[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8814]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           FREE AMIR HEKMATI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Kildee) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, this week, I and many others were in 
Lafayette Park joining the family of Amir Hekmati, my constituent, to 
commemorate a very sad anniversary.
  For 1,000 days, Amir Hekmati, a young man born in the United States, 
grew up in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. His parents emigrated to the 
United States long before Amir was born, in the late 1970s, from Iran. 
Amir Hekmati has been sitting in a prison--in Evin Prison in Tehran, 
for 1,000 days.
  He traveled to Iran for the first time in August of 2011 because, 
like many other young men and young women, he wanted to explore his own 
roots. He had served in the United States Marine Corps, came home; and, 
before enrolling in school, he wanted to go visit family that he had 
never met and, in fact, wanted to meet his grandmother whom he had 
never seen before.
  He was there for about 2 weeks before he was arrested. For months, 
nobody knew where he was, and then soon it was revealed that he had 
been arrested, tried, and convicted of espionage. Because he was an 
American who had served in the Marine Corps, he was convicted of 
espionage.
  That death sentence that was initially executed on him was set aside, 
and that death sentence was suspended. Apparently, there had been a new 
trial, and he is now, according to a New York Times report, serving a 
10-year sentence.
  This is a young man who simply went to visit his family, traveled 
with permission, in a transparent fashion, and is now caught up in the 
geopolitical struggle as Iran, apparently, seeks to rejoin the 
international community.
  One thousand days in prison--holidays have passed; we experience 
every one of these days, the changing of seasons. For all of us, we 
take these moments, these passages for granted.
  For Amir Hekmati, every day is the same. Every day, he is in a cell, 
for many, many months, in a 3 by 3 cell, unable to even sit down for 
all but 10 minutes of every day.
  If Iran truly seeks to rejoin the international community--of course, 
there are the P5+1 negotiations taking place right now. If Iran seeks 
to join the global community, and if this Congress is to take any 
agreement that might be struck seriously, Iran must now free Amir 
Hekmati. If they expect to be taken seriously, they cannot hold 
political prisoners.
  Now, for most of us, we don't think there is much that we can do 
about this, but I think every American citizen, every Member of 
Congress--especially those who have joined me in a bipartisan fashion 
in calling upon Iran to release Amir Hekmati--can do something. We all 
can.
  For those of you that use Twitter, #FreeAmir. Believe me, it sends a 
message. It sends a message across the globe. It sends a message to the 
Iranian people, to the Iranian Government. It sends a message to the 
friends and the family of Amir Hekmati that our country stands with 
him.
  During those 1,000 days, Amir Hekmati's father has fallen ill. He has 
brain cancer. It is time, even if for just humanitarian purposes, it is 
time, long past time, for Iran to do what is right and to release Amir 
Hekmati, so he can come home and be with his family.

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