[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 42 (Monday, April 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      CONCERNING THE EMANCIPATION OF THE IRANIAN BAHA'I COMMUNITY

  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to 
the Senate concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 31) concerning the 
emancipation of the Iranian Baha'i community.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            S. Con. Res. 31

       Whereas in 1982, 1984, 1988, 1990, and 1992, the Congress, 
     by concurrent resolution, declared that it holds the 
     Government of Iran responsible for upholding the rights of 
     all its nationals, including members of the Baha'i Faith, 
     Iran's largest religious minority;
       Whereas in such resolutions and in numerous other appeals, 
     the Congress condemned the Government of Iran's religious 
     persecution of the Baha'i community, including the execution 
     of more than 200 Baha'is, the imprisonment of additional 
     thousands, and other repressive and discriminatory actions 
     against Baha'is based solely upon their religious beliefs;
       Whereas in 1992, the Government of Iran summarily executed 
     a leading member of the Baha'i community, arrested and 
     imprisoned several other Baha'is, condemned two Baha'i 
     prisoners to death on account of their religion, and 
     confiscated individual Baha'is' homes and personal properties 
     in several cities;
       Whereas the Government of Iran continues to deny the Baha'i 
     community the right to organize, to elect its leaders, to 
     hold community property for worship or assembly, to operate 
     religious schools and to conduct other normal religious 
     community activities; and
       Whereas on February 22, 1993, the United Nations Commission 
     on Human Rights published a formerly confidential Iranian 
     government document constituting a blueprint for the 
     destruction of the Baha'i community, which document reveals 
     that these repressive actions are the result of a deliberate 
     policy designed and approved by the highest officials of the 
     Government of Iran: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That the Congress--
       (1) continues to hold the government of Iran responsible 
     for upholding the rights of all its nationals, including 
     members of the Baha'i community, in a manner consistent with 
     Iran's obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human 
     Rights and other international agreements guaranteeing the 
     civil and political rights of its citizens;
       (2) condemns the repressive anti-Baha'i policy adopted by 
     the Government of Iran, as set forth in a confidential 
     official document which explicitly states that Baha'is shall 
     be denied access to education and employment, and that the 
     government's policy is to deal with Baha'is ``in such a way 
     that their progress and development are blocked'';
       (3) expresses concern that individual Baha'is continue to 
     suffer from severely repressive and discriminatory government 
     actions, solely on account of their religion; and that the 
     Baha'i community continues to be denied legal recognition and 
     the basic rights to organize, elect its leaders, educate its 
     youth, and conduct the normal activities of a law-abiding 
     religious community;
       (4) urges the Government of Iran to extend to the Baha'i 
     community the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration 
     of Human Rights and the international covenants on human 
     rights, including the freedom of thought, conscience, and 
     religious, and equal protection of the law; and
       (5) calls upon the President to continue--
       (A) to emphasize that the United States regards the human 
     rights practices of the Government of Iran, particularly its 
     treatment of the Baha'i community and other religious 
     minorities, as a significant factor in the development of the 
     United States Government's relations with the Government of 
     Iran;
       (B) to urge the Government of Iran to emancipate the Baha'i 
     community by granting those rights guaranteed by the 
     Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international 
     covenants on human rights; and
       (C) to encourage other governments to continue to appeal to 
     the Government of Iran, and to cooperate with other 
     governments and international organizations, including the 
     United Nations and its agencies, in efforts to protect the 
