muslims and non-Muslims.
Mr. DeSantis. And just to kind of flesh that out, and
maybe, Mr. Etemadi, you can speak, so in Iran, if you convert
away from Islam, that is a crime, correct?
Mr. Etemadi. Yes.
Mr. DeSantis. And what type of punishment could you get?
You could potentially be put to death for that?
Mr. Etemadi. Yes. Exactly.
Mr. DeSantis. And I have been following this. I think
during the Easter season the government raided Christian
churches. That would be something that would be par for the
course there?
Mr. Etemadi. Yes.
Mr. DeSantis. You can be convicted of a crime if you insult
Islamic sensibilities, is that correct?
Mr. Etemadi. Yes.
Mr. DeSantis. And Iran still imposes severe punishments,
such as stonings and mutilation, under their law, correct?
Mr. Etemadi. Yes.
Mr. DeSantis. And is that something that is called for by
Sharia law, or where do they come from, these punishments? How
are those developed?
Mr. Etemadi. It comes from Sharia.
Mr. DeSantis. Okay.
Mr. Etemadi. Yeah.
Mr. DeSantis. And it was interesting, because I was--I read
that the Ayatollah Khamenei was speaking about freedom, and he
says, ``Iran, we have freedom unlike any other country in the
world,'' and then he pointed to Europe and he says, ``You know,
they talk about freedom of speech, but go ask them about the
Holocaust. They are not free to deny the Holocaust.'' Like we
don't know whether--he says, ``We don't know whether it existed
or not.''
And so, in his mind, he thinks that because we don't have
these grand debates about something that is obvious, if you
study history, that somehow we don't have freedom of speech,
but I think what his freedom--and this is somehow, we talk past
folks in the Middle East when we say, ``Well, why wouldn't they
want Freedom?'' Some people, such as these Ayatollahs, for them
freedom is freedom to live under Sharia, correct?
Mr. Etemadi. Yes.
Mr. DeSantis. And so when we say ``freedom,'' they view the
freedom differently than we do. But I think that what you guys
have testified about his very important. I am 100 percent the
people in Iran are struggling for freedom. I think the tragedy
of this Islamic revolution is that, you know, it has really
served to snuff out a lot of the vitality that you had seen
historically throughout Persian society.
And I know that there are a lot of people in Iran who are
suffering under the yoke of this dictatorship, who would be
like-minded with folks, not just in the United States but
throughout the West. So I commend you guys for speaking out,
and I commend the chairman for holding this committee.
And with that, my time has expired, and I will recognize
the gentleman from Rhode Island for a period of 5 minutes.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, again, to our witnesses for this very compelling
testimony. I hope that it will cause this committee and this
Congress to focus more energy on the issue of international
human rights. I would like to begin with you, Mr. Alizadeh. Did
I pronounce that correctly?
Mr. Alizadeh. Yes.
Mr. Cicilline. You didn't even know I was talking about you
it was so badly pronounced. [Laughter]
I want to ask you, first, I know that the journalist who
responded to former President Ahmadinejad, who made the claim
that there were no gay or lesbian people in Iran, was
imprisoned. And I wondered, what is the status of that
individual today? Is he still in prison?
Mr. Alizadeh. Yes. There were a couple of cases that
happened since then. So there was a journalist who used to work
for the Iranian News Agency, and he had a personal blog. And
basically on his blog he started to talk about issues
including, you know, the existence of homosexuality in Iran.
And that was later listed as one of the charges against him by
the Revolutionary Court, and he ended up in jail.
As late as last month, there was another case, a newspaper
published an article. This is basically a reformist newspaper
that is running on a daily basis in Tehran. They pushed an
editorial about homosexuality, and the next day it was shut
down by the court, because they were promoting basically
homosexuality in the country. So any conversation about this
issue is considered to be propaganda against Islam, and so it
is banned basically.
Mr. Cicilline. Okay. And the laws, the discriminatory laws
that criminalize homosexuality in Iran, they were renewed as
recently as 2013, right before Rouhani became President. So
what is the likelihood that we will see any progress or any
movement on this issue if, as you say, the Supreme Leader is
the one who sets policy? And, you know, is there any reason for
us to be hopeful?
And what can we do as a country to increase the likelihood
that there will be basic human rights accorded to all
individuals regardless of sexual orientation in Iran, and in
other places in the world? Do we have any ability to impact
what is clearly a horrific, discriminatory, unsafe environment
for people who are gay and lesbian?
Mr. Alizadeh. Congressman, I really think that the issue
here is not the government. The government is hopeless. They
are not really going to change. What I am really hoping, both
for LGBT people and also for religious minorities, and about
political activists, is to promote tolerance within the
society. And the United States can play a very critical role in
this game.
