[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12554-12555]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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  SENATE RESOLUTION 199--CALLING FOR THE IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL 
                    RELEASE OF DR. HALEH ESFANDIARI

  Mr. SMITH (for himself and Mrs. Clinton) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

                              S. Res. 199

       Whereas Dr. Haleh Esfandiari is one of the United States's 
     most distinguished analysts of Iranian politics and is the 
     Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson 
     International Center for Scholars;
       Whereas Dr. Esfandiari is a dual citizen of Iran and the 
     United States;
       Whereas Dr. Esfandiari has served as a communications 
     bridge between the United States and Iran, advocating 
     diplomacy and dialogue;
       Whereas Dr. Esfandiari travels to Iran twice a year to 
     visit with her mother;
       Whereas, in late December 2006, Dr. Esfandiari traveled to 
     Iran to visit her ailing 93 year old mother for 1 week;
       Whereas the current Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 
     has initiated a crackdown on scholars and journalists 
     including Dr. Esfandiari, Canadian-Iranian philosopher Ramin 
     Jahanbegloo, and journalist Parnaz Azima;
       Whereas, on December 30, 2006, Dr. Esfandiari was robbed of 
     her Iranian and American passports and travel documents at 
     knife-point by 3 masked men on the way to the airport to 
     return to the United States;
       Whereas Dr. Esfandiari was held in Iran under house arrest 
     for 4 months, interrogated under conditions of intimidation 
     and threat, and, on May 8, 2007, was imprisoned in the 
     notorious Evin prison in Tehran;
       Whereas Dr. Esfandiari has been falsely accused by a news 
     agency in Iran of being a spy for Mossad, of serving as the 
     head of the Iran section of the American Israel Public 
     Affairs Committee, and of encouraging an uprising against the 
     regime in Tehran; and
       Whereas senior government officials have conveyed the 
     United States's opposition to this unjustified imprisonment: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) condemns the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of 
     Dr. Haleh Esfandiari as a deliberately provocative and 
     illegal act;
       (2) deplores the continuing crackdown in Iran on 
     journalists and scholars and the deliberate dissemination of 
     misinformation regarding their activities; and
       (3) demands the immediate, safe, and unconditional release 
     of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari from custody, the reissuance of 
     appropriate travel documents for Dr. Esfandiari, and the 
     provision of safe passage out of Iran.

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