Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of the third annual Iran Accountability Week, which occurs as nuclear negotiations with Iran risk overshadowing, if not sanitizing, the regime's massive domestic repression.
It also coincides with the sixth anniversary of the imprisonment of Iran's Baha'i leadership, an execution binge that has seen 650 executions since Rouhani took office last August, and the continuing unjust imprisonment of more than 900 prisoners of conscience.
Today parliamentarians heard from FDD experts Mark Dubowitz and Ali Alfoneh on the importance of sanctioning human rights violators and terrorists and from former Iranian political prisoners Marina Nemat and Suzanne Tamas of the Baha'i on the importance of standing in solidarity with political prisoners.
The centrepiece of this week is the Global Iranian Political Prisoner Advocacy Project, which pairs parliamentarians with an adopted political prisoner on whose behalf they advocate. I am advocating on behalf of the seven imprisoned Baha'i leaders.
Two of the prisoners whose cases we took up last year, Nasrin Sotoudeh and Hamid Ghassemi-Shall, have since been released.
Inspired by their courage and by the courage of those who remain in prison, we will continue to sound the alarm until the Iranian people—