[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 63 (Friday, May 19, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E787]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONCERN FOR 13 MEMBERS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY WHO ARE ON TRIAL

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 19, 2000

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my colleagues the 
deep concern that I have for 13 members of the Jewish community in Iran 
who are on trial for a crime I do not believe they have committed. 
Iran's arbitrary charges against these thirteen individuals endangers 
that country's entire Jewish community and is an offense to world 
Jewry. The trial takes place at the same time when the world honors 
those who were lost to the Holocaust and vows never to let such 
atrocities of hate recur.
  I am encouraged by the fact that so many of my colleagues have taken 
a role of moral leadership on this issue, and have expressed their 
outrage to the Administration and to Iranian authorities. This past 
week, members of Congress took further steps to emphasize how seriously 
this trial can affect Iran's status. We wrote to the World Bank and 
contacted nations on the bank's loan approval board to urge 
postponement of pending loans for development projects in Iran. 
Unfortunately, those loans were approved. I am grateful that 
representatives of numerous nations that were present expressed concern 
over the trial. The outcome of this trial will not be overlooked by 
members of Congress or the Jewish and human rights communities.
  The future for these thirteen individuals does not look promising. No 
matter what the outcome of this trial is, I will never forget Iran's 
behavior and will take this matter into account as I make foreign 
policy decisions that affect that country. I commend to my colleagues 
an article written by Douglas Bloomfield for the Chicago Jewish Star. 
Mr. Bloomfield's column is usually full of great information and 
insight, this one is particularly compelling and is worthy of members' 
attention.

                               Shoa Trial

                       (By Douglas M. Bloomfield)

       There was something deeply troubling and yet fitting that 
     as Jews around the world last week remembered the Six Million 
     who perished in the Holocaust, the Ayatollahs began the trial 
     of 13 Jews accused of spying for Israel. It was a dramatic 
     reminder that Jews remain endangered in some parts of the 
     world.
       The time and place were appropriate. Iran is where a long-
     ago Hitler once concocted genocidal plans for the Jews of the 
     Persian Empire. Just a few weeks ago, Haman's modern 
     descendants declared the ancient vizier was really an 
     Egyptian, not unlike the Austrians trying to convince the 
     world Hitler was really a German.
       The trial of 13 men accused on trumped up espionage charges 
     opened on a dramatic note with the televised confessions, 
     outside the courtroom, of first, one man and then two more 
     and other followed, all dutifully denying coercion.
       It was an alarming development unabashedly offered by a 
     regime that wanted the world to see the confessions but not 
     the trial.
       Naturally, the ``confessed '' spies declared that their 
     admissions were voluntary; what would one expect from a man 
     who'd been in an Iranian jail for some 15 months, never 
     allowed to see his lawyer?
       It was reminiscent of Iran's Lebanese allies distributing 
     videotapes of their American hostages pleading guilty to 
     sundry offenses, and North Vietnam staging televised war 
     crime confessions by American POW's.
       No court in any civilized country would consider such 
     confessions to be valid, but then again few would call Iran 
     ``civilized.''
       If the Iranian charges were true and the confessions freely 
     given, there would be no reason to keep the evidence and the 
     trial secret.
       The defense attorney for one of the three said that under 
     Islamic law and international norms, a confession given by a 
     prisoner after more than a year in jail is invalid.
       International attention is focused on the courtroom in the 
     southern city of Shiraz. President Clinton has repeatedly 
     spoken out, as have Members of Congress, the nation's 
     governors and many mayors and other public officials.
       Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last week warned 
     Iranian leaders the trial ``will have repercussions 
     everywhere'' on that country's efforts to ``earn 
     international respect.'' That came in the same week that her 
     department officially reaffirmed Iran's status as a leading 
     state sponsor of international terrorism.
       Other leaders have made serious and personal efforts to 
     help: the Pope, UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, Egyptian 
     President Hosni Mubarak, Prime
       More than 60 journalists, human rights activists and 
     diplomats from the around the globe stood vigil outside the 
     locked doors of a legal system controlled by the most extreme 
     factions in that country. Inside, the lives of 13 Jews were 
     in the hands of a single man who sits as prosecutor, judge 
     and jury.
       Israel has privately assured the United States the men are 
     innocent and it is unaware of any links between the accused 
     and Israeli officials. Charges that they also spied for the 
     United States have apparently been dropped.
       Some of the international pressure is apparently getting 
     attention in Tehran. That's why the prisoners were presented 
     on television confessing. It may also explain why the trial 
     was adjourned for Passover, not exactly a national holiday in 
     the fervently Islamic state, and why the three youngest 
     defendants were released on bail. Trials in Iran usually last 
     hours, not weeks as this one is expected to. The court could 
     have declared them guilty and quickly hanged them, as 
     happened three years ago with two other Jews similarly 
     charged.
       But will those gestures, aimed at the international 
     community, be enough to save the lives of these men? What do 
     these gestures mean?
       The hard-liners have never shown much sensitivity to world 
     opinion. In fact, they seem to revel in sticking their thumbs 
     in the eyes of public opinion, especially American and 
     Israeli eyes.
       Just before the trial began, a leading cleric delivered a 
     sermon over state radio declaring, ``These people are spies . 
     . .  they are Jews and are . . . by nature enemies of 
     Muslims.''
       These 13 Jews are pawns in a battle between the hard-line 
     Islamic extremists and the reformers, who scored another 
     important victory in last Friday's runoff elections, for 
     control of an ancient land whose chief exports of late have 
     been religious bigotry and terrorism. One thing the ruling 
     ayatollahs and the reformers led by President Khatemi seem to 
     agree on is their hatred of Israel.
       If the verdicts are guilty, which carries a death penalty, 
     some fear the ayatollahs declare that all Jews are Zionists, 
     and the Zionist state is the mortal enemy of Islam and Iran, 
     and thus all Jews are enemies and spies.
       Iran wages daily war against Israel through proxies such as 
     Hezbollah. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said again 
     recently the only way to solve the problems of the Middle 
     East is to annihilate Israel.
       As the trial in Shiraz opened, there was an event worth 
     noting in another country with a long and bitter history of 
     anti-Semitism: Poland. Some 5,000 young Jews from around the 
     world, led by the presidents of Israel and Poland, took part 
     in the annual March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau 
     to honor those who perished solely for the crime of being 
     Jews.
       Just weeks earlier, a British judge struck an important 
     blow for the cause of truth and morality, a blow in an 
     ongoing battle against Holocaust denial that should never 
     have been necessary.
       Other nations are at long last beginning to come to terms 
     with their Holocaust guilt and with Holocaust denial; 
     throughout the Arab world, however, denial is a surging 
     companion to rising anti-Semitism, often officially 
     encouraged as in Egypt and Syria.
       In this country, too, we have made tremendous progress in 
     confronting the scourge of anti-Semitism, but there are 
     counter-forces, including a presidential candidate who 
     admires Hitler, belittles the Holocaust and blames the Jews 
     for dragging America into World War II.
       The trial of the Iran 13 is an alarming reminder that for 
     all the lessons learned from the tragic past, there remain 
     places where Hitler's work is commended, not condemned. It is 
     a clarion warning of our responsibility to stand guard on the 
     legacy of Hitler's victims in Iran and around the world.

     

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