[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 898]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SUPPORTING FREE AND OPEN ELECTIONS

  (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, last night, President 
Obama said that the U.S. stands with the people of Tunisia and supports 
the democratic aspirations of the people. That has not always been 
true, however. We've stood for far too long with the undemocratic and 
the dictatorial Ben Ali, the President of Tunisia. And it is time that 
we stand, as the President said, with the people of Tunisia now and 
support their democratic aspirations.
  The U.S. gets another chance to stand with the democratic aspirations 
of another people, the people of Egypt, against the autocratic, 
dictatorial, and undemocratic leadership of Hosni Mubarak. For too 
long, the U.S. has stood against the people of Egypt seeking a more 
democratic country and a more democratic government. Every election has 
been rigged by the Mubarak government, and the state emergency power 
laws have been extended so that people would be rounded up so his 
viable opponents would be thrown into jail and political parties would 
be outlawed.
  The time has come to stop this. The time has come for the United 
States to tell the Mubarak government that this election has to be free 
and open. The sole purpose of the election cannot be to pass on a great 
country to the son of the current leader in spite of the democratic 
aspirations of the Egyptian people.

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