[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 250]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IMAN ABBASI

                                 ______
                                 

                              HON. TED POE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, January 7, 2011

  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in just a few days, on January 9, 
Iraqi authorities will deport the Abbasi family to Iran where they face 
certain persecution.
  The Abbasis are political refugees. Their father got in trouble in 
Iran because he dared to write that Iranians actually deserve freedom. 
He wrote that every man should be able to have a say in who governs 
them. This simple idea is the very foundation on which our great Nation 
was built and the fundamental, universal human right of all mankind. 
But the tiny tyrant of Iran did not like that. He saw Mr. Abbasi as a 
threat to his power.
  The regime, having tasted power, is doing whatever it can to keep it. 
That includes imprisoning, torturing, and murdering anyone who so dares 
speak against it. But these are desperate actions from a desperate 
regime. When a regime loses respect for its own people, its days are 
numbered.
  As he has done with thousands of other Iranian freedom fighters, 
Ahmadinejad came after Mr. Abbasi. So Mr. Abassi fled to Sweden. But 
when he did, Iranian authorities started going after his family still 
in Iran. So they fled too, but could only get to Iraq before being 
imprisoned by Iraqi authorities for not having their immigration 
papers. Now the Iraqi government wants to deport his daughter, Iman 
Abbasi, back to Iran, which is all but a death sentence for her. I 
talked to the State Department about Iman today and they are working on 
making sure that Iman is allowed to remain in Iraq until they can sort 
out her refugee status.
  We have seen enough of Iraqi authorities doing favors for its 
neighbor to the East. At Camp Ashraf, a camp in the middle of the Iraqi 
desert full of freedom fighters from Iran, Iraqis and their Iranian 
buddies psychologically torture the residents. They put up dozens of 
loudspeakers surrounding the camp and shout at residents around the 
clock, telling them to go home to their motherland and stop being 
traitors.
  We must send a clear message to Iraq: as long as it is ruled by the 
tiny tyrant and his henchmen, Iran is not a friend you can trust. If 
you side with them, then you side with oppression and tyranny. So stop 
imprisoning political refugees and stand up for the freedom that so 
many of our countrymen and yours have given their lives for.

                          ____________________