[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 17 (Thursday, January 26, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S125-S126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 2--COMMENDING THE BRAVERY, COURAGE, AND 
  RESOLVE OF THE WOMEN AND MEN OF IRAN DEMONSTRATING IN MORE THAN 133 
   CITIES AND RISKING THEIR SAFETY TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST THE IRANIAN 
                      REGIME'S HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

  Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Coons, Mr. Risch, Mr. 
Lankford, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Blumenthal, Mr. Booker, Mr. Cardin, Mr. 
Casey, Mr. Cassidy, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Cramer, Mrs. 
Gillibrand, Mr. Graham, Mr. Hagerty, Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Kaine, Mr. Kelly, 
Mr. King, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Markey, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Murphy, Mr. 
Padilla, Ms. Rosen, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Scott of Florida, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. 
Sullivan, Mr. Tillis, and Mr. Van Hollen) submitted the following 
concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations:

                             S. Con. Res. 2

       Whereas, on September 16, 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini 
     passed away in the custody of Iranian ``morality police'' 
     following a 3-day coma due to wounds, including bone 
     fracture, hemorrhage, and cerebral edema consistent with 
     severe beating, inflicted by the police for purportedly 
     wearing a hijab improperly;
       Whereas, on September 16, 2022, Iranians gathered in the 
     streets of Tehran to protest the killing of Mahsa Amini;
       Whereas demonstrations have since spread to more than 133 
     cities and 130 universities in Iran, where women are removing 
     or burning hijabs, cutting their hair, and dancing in front 
     of Iranian security forces, joined by their fellow Iranian 
     citizens, in a call to end the Iranian regime's systemic 
     repression;
       Whereas Iranian security forces have responded to such 
     demonstrations with violence and detentions, including 
     detentions of journalists and activists for covering the 
     protests;
       Whereas the security forces reportedly have killed more 
     than 516 protestors, including at least 70 children, although 
     the number of injuries and deaths is likely higher, but is 
     unobtainable due to internet blackouts;
       Whereas at least 19,200 Iranians have been arrested across 
     Iran according to official sources, and many thousands more 
     have been detained according to independent reports;
       Whereas more than 60 percent of Iran's population is 
     younger than 30 years old, and the protests continue to be 
     fueled by young people;
       Whereas Iran's Revolutionary Courts have executed at least 
     4 individuals who were involved in the protests, namely 
     Mohsen Shekari, Majid Reza Rahnavard, Mohammad Mehdi Karami, 
     and Sayed Mohammad Hosseini, and have charged at least 100 
     more individuals with crimes that are punishable in Iran by 
     death;
       Whereas videos, images, and demonstrations have spread to 
     social media platforms and are an important way for the 
     voices of the Iranian people to be heard;
       Whereas internet monitoring groups have reported that the 
     Iranian regime has--
       (1) caused near-total disruption of internet connectivity 
     in parts of Iran and partial disruptions in city centers; and
       (2) blocked WhatsApp, Twitter, Telegram, Facebook, 
     Instagram, and video games with chat functions;
       Whereas common protest chants include--
       (1) ``Women, life, and freedom!'';
       (2) ``Iranians die but will not be suppressed!''; and
       (3) ``Death to the dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei!'';
       Whereas the Iranian regime has a long history of structural 
     and legal discrimination against women, including barriers 
     for women seeking justice against domestic violence and 
     criminal prohibitions against women singing or showing hair 
     in public and studying certain technical subjects;
       Whereas the Iranian regime approved of ``depriving one 
     social right or more'' for any woman who posts an unveiled 
     picture of herself on social media, and, in August 2022, 
     approved of enforcing mandatory hijab laws through facial 
     recognition;
       Whereas, through misogynistic criminal statutes, the 
     Iranian regime for decades has detained and engaged in the 
     ongoing persecution of women, including--
       (1) Saba Kord Afshari, who was sentenced to 15 years in 
     prison for posting videos to social media without a hijab and 
     transferred into Ward 6 of the notorious Qarchak Women's 
     Prison, which the Secretary of the Treasury has identified as 
     a place at which gross violations of human rights take place;
       (2) Raheleh Ahmadi, mother of Afshari, who was sentenced to 
     2 years in prison for advocacy on behalf of Afshari;
       (3) Yasaman Aryani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi, and 
     Mojgan Keshavarz, who were sentenced to between 16 and 23 
     years in prison for posting a video for International Women's 
     Day in 2019, during which they walked without headscarves 
     through a metro train in Tehran, handing flowers to female 
     passengers;
       (4) human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was 
     sentenced in 2019 to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for 
     providing legal defense services to women charged with not 
     wearing a hijab;