     religious rights of the Baha'is and other minorities through 
     joint appeals to the Government of Iran and through other 
     appropriate actions.
       Sec. 2. The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit a copy 
     of this concurrent resolution to the President.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Gejdenson] will be recognized for 20 minutes, and the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] will be recognized for 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Gejdenson].
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  (Mr. GEJDENSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Gilman], the gentleman from California [Mr. Lantos], 
and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] for bringing this 
important resolution to the attention of the House.
  This resolution states that the Congress continues to hold the 
Government of Iran responsible for upholding the rights of all 
nationals, including members of the Baha'i community, consistent with 
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international 
agreements; condemns the repressive policies adopted by the Government 
of Iran toward members of the Baha'i community; and calls on the 
President to emphasize the human rights practices of the Government of 
Iran as a significant factor in the development of United States 
relations with that Government.
  Mr. Speaker, the horrendous treatment of the Baha'i community by the 
Government of Iran has been addressed by this House before. We need to 
condemn this outrageous treatment at every opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, Senate Concurrent Resolution 31, concerning 
the emancipation of the Iranian Baha'i community, is the latest in a 
series of resolutions concerning the continuing repression of the 
Baha'i community in Iran that have been adopted by the Congress since 
1982. This resolution allows us once again to express our outrage and 
revulsion with regard to the brutal and systematic denial of one of the 
most basic of human freedoms--freedom of conscience--which has been 
denied by the Mullahs of Iran.
  Each time we consider these resolutions it seems that there has been 
a new twist added to the outrages Iranian authorities have perpetrated 
against their own citizens. During the past year, we received 
disturbing reports from Iran on the continued repression of the Baha'i 
community. We learned that the Tehran authorities have destroyed 
gravesites located in the principal Baha'i cemetery in Tehran. Bodies 
have been removed to unknown destinations, and grave markers have been 
sold to construction firms to be used as ordinary building stones. The 
municipal authorities reportedly intend to build a cultural center on 
the site of the cemetery.
  These acts are consistent with guidelines detailed in a secret 
Iranian Government plan which came to light last year which calls for 
suppression of the Baha'i community in Iran and the destruction of its 
cultural roots. It is frighteningly similar to Hitler's plans for 
dealing with the Jewish community in Germany.
  The desecration of the Baha'i cemetery in Tehran is not only a 
despicable attempt by the Iranian Government to add to the misery of 
the living by denying to their loved ones interred at this site the 
respect that all civilized peoples accord to the dead, but an attempt 
to obliterate the heritage of the Baha'i and all traces of their 
culture which originated in Iran.
  The United States has spoken out consistently and repeatedly on 
Iran's continued brutal repression of the Baha'i. In its latest Human 
Rights Report, the State Department includes Iran among the few 
countries that are the very worst abusers of the rights of their own 
citizens in the world. We owe it to the victims of these repressive 
regimes to continue to raise this issue in international human rights 
forums, and to press those governments that conduct commerce and 
diplomatic relations with the Government of Iran to use their influence 
and speak out against these outrages.
  Resolutions of the Congress, such as the one we now consider, 
representing the clear voice of the American people, are an invaluable 
tool for our diplomats in bodies such as the U.N. Human Right 
Commission. I hope my colleagues on this Committee will join me in 
supporting Senate Concurrent Resolution 31, which is identical to House 
Concurrent Resolution 124.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] who, along with the distinguished 
cochair of the Human Rights Caucus, the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Lantos], has worked to keep this issue alive before the Congress.

