[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 97 (Tuesday, July 9, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H4220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CYRUS CYLINDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Royce) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in recognition of a document of great 
significance, the Cyrus Cylinder, that will be touring the United 
States for the duration of this year and will be on display in museums 
across this country. On October 2, the Cyrus Cylinder will be displayed 
to the public at the Getty Museum in Malibu, California.
  In what historians call the ``first bill of human rights,'' the Cyrus 
Cylinder, out of Persia, remains important, particularly as the 
Cylinder's inheritors, the people of Iran, continue to suffer under the 
repressive Islamic Republic in Iran.
  Jews, Babylonians, and Greeks left laudatory accounts of Cyrus' 
actions. The Cyrus Cylinder is widely considered to be not only the 
first human rights document, but a document to protect other cultures. 
In the Torah, it is written:

       King Cyrus issued a decree concerning the house of God in 
     Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt. The cost will be paid 
     from the cost of the King.

  In what now can be considered a defining moment in history, Cyrus 
permitted the Jews to take their statues, their ceremonial vessels, and 
important cultural and religious objects back with them to Jerusalem 
and rebuild their temple.
  Cyrus the Great holds a special position in the history of 
civilization. His humanitarian values of freedom for all people, 
respect for culture and religious diversity, and recognition of the 
fact that it is better to be loved than feared are remarkable 
attributes for any ruler.
  But as Ali Razi, who left Iran in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, 
shares with us, for someone who lived 2,600 years ago, such beliefs are 
truly exceptional. Ali Razi makes a second point about the document's 
influence on Persian and Greek culture, and on the European 
Enlightenment. Cyrus' values and ideas for governance have long 
inspired political thinkers and leaders of men, including the Founding 
Fathers of this country, who wove these same ideals into the very 
Constitution of the United States. Thomas Jefferson owned two copies of 
``Cyropedia,'' a book of histories by the Greek historian Xenophon that 
told the story of King Cyrus--Cyrus the Great, as the Persians call 
him. Such was Jefferson's admiration for this work that Jefferson wrote 
to his own grandson:

       I would advise you, go first through the Cyropedia, and 
     then read Herodotus and Thucydides.

  Unfortunately, contrary to the traditions of the Cyrus Cylinder, the 
Iranian Government continues to engage in widespread human rights 
abuses. While the Cyrus Cylinder highlighted peace and acceptance as 
its ideals, the current regime in Iran has steadily increased its 
discriminatory practices and repression of the country's ethnic and 
religious minority populations--from Azerbaijanis to Baluchis, to Kurds 
and Arabs, to the Baha'is and Christians and Zoroastrians. Iranian 
authorities routinely deny its citizens the most basic human rights 
through harassment, intimidation, detention, and violence.
  And for those minorities who have served in the prison system in 
Iran, they can tell you the stories of how horrible that violence can 
be. Actions that often violate Iran's own international obligations 
routinely occur there in that country, and I hope that the tour of the 
Cyrus Cylinder across the United States brings attention to the 
oppressiveness of the Iranian regime and serves as a symbol, a symbol 
that promotes human rights around the world, a symbol to remind people 
of what that culture once stood for under Cyrus the Great.
  So, in 2013, on the occasion of the first-ever visit of the Cyrus 
Cylinder from the British Museum to the United States, and to the Getty 
Museum in Malibu from October 2 to December 2, we call attention to 
this important historical document for the example it set over two 
millennia ago.

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