Iran  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join fellow parliamentarians from around the world representing the Inter-parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran to stand in solidarity on this international Student Day in Iran with those who are courageously protesting the Iranian regime's

Religious Freedom   for apostasy and blasphemy disproportionately affects the religious minorities. Regrettably, egregious violations of the right to religious freedom against individuals continue. Some examples include: Baha'is and Sufis facing mistreatment in Iran; Christians being forced out of Iraq; Copts

Human Rights  , for example, have experienced great difficulty in Sri Lanka. Accountability and real reconciliation need to occur there. Iran continues to violate the rights of individuals, including academics, journalists and Baha'is. Reports that Falun Gong practitioners are arbitrarily detained

House debate   domestic repression. In particular, I asked whether the government would sanction the Central Bank of Iran, put the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorist list and expand the orbit of sanctions against those entities and individuals engaged in the massive assault on human

Iran  Mr. Speaker, parliamentary elections are taking place in Iran in the shadow of a massive state-sanctioned assault on the human rights of the Iranian people, the imprisonment and silencing of all opposition in the run-up to the Iranian election, actions that are constitutive

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee   of my remarks now. Dr. Ottolenghi, I appreciate your remarks, particularly with regard to the persistent and pervasive state-sanctioned assault on human rights in Iran and the intensification of repression targeting, as you put it, religious minorities, such as the Baha'i

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly part of it can be religious disagreements. Members of Baha'i are certainly a very threatened minority within Iran, and that should be a primary human rights concern for those who are paying attention to human rights violations in Iran. As for other considerations

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee   of dissent in Iran, Amnesty International noted that, “Non-Muslims, especially the Baha'i community, have been increasingly demonized by Iranian officials and in the Iranian state-controlled media”, and that, “repeated calls by the Supreme Leader and other authorities to combat 'false

Baha'i Community in Iran   about the fate of the Baha'i community in Iran. Since 2004, 545 people have been imprisoned for no other reason than their religious convictions. The Iranian government considers these people threats to the nation, even terrorists. For 46 months now, seven teachers have been

Freedom of Religion  Mr. Speaker, four years ago today, seven Baha'i leaders in Iran were abruptly taken out of their homes and arrested. In a flagrant violation of international law, the prisoners were held for 20 months without any charges being laid. Some were placed in solitary confinement

Iran   officials have also made statements to try to link the Baha'i to the political unrest in that country. These are trumped-up accusations and a cause of concern for the safety and well-being of those unjustly detained in Iran. In fact, today, on the fourth anniversary of the arbitrary

Iran  , the discrimination due to sexual orientation that we have already heard about and the repression of people based on ethnicity and religious beliefs. We will think of people, particularly for me, who are from the Baha'i faith. Of course, the origins of the Baha'i faith come right from Iran. We

Iran   given the advanced age of the entire Baha'i leadership. Despite repeated requests from both the defendants and their attorneys, neither official copies of the original verdict nor the ruling on appeal have been disclosed to date. The plight of the Baha'i in Iran offers a looking

Iran   Israeli citizens, as many Jews, as possible. Let me go through some of these things now systematically. I will start with religious persecution. With good reason we have heard about the terrible persecution of the Baha'i in Iran. The Baha'i religion began in Iran and has had its

Iran   discrimination faced by the Baha'i minorities in Iran. That was said by Malcolm Stuart of Amnesty International. I was just about to note that Nobel laureate, Shirin Ebadi, twice appeared before our subcommittee on human rights and spoke to us about the situation in Iran. Each time we