[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 41 (Thursday, March 17, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1809-S1811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IRAN'S HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS

  Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the 
deteriorating human rights situation in Iran.
  We understand that Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei--Iranian President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff will be arriving in the United States as 
early as tomorrow.
  Mr. Mashaei is a close friend and trusted adviser of President 
Ahmadinejad. Their kinship began in 1982 when President Ahmadinejad was 
governor of Khoy in West Azerbaijan and the Intelligence Ministry 
appointed Mr. Mashaei to the security team in the Kurdistan region next 
door. Since then, Mr. Mashaei has been a member of Ahmadinejad's inner 
circle.
  The world knows of President Ahmadinejad's public incitement against 
Jews and Israel--most infamously with his pledge to wipe Israel off the 
map. But the world may not know the virulent anti-Israel and anti-
Semitic views of his trusted adviser.
  In 2008, Mr. Mashaei told Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-
Bashir:

       The corrupt and criminal Zionist regime is harming not only 
     the Arab and Islamic world, but humanity in its entirety . . 
     . in order to save humanity from its different crises, there 
     is no other way other than the limiting of Zionist influence 
     on human society, because the root and origin of most of the 
     world's current crises are related to Zionism.

  Shortly after the discredited Iranian Presidential election in June 
2009, Mr.

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Mashaei was appointed Presidential Chief of Staff--after a very brief 
and unsuccessful attempt to serve as the first Vice President of Iran.
  Since then, the persecution and repression in Iran has steadily 
increased. Thousands of peaceful protesters, dissidents and activists 
have been detained.
  Let there be no doubt, Mr. Mashei, like his President, is directly 
responsible for human rights abuses in Iran. He should not be granted a 
visa to enter the United States and he, like his President, should be 
designated under U.S. law as a human rights abuser in Iran.
  Mr. Mashaei's visit will come just 4 days after the United Nations 
Secretary-General released an interim report on the human rights in 
Iran.
  The report states:

       The human rights situation in Iran has been marked by an 
     intensified crackdown on human rights defenders, woman's 
     rights activists, journalists and government opponents.
       Concerns about torture, arbitrary detentions and unfair 
     trials continue to be raised by UN human rights mechanisms.

  Additionally:

       Discrimination persisted against minority groups, in some 
     cases amounting to persecution.
       A worrying trend is the increased number of cases in which 
     political prisoners are accused of Mohareb--or enmity against 
     God--offences which carry the death penalty.

  At least 22 people charged with Mohareb have been executed since 
January 2010.
  Journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders and lawyers continue to 
be arrested or subjected to travel bans. Blogs and Web sites are 
restricted and now more than 10 national dailies have been shut down 
for refusing to toe the official line.
  Concern remains over a lack of due process rights and the failure to 
respect the rights of detainees.
  Particularly, ``concerns were expressed at routine practice for 
incommunicado detention, use of torture and ill-treatment in detention, 
use of solitary confinement and of individuals without charges.''
  Finally, ``concerns were expressed in public about people sentenced 
to death often do not have access to legal representation and their 
families and lawyers are not even informed of the execution.''
  The report continues to detail the Iranian persecution of religious 
minorities, especially the Baha'i. The report notes concern for six 
members of the Baha'i community arrested by officials from the 
Intelligence Ministry in the months of June and July 2010--and the 
seven Baha'i community leaders recently sentenced to 10 years in 
prison.
  Regarding Iran's persecution of its Kurdish minority, the report 
notes:

       Members of the Kurdish community have continued to be 
     executed on various national security-related charges 
     including Mohareb. At least nine Kurdish political prisoners, 
     including Jafar Kazemi, Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaei, and Ali 
     Saremi were executed since January 2010, and several others 
     remain at risk of execution.

  And regarding Iran's persecution of Christians, we read:

       Reports also continued to be received about Christians, in 
     particular converts, being subjected to arbitrary arrest and 
     harassment.

  The Secretary-General's report follows others by our own State 
Department and human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human 
Rights Watch.
  While we expect the State Department to release its 2010 country 
human rights reports on March 25, these are a few highlights from the 
2009 report on Iran.

       Security forces were implicated in custodial deaths and the 
     killings of election protesters and committed other acts of 
     politically motivated violence, including torture, beatings, 
     and rape.
       * * *
       The government administered severe officially sanctioned 
     punishments, including death by stoning, amputation, and 
     flogging.
       * * *
       Authorities responded to all the demonstrations with raids 
     on opposition activists' offices.
       * * *
       Some prison facilities, including Evin Prison in Tehran, 
     were notorious for cruel and prolonged torture of political 
     opponents of the government. Authorities also maintained 
     ``unofficial'' secret prisons and detention centers outside 
     the national prison system where abuse reportedly occurred. 
     The government reportedly used white torture--prolonged 
     solitary confinement with extreme sensory deprivation--
     especially on political prisoners, often in detention centers 
     outside the control of prison authorities, including Section 
     209 of Evin Prison.
       * * *
       The government threatened, harassed, and arrested 
     individuals who posted comments critical of the government on 
     the Internet; in some cases it reportedly confiscated their 
     passports or arrested their family members.

