[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 85 (Thursday, June 29, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H5441]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PLIGHT OF THE IRAN 13

  (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to the plight 
of the 13 Iranian Jews that have been held for over a year on trumped-
up charges of spying for Israel and the United States. After months of 
incarceration, coerced confessions and show trials, the fate of these 
13 will be decided this weekend by a revolutionary court judge who 
alone will make a decision whether these 13 will live or die.
  The arrest of these innocent people was in itself an outrage, but the 
Iranian government has doggedly pursued these false charges, denying 
the defendants representation and visitation from their families, and 
using them as a pawn in the ongoing ideological tug-of-war of Iran's 
future.
  We have read and heard that the so-called moderates are slowly 
eroding the power base of Iran's hard line clerical leadership, but I 
do not see the evidence. There is no religious freedom in Iran, there 
is no respect for human rights and due process in Iran, 
and anti-Semitic, anti-Western scapegoating persists in Iran.
  A country like this has no place among the community of nations; and 
the United States, as the premiere defender of democracy around the 
world, should make no overtures to welcome Iran. I join my colleagues 
telling Iran that we are watching.

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