I will just mention one example. We started a program about
2 years ago to basically talk to journalists about the language
that they use to talk about LGBT issues, that this is not a
sexual issue, this is a human rights issue. And in 2 years you
can see that society's approach has changed. Even though the
outside media are banned inside Iran, but people are hungry for
information. They want a new country. They want to understand
what is going on, because nobody believes the government
propaganda. And this is a good thing.
So we have a lot of resources at our disposal. We have the
biggest basically broadcast operation on the planet called VOA,
just, you know, a few miles from here. So we can really do a
lot with our resources in order to communicate with the Iranian
people, to teach them the values of tolerance in civil society
in coexistence.
And I think that that is the kind of long-term investment
that we need to see in Iran and in other countries, and I am
really hoping that the new generation would not buy that
stereotypes and kind of narrow-mindedness that the government
is defending as part of their ideology on a daily basis.
Mr. Cicilline. And hopefully our continuing to raise this
issue in hearings like this and in other settings will help to
advance that as well.
Ms. Baheri, thank you for being here today. It was--you
know, I am from a state that prides itself on having been
founded by Roger Williams on the principle of religious
freedom. And so the idea that people would be not only denied
the ability to practice their own religious traditions, but
that they would face imprisonment and execution is such an
anathema to I think all Americans and to all civilized people
in the world. And I am sorry that you had the experience that
you did and that there are thousands and thousands of others
who have had the same experience all over the world.
And my question really is, what can we do as a country,
what can we do as a Congress, that would have some positive
impact on the ability of religious minorities in places like
Iran to exercise their religious freedoms and to be able to do
so without facing harassment, discrimination, and imprisonment?
What are the--and I ask, actually, any of the panelists who
have something to contribute. What can we do? You know, we hear
this testimony, which I think most Americans would find
horrifying and disturbing, and recognize that there has to be
some action we can take, some steps we should take to respond
to this, to have some impact.
So I would start with you, Ms. Baheri, and anyone else who
might----
Ms. Baheri. Well, as a country, I think we can definitely
make sure that Iran is on notice that it is being watched. So
anything the State Department has done, and will continue
hopefully to do, would definitely be appreciated and helpful on
all accounts of human rights, for all of people of Iran.
Also, there is a House Resolution 109 that is in front of
this committee. So if--I believe 130 Congressman have passed it
so far. So if anyone has not, they are encouraged to do so, and
that would be, again, a stance that Iran is being watched, and
it would definitely be more than helpful.
Mr. Cicilline. Dr. George, you look like you----
Mr. George. Yes. One concrete thing to do, Congressman, is
at the moment the Lautenberg Amendment has to be readopted
every year. Why not go ahead and adopt it for a period of
several years. It is a tremendous tool. It enables people who
are persecuted to have the protection of refugee status. It
enables them to transit through other countries to get to the
United States when they are being persecuted.
It would be not only substantively very valuable in terms
of assisting people who are under severe persecution or threat
of persecution. Symbolically, I think it would also be sending
an important message. It is a very concrete thing Congress can
do.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
Mr. Alizadeh. Congressman, I just want to reiterate, in my
opinion, people like Rouhani and Ahmadinejad come and go. The
problem is the darkness that this regime has been promoting for
three decades, and we have to counter it with knowledge and
information and education.
And I think that the Congress can play a very key role by
funding resources and allow basically the societies to talk to
each other, and people inside Iran to have access to
information. The government is actually trying--the Government
of Iran denies their access to free information, and I think by
allowing them to learn about themselves, their rights, their
existence, and how the international community and this--
basically the West functions, I think we can inspire them to
create a better society for themselves.
Mr. Etemadi. What you can do for human rights issues in
Iran, in one word--pressure. If pressure works on the nuclear
issue, it will work on the human rights issue. And maybe you
remember Iranian people in--during Green Movement asked
President Obama. ``Obama, Obama, be with us, or with the
government.'' And, unfortunately, President Obama ignored that,
and Iranian people have a positive view about United States. If
you want to change this view, so ignore the human rights.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
I thank the chairman for the indulgence.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you. No. Thank you very much, Mr.
Cicilline.
Thank you to the witnesses for sharing their personal
stories with us, their bravery and the suffering that they have
endured. Ms. Baheri, losing family members; and, Mr. Etemadi,
being in jail. And thank you, Mr. Alizadeh, for bringing so
much awareness to us; and, Dr. George, for holding up the
photographs of real victims of the persecution that is going on
daily in Iran. Thank you for the brave work of your Commission.
We look forward to adopting their recommendations very soon.
And to our audience, thanks for being here today with us.
And, with that, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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