       (5) Narges Mohammadi, a prominent rights advocate, who--
          (A) was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May 2015 for 
     ``establishing an illegal group'', ``assembly and collusion 
     to act against national security'', and ``propaganda against 
     the state'';
          (B) was arrested in November 2019 (on the second 
     anniversary of countrywide protests) and rearrested in 2021; 
     and
          (C) had her prison sentence extended in October 2022 to 
     11 years and 9 months;
       (6) former Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, 
     Shahindokht Molaverdi, who was charged with encouraging 
     ``corruption, prostitution, and sexual deviance'', a common 
     charge against women refusing mandatory hijab laws, and 
     sentenced in December 2020 to 30 months in prison for 
     defending the right of women to attend sporting events and 
     criticizing the practice of child marriage;
       (7) 6 women who were sentenced by the Culture and Media 
     Court of Tehran in July 2022 to each serve 1 year in prison 
     for the offense of singing songs in public;
       (8) Niloufar Hamedi, who was one of the first Iranian 
     journalists to report on Mahsa Amini's death, who was 
     arrested on September 22, 2022, and is being held in solitary 
     confinement; and
       (9) countless other women;
       Whereas the Iranian regime consistently commits a range of 
     human rights abuses in addition to its systematic persecution 
     of women and peaceful protesters, including--
       (1) unlawful or arbitrary killings and torture;
       (2) trials without due process;
       (3) forced disappearances;
       (4) arbitrary arrest and detention;
       (5) life-threatening prison conditions;
       (6) transnational attacks against dissidents; and
       (7) severe restrictions on free expression and the media, 
     peaceful assembly and association, and religious freedom;
       Whereas Freedom House ranks the Government of Iran as one 
     of the worst human rights violators in the world, with a 
     Global Freedom Score of 14 out of 100 and an Internet Freedom 
     Score of 16 out of 100;
       Whereas peaceful protests in Iran during 2022 have focused 
     on grievances such as--
       (1) mismanagement of the economy and national resources;
       (2) prioritization of funding for terror groups and pariah 
     regimes over social services for the people of Iran; and
       (3) widespread political corruption: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That Congress--
       (1) commends the bravery, courage, and resolve of the women 
     and men of Iran who are--
       (A) participating in the current protests to defend their 
     fundamental human rights; and
       (B) risking their safety to speak out against the human 
     rights abuses committed by the Iranian regime;
       (2) condemns--
       (A) the brutal beating and death of Mahsa Amini; and
       (B) the violent suppression by the Iranian regime of women 
     and men participating in the current demonstrations, 
     including children, and calls for transparent accountability 
     for all killings of protesters by Iranian security forces;
       (3) supports internet freedom programs that circumvent the 
     regime, including the Open Technology Fund, which provides 
     support for VPNs, proxy servers, and other alternatives that 
     can be used to bypass attempts by authoritarian governments 
     to censor internet access during times of protest, and 
     commends private entities willing to provide programs to 
     circumvent such censorship;
       (4) encourages continued efforts by the Biden 
     Administration to respond to the protests, including the 
     recent sanctioning of the Iranian morality police, and 
     further encourages the Biden Administration--
       (A) to immediately impose, under existing authorities, 
     additional human rights sanctions on officials and entities 
     responsible for the repression of the current protests;
       (B) to prioritize efforts to expand unrestricted internet 
     access in Iran, consistent with existing law; and
       (C) to work to develop a strategy to prevent the Iranian 
     regime from obtaining and exploiting facial recognition data 
     and software for the use of mass surveillance and enforcement 
     of mandatory hijab;
       (5) encourages the private sector, following the recent 
     clarification by the Biden Administration of sanctions 
     exemptions on communications technology, to work with the 
     Biden Administration to ensure protestors and activists have 
     access to tools needed to circumvent government surveillance 
     and repression;

[[Page S126]]

       (6) encourages representatives of the private sector to 
     coordinate with the Department of the Treasury and their 
     subsidiaries to utilize licensing opportunities and expand 
     access of key communications services to Iranians residing 
     within Iran;
       (7) welcomes the efforts of the international community to 
     support protestors in Iran, including by removing Iran from 
     the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women; and
       (8) calls on the international community--
       (A) to publicly condemn violence by the Iranian regime 
     against peaceful protesters;
       (B) to speak out against violations by the regime of 
     fundamental human rights, including the freedom of 
     expression, assembly, and redress of grievances of the 
     Iranian people; and
       (C) impose human rights sanctions on officials and entities 
     that are responsible for the repression of current protests 
     and involved in violating the human rights of the Iranian 
     people.

                          ____________________