Sec. 2. Findings
407 words·~2 min read·
/bill/114/hr/4257/ih/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds the following: The Iranian people have been seeking political and economic freedom since 1979, and attempted to gain it during the 2009 Green Revolution. The Iranian Government, through Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC)and its Basij militia auxiliaries, violently crushed the 2009 Green Revolution, thwarting the legitimate aspirations to political and economic freedom of the Iranian people through terrorism, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary imprisonment, and torture. The Iranian Government systematically discriminates against religious and ethnic minorities, including Bahais, Christians, Jews, Sufis, Zoroastrians, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, and Azeris, among others and denies them freedom to emigrate. The United States designated the Government of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984 and identified the IRGC and the IRGC–Quds Force as principle agents of Iran’s support for international terrorism. The IRGC has, since its inception in 1979, steadily used its illegitimate power and threat of arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing to gain dominance over a substantial proportion of Iran’s economy, the proceeds from which are being used to finance international terrorism, and to repress the legitimate aspirations to political and economic freedom of the Iranian people. The IRGC has a substantial and growing presence in Iran’s financial and commercial sectors and extensive economic interests in the defense production, construction, and oil industries, among others, controlling billions of dollars in corporate business, among others. The IRGC directly owns substantial shares in 14 companies publicly traded on the Tehran Stock Exchange with a combined value of $17 billion. There are an additional 13 publicly traded companies with significant ownership by the IRGC, the Armed Forces, and the Basij militia. Taken together, these 27 companies are worth more than 20 percent of the Tehran Stock Exchange. In addition, the IRGC controls hundreds of Iranian privately held companies in nearly all sectors of the Iranian economy. Because of the authority wielded by the IRGC, including the ability to arbitrarily detain, incarcerate, torture, and kill Iranian citizens, Western legal norms for evaluating control of business entities do not apply. Thus, IRGC influence over Iranian economic activity may be vastly more pervasive than may be mathematically calculated using standard Western methodologies. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s termination of sanctions on Iran will inevitably open the global economy to these corporations, broadening the scope of the ability of the IRGC to profit, including through international money laundering, and to use its increasing economic resources to conduct terrorist attacks around the globe.