                              {time}  1830

  (Mr. PORTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my very able colleague, a leader on 
human rights issues throughout all of his service in the Congress, for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, as the sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 124, I 
would like to thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], and the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr.  Gejdenson], for their support in bringing this 
measure, Senate Concurrent Resolution 31, to the floor of the House.
  Senate Concurrent Resolution 31, the Baha'i Community Emancipation 
Resolution, condemns the Government of Iran for denying the 300,000 
strong Baha'i community their basic human rights. Since the 
fundamentalist Islamic regime took power in 1979, Mr. Speaker, hundreds 
of Baha'is, the largest religious minority in Iran, have been executed, 
and thousands have been imprisoned because of their religion. Many have 
disappeared or been kidnapped.
  Because the regime does not recognized the Baha'i faith, calling it a 
conspiracy and a heresy, tens of thousands of Baha'is are deprived of 
jobs, housing, school, and other social services in Iran.
  Intolerance, Mr. Speaker, religious, ethnic, sexual, and racial, has 
been the hallmark of far too much of our world with the end of the cold 
war, motivation for strife in many places where the cold war previously 
had kept such intolerance in check.
  Iran in particularly, since it turned away from moderation and 
modernization toward fundamentalism, has become a paradigm of 
intolerance.
  What if the United States were to follow Iran's model and declare 
Islam, not nearly so old as either Christianity or Judaism, as the 
Iranians have declared Baha'ism, a heresy, and therefore all Moslems 
heretics, to be discriminated against at will by the government and by 
private citizens alike in our country? Mr. Speaker, what a disaster 
that would be.
  Intolerance is the trail of the backward, the ignorant, and the 
insecure. In Iran, intolerance of Baha'is, people who threaten no one, 
who accede to legitimate civil authority wherever they define, reside, 
defines not the Baha'is, but the Iranian fundamentalists for what they 
are.
  Mr. Speaker, the Baha'i religion is in fact founded upon the nine 
dominant religions of the world, including, of course, Islam, and draws 
on the best of all of them as the basis of its faith. What irony there 
is in the fact that the Iranians, in the name of Islam, repress 
Baha'is, who in reality respect and revere their religion more than the 
Iranians do.
  While in the mid-1980's diplomatic pressure and negative publicity 
forced the Iranian leadership to lessen the severity of their grievous 
official campaign against the Baha'is, there are disturbing signals 
that the repression of the Baha'is has increased greatly in this past 
year.
  Last summer the Baha'i cemetery in Iran was desecrated by local 
officials, who decided to build a community center on the site of 
Baha'i graves, a particularly reprehensible and unseemly act.
  In September two Iranians were found guilty of murdering a Baha'i, 
but did not face retribution because their victim was a member of the 
Baha'i community, a nonrecognized religious sect.
  As recently as last December, three Baha'is were condemned to death 
because of apostasy or of being unprivileged infidels at war with the 
Moslem nation.
  A year ago an official government document obtained in Iran confirmed 
for the first time that the ongoing persecution of the Baha'i community 
has been a calculated policy, written and approved by Iran's highest 
officials.
  This document reveals that the official Iranian policy is to repress 
Baha'is at every opportunity, while maintaining plausible deniability.
  While it says they will not be expelled or arrested without reason, 
it makes evident that the Iranian Government's intent is to isolate, 
persecute, and ultimately destroy the Baha'is in Iran.
  The resolution that we are considering today condemns the document's 
plan to confront and destroy Baha'i cultural roots outside of Iran, 
something that is tantamount to a program of cultural genocide.
  The response of the United States and civilized world to this 
document must be clear: So long as it continues its calculated 
persecution of the Baha'is and rejects basic human rights, Iran will 
continue to be ostracized from the community of nations.
  These revelations mean that any discussion of Iran renewing ties with 
the West is completely out of the question. The Congressional Human 
Rights Caucus, which I cochair along with my colleague, the gentleman 
from California [Mr. Lantos], has written to parliamentarians in 
countries around the world to urge them to condemn the Iranian 
Government for its repressive practices. The overwhelming positive 
responses we have received from those parliamentarians demonstrate the 
concern about the rights of the Baha'is transcend languages, cultures 
and borders.
  We, Mr. Speaker, each of us, must tell the world of the official 
planned, premeditated oppression which the Iranian Government inflicts 
upon its own people, particularly upon the Baha'is. Iran must continue 
to be ostracized from the community of nations until its conduct can 
begin to approach a respect for the basic rights of each human being to 
live, worship, and speak according to the dictates of his or her own 
conscience.
  With the passage of this resolution today, Congress will once again 
go on record in support of the basic rights of the Baha'i people and 
other religious minorities in Iran. I urge the adoption of the 
resolution.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent 
remarks. He has been a longstanding fighter for human rights throughout 
his career, and particularly as cochairman of the Human Rights Caucus.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time and yield back the 
balance of my time.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of California). The question is 
on the motion offered by the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. 
Gejdenson], that the House suspend the rules and concur in the Senate 
concurrent resolution, S. Con. Res. 31.
  The question was taken.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the provisions of clause 5, rule 
I, and the Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this 
motion will be postponed until Tuesday, April 19, 1994.

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