Sec. 2. United States policy on human rights violations by the Government of Iran
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Congress finds the following: Iran is a member of the United Nations, voted for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, among other international human rights treaties. In violation of these and other international obligations, Iranian regime officials continue to violate the fundamental human rights of the people of Iran. The Iranian regime persecutes ethnic and religious minority groups, such as the Baha’is, Christians, and Sufi, Sunni, and dissenting Shi’a Muslims (such as imprisoned Ayatollah Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi), through harassment, arrests, and imprisonment, during which detainees have routinely been beaten, tortured, and killed.
The 2016 Department of State Human Rights Report on Iran noted severe restrictions on civil liberties, including the freedoms of assembly, association, speech, religion, and press. Other human rights problems included abuse of due process combined with use of capital punishment for crimes that do not meet the requirements of due process, as well as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; and disregard for the physical integrity of persons, whom authorities arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, tortured, or killed. .
Over a 4-month period in 1988, the Iranian regime carried out the barbaric mass executions of thousands of political prisoners. In 1999, the Iranian regime brutally suppressed a student revolt that was one of the largest mass uprisings up until that point in Iran since 1979. Following voting irregularities that resulted in the 2009 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian regime brutally suppressed peaceful political dissent from wide segments of civil society during the Green Revolution in a cynical attempt to retain its undemocratic grip on power.
Since February 2011 the leaders of Iran’s Green Movement, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, his wife Dr. Zahra Rahnavard, and former Speaker of the Majles (parliament) Mehdi Karroubi, have lived under strict house arrest, ordered by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. In response to anti-government demonstrations by citizens of Iran that began in the city of Mashhad on December 28, 2017, and rapidly spread throughout urban and rural populations across Iran in the following weeks, the Iranian regime arrested many hundreds of Iranians and killed dozens more.
The Iranian regime, in addition to using lethal force and widespread detentions, shut down mobile Internet access and worked to block access to social media applications, including Telegram, Instagram, and Twitter, that citizens of Iran used to share information and to organize and publicize the protests. In those demonstrations, which constitute the most significant anti-government demonstrations in Iran since June 2009, citizens of Iran protested against the system of entrenched corruption and impoverishment in Iran, as well as the Iranian regime’s foreign policy of supporting terrorism.
Senior governmental, military, and public security officials in Iran have continued ordering, controlling, and committing egregious human rights violations and abuses that, in many cases, represent official policies of the Iranian regime. The 2016 Department of State Human Rights Report on Iran noted, According to the press, NGOs, and the testimony of former prisoners, authorities often held political prisoners in solitary confinement for extended periods, denying them due process and access to legal representation.
Political prisoners were also at greater risk of torture and abuse in detention and often mixed with the general prison population despite the political crimes bill stipulation that they have their own facilities. . It is the sense of the Congress that the United States should— deny the Government of Iran the ability to continue to oppress the people of Iran and to use violence and executions to silence pro-democracy protestors; support efforts made by the people of Iran to promote the establishment of basic freedoms that build the foundation for the emergence of a freely elected, open, non-corrupt, and democratic political system; and help the people of Iran produce, access, and share information freely and safely via the Internet and other media.
It shall be the policy of the United States to stand with the people of Iran who seek the opportunity to freely elect a government of their choosing, and increase the utilization of all available authorities to impose sanctions on officials of the Government of Iran and other individuals responsible for serious human rights abuses.