  Amnesty's 2010 report on human rights in Iran starts with the 
following summary:

       An intensified clampdown on political protest preceded and, 
     particularly, followed the presidential election in June, 
     whose outcome was widely disputed, deepening the long-
     standing patterns of repression. The security forces, notably 
     the paramilitary Basij, used excessive force against 
     demonstrators; dozens of people were killed or fatally 
     injured. The authorities suppressed freedom of expression to 
     an unprecedented level, blocking mobile and terrestrial phone 
     networks and Internet communications. Well over 5,000 people 
     had been detained by the end of the year. Many were tortured, 
     including some who were alleged to have been raped in 
     detention, or otherwise ill-treated. Some died from their 
     injuries. Dozens were then prosecuted in grossly unfair mass 
     `show trials.' Most were sentenced to prison terms but at 
     least six were sentenced to death.
       * * *
       The election-related violations occurred against a 
     background of severe repression, which persisted throughout 
     2009 and whose victims included members of ethnic and 
     religious minorities, students, human rights defenders and 
     advocates of political reform. Women continued to face severe 
     discrimination under the law and in practice, and women's 
     rights campaigners were harassed, arrested and imprisoned. 
     Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained rife 
     and at least 12 people died in custody. Detainees were 
     systematically denied access to lawyers, medical care and 
     their families, and many faced unfair trials.

  In its 2011 World Report chapter on Iran, Human Rights Watch writes:

       Iran's human rights crisis deepened as the government 
     sought to consolidate its power following 2009's disputed 
     presidential election. Public demonstrations waned after 
     security forces used live ammunition to suppress protesters 
     in late 2009, resulting in the death of at least seven 
     protesters and, I would add, we all remember Neda, who was 
     killed online. Authorities announced that security forces had 
     arrested more than 6,000 individuals after June 2009. 
     Hundreds--including lawyers, rights defenders, journalists, 
     civil society activists, and opposition leaders--remain in 
     detention without charge. Since the election crackdown last 
     year, well over a thousand people have fled Iran to seek 
     asylum in neighboring countries. Interrogators used torture 
     to extract confessions, on which the judiciary relied on to 
     sentence people to long prison terms and even death. 
     Restrictions on freedom of expression and association, as 
     well as religious and gender-based discrimination, continued 
     unabated.

  The report continued:

       Authorities systematically used torture to coerce 
     confessions. Student activist Abdullah Momeni wrote to 
     Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei in September 
     describing the torture he suffered at the hands of jailers. 
     At this writing no high-level official has been prosecuted 
     for the torture, ill-treatment, and deaths of three detainees 
     held at Kahrizak detention center after June 2009.

  We cannot allow these violations to go unnoticed. Nor can we continue 
to turn a blind eye to the countless prisoners of conscience fighting 
for basic human dignity in this brutal dictatorship.
  It is time we take a stand for people like Nasrin Sotoudeh, detained 
for her work as a human rights lawyer, women's rights activist, and 
defender of children who face capital charges; Hossein Ronaghi-Maleki, 
detained for his work as a blogger and human rights activist. He has 
been refused medical treatment for kidney failure; and Fariba 
Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saied Rezaie, Behrouz 
Tavakkoli, Vahid Tizfahm, Mahvash Sabet--all detained for their 
leadership in the Baha'i community.
  As of today, the precise whereabouts of opposition leaders Mehdi 
Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, and their respective wives Fatemeh 
Karroubi and Zahra Rahnavard, remain unknown following their arrest and 
detention in February. Meanwhile, according to international human 
rights organizations, the whereabouts of hundreds of Iranians, 
including journalists and political activists, arrested just before the 
February 14 opposition protests remain unknown.
  To each of them, I echo President Reagan's words: ``I came here to 
give you strength, but it is you who have strengthened me.''
  As we approach the Iranian New Year celebration of Nowruz, it is time 
for

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the President to demonstrate this administration's commitment to the 
Iranian people's struggle for human rights.
  We know that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian 
Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and other senior 
Iranian government officials are directly responsible for and complicit 
in ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing the commission of 
serious human rights abuses against the people of Iran on or after June 
12, 2009.
  Pursuant to Executive Order 13553 and the Comprehensive Iran 
Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010, the President 
should designate these individuals as human rights abusers and reaffirm 
our core American values: freedom, democracy and human rights.
  I would just end by quoting from section 105 of the Comprehensive 
Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010, signed by the 
President into law last year. It requires that the executive branch 
produce a list of persons who are responsible or complicit in certain 
rights abuses. It says:

       Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of 
     this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate 
     congressional committees a list of persons who are officials 
     of the Government of Iran or persons acting on behalf of that 
     Government (including members of paramilitary organizations 
     such as Ansar-e-Hezbollah and Basij-e Mostaz'afin), that the 
     President determines, based on credible evidence, are 
     responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, 
     controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of 
     serious human rights abuses against citizens of Iran or their 
     family members on or after June 12, 2009, regardless of 
     whether such abuses occurred in Iran.

  Clearly this official about to arrive in the United States meets the 
standard under section 105 of CISADA, and the U.S. administration 
should designate him as an abuser of human rights. He should not be 
admitted entry into the United States.
  We should call it the way we see it, which is, this is one of the 
most dangerous human rights-abusing officials that we know of. 
Comprehensive data now exists from Human Rights Watch, from Amnesty 
International, even from the United Nations on what this man has 
directed. He should not be given a visa, and he should be so listed 
under U.S. law.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________