[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 23]
[House]
[Pages 31718-31719]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         CLIMATE CHANGE IN IRAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, the whole world has been watching 
what has taken place in Copenhagen, Denmark last week and this week. 
All the talk is about climate change and how man is affecting the 
climate, but what we need in this world is a climate change in Iran. 
That's right. We need to change the atmosphere in Iran with what has 
taken place with the little man from the desert, Ahmadinejad.
  Last week and even this week, thousands of students--and here is a 
photograph of some of them--have taken to the streets to protest the 
regime of Ahmadinejad and how oppressive it is. They are complaining in 
this peaceful protest against the tyranny against the people of Iran. 
Not only Ahmadinejad, but they are protesting the radical mullahs and 
the Iranian military.
  You see, these young people want what everybody throughout the world 
wants--freedom. Somewhere down in the way that we are made there is 
this spark; there is this flame of freedom. The people in Iran don't 
have that, so the young people have taken to the streets--the sons of 
Iran, the daughters of democracy--and they are protesting the 
oppressive government. They are protesting the fraudulent elections 
that got Ahmadinejad elected last summer. They are protesting the fact 
that they have no freedom in their own country. They have suffered the 
consequences for these protests. They have been beaten. They have been 
teargassed. They have been hauled off to jail.
  The press has been oppressed as well. In fact, what has occurred is 
that the Internet has been closed, and cell phones have been blocked--
all in the name of preventing young people and others from protesting 
this oppressive regime.
  We all remember this past summer how numerous students were murdered 
in the streets just because they complained to their government about 
what was taking place. Already 80 of those protesters, political 
prisoners, have been tried by the star chamber--in secret, away from 
anybody in a public trial--and 80 of them have received sentences in an 
Iranian prison of 15 years or more, and 5 of them have received a 
sentence of the death penalty.
  Why? What is their crime?
  Their crime is objecting to the oppression of their own government, 
and for that, they are punished. Of course, others have been shot in 
the streets just because they have taken to the streets to protest 
their government.
  You know, the students aren't the only ones who have been arrested. 
Journalists have been arrested. Clerics, who call themselves ``reform 
clerics,'' and other people--all for the same reason--objecting to 
their government. They object to what has taken place.
  By blocking the cell phones and Internet access, the government had 
hoped to keep the word from getting out to the rest of the world about 
this pollution, about this horrible climate in Iran, but the word has 
gotten out--photographs such as this one here. Here is another one of a 
young Iranian student having been beaten for taking to the streets to 
protest his government last week. This one also escaped the controlled 
press of the Iranian Government.
  You know, Iran violates its own constitution by not allowing its 
people to protest and to lawfully assemble. They are standing for basic 
human rights. That's right--the right to peaceably assemble and to 
object to your government and what it's doing to you. It's the right of 
free speech--a basic human right. It's the right of a free press, which 
is a right we take for granted in this country.
  So we need a regime change in Iran. The way to do that is to help 
these young people and the people who want to change their regime. We 
must support them. This country should support them in any way that we 
can.
  Yes, President Ahmadinejad is the pollution of the world, and we need 
a change of climate in Iran. The students are sending a message to 
Iran's rogue government that you can beat us, you can arrest us, you 
can imprison us, but you will not stop us, and you will not intimidate 
us because we are not going away.
  Good for them. We should be proud of those students. We should 
support them. We should have a climate change in Iran.
  And that's just the way it is.

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