[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 91 (Thursday, June 24, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S7650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   TREATMENT OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

  On June 23, 1999, the Senate passed S. Con. Res. 39, the text of 
which follows:

                            S. Con. Res. 39

       Whereas 10 percent of the citizens of the Islamic Republic 
     of Iran are members of religious minority groups;
       Whereas, according to the State Department and 
     internationally recognized human rights organizations, such 
     as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, religious 
     minorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran--including Sunni 
     Muslims, Baha'is, Christians, and Jews--have been the victims 
     of human rights violations solely because of their status as 
     religious minorities;
       Whereas the 55th session of the United Nations Commission 
     on Human Rights passed Resolution 1999/13, which expresses 
     the concern of the international community over ``continued 
     discrimination against religious minorities'' in the Islamic 
     Republic of Iran, and calls on that country to moderate its 
     policy on religious minorities until they are ``completely 
     emancipated'';
       Whereas more than half the Jews in Iran have been forced to 
     flee that country since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 
     because of religious persecution, and many of them now reside 
     in the United States;
       Whereas the Iranian Jewish community, with a 2,500-year 
     history and currently numbering some 30,000 people, is the 
     oldest Jewish community living in the Diaspora;
       Whereas five Jews have been executed by the Iranian 
     government in the past five years without having been tried;
       Whereas there has been a noticeable increase recently in 
     anti-Semitic propaganda in the government-controlled Iranian 
     press;
       Whereas, on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover 1999, 
     thirteen or more Jews, including community and religious 
     leaders in the city of Shiraz, were arrested by the 
     authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran; and
       Whereas, in keeping with its dismal record on providing 
     accused prisoners with due process and fair treatment, the 
     Islamic Republic of Iran failed to charge the detained Jews 
     with any specific crime or allow visitation by relatives of 
     the detained for more than two months: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the 
     United States should--
       (1) continue to work through the United Nations to assure 
     that the Islamic Republic of Iran implements the 
     recommendations of resolution 1999/13;
       (2) continue to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, 
     the recent arrest of members of Iran's Jewish minority and 
     urge their immediate release;
       (3) urge all nations having relations with the Islamic 
     Republic of Iran to condemn the treatment of religious 
     minorities in Iran and call for the release of all prisoners 
     held on the basis of their religious beliefs; and
       (4) maintain the current United States policy toward the 
     Islamic Republic of Iran unless and until that country 
     moderates its treatment of religious minorities.

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