Expressing support for the Iranian people's desire for a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran, and condemning violations of human rights and state-sponsored terrorism by the Iranian Government.

Whereas, beginning in 2017, and continuing for several months after protests erupted in more than 100 cities, the Iranian regime suppressed such protests with repressive forces that resulted in at least 25 deaths and 4,000 arrests, including decorated wrestling champion Navid Afkari, who was later executed in September 2020 amidst international outrage; Whereas, on November 15, 2019, popular protests against the Iranian regime began and rapidly spread to at least 100 cities throughout the country, and reports indicate that Iranian security forces used lethal force and about 1,500 people were killed during less than 2 weeks of unrest, and thousands more were detained during these protests; Whereas, beginning in September 2022, antigovernment protests ignited in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested by the morality police that enforce Iran’s mandatory dress code laws; Whereas women and youth have led the 2022 protests in Iran, demanding social freedom and political change; Whereas these protests are rooted in the more than four decades of organized resistance against the Iranian dictatorship, which have been most recently led by women who have endured torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and death; Whereas in several months of continuing protests in hundreds of cities throughout Iran, the regime’s security forces have killed hundreds and arrested tens of thousands of protesters, two of whom, Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard (both 23 years old), were hung on December 8 and 12, 2022, in Tehran and Mashhad; meanwhile, dozens more have been convicted of Moharebeh Whereas, according to a December 9, 2022, Amnesty International report, Iran’s security forces have killed with absolute impunity more than 40 children and injured many more in a bid to crush the spirit of resistance among the country’s youth and retain their iron grip on power at any cost Whereas the similarity in slogans and tactics used by protests nationwide reflect the overarching demands of the Iranian people and point to the organized nature of the protests; Whereas, in the 116th Congress, the House of Representatives passed House Resolution 752, Supporting the rights of the people of Iran to free expression, condemning the Iranian regime for its crackdown on legitimate protests, and for other purposes. Whereas House Resolution 752 urges the Administration to work to convene emergency sessions of the United Nations Security Council and to work with United States partners and allies to condemn the ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian regime and establish a mechanism by which the United Nations Security Council can monitor such violations; Whereas, on November 24, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council established a fact-finding mission to conduct an independent investigation into the ongoing deadly violence related to the protests in Iran that began on September 16, 2022; Whereas, on December 14, 2022, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a resolution to expel Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for the remainder of its 4-year term ending in 2026; Whereas the Department of State’s 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released on April 13, 2022, cites that Iran’s government and its agents reportedly committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, most commonly executions for crimes not meeting the international legal standard of most serious crimes Whereas, on October 25, 2021, the United Nations Special Rapporteur (UNSR) on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, told the United Nations General Assembly that almost all executions in the country constituted an arbitrary deprivation of life, noting the extensive, vague and arbitrary grounds in Iran for imposing the death sentence, which quickly can turn this punishment into a political tool. Whereas the Iranian regime has arbitrarily and brutally suppressed ethnic and religious minorities, including Iranian Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, Christians, Jews, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, and even Sunni Muslims, and deprived them of their basic human rights, and has in many cases executed them; Whereas the Iranian people have been deprived of their fundamental freedoms for which reason they are rejecting monarchic dictatorship and religious tyranny, as evident in their protest slogans; Whereas, in the 115th Congress, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4744 calling on the United States to condemn Iranian human rights abuses against dissidents, including the massacre in 1988 and the suppression of political demonstrations in 1999, 2009, and 2017, and pressure the Government of Iran to provide family members detailed information that they were denied about the final resting places of any missing victims of such abuses Whereas, on January 13, 2022, a United Nations report has urged the international community to call for accountability with respect to long-standing emblematic events that have been met with persistent impunity, including the enforced disappearances and summary and arbitrary executions of 1988 and the November 2019 protests. Whereas the killings of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 were carried out based on a fatwa to execute all political prisoners who remained loyal to the Iranian Resistance, and subsequent death commissions were formed on July 19, 1988, whose members included the current Iranian regime’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, an official from the Ministry of Intelligence, and a state prosecutor, to implement the fatwa; Whereas the United States should be involved in any establishment of an international investigation into the 1988 extrajudicial killings of Iranian dissidents; Whereas senior Iranian Government, military, judicial, and security officials have for decades ordered or committed egregious human rights violations and acts of terror; Whereas, on June 30, 2018, tens of thousands of people gathered in Paris at the Free Iran gathering where they supported advocates for a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran, and showed support for the opposition leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan for the future of Iran, which calls for the universal right to vote, free elections, and a market economy, and advocates gender, religious, and ethnic equality, a foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence, and a nonnuclear Iran; Whereas, on July 2, 2018, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced it had foiled a terrorist plot against the Free Iran 2018–the Alternative Whereas Assadollah Assadi, a senior Iranian diplomat based in the Iranian embassy in Vienna, Austria, was arrested in Germany and on February 2021 convicted in Belgium and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in connection with the planned terror plot in Paris at the Free Iran gathering; Whereas Assadollah Assadi served as the third secretary of the Iranian embassy in Austria; Whereas instead of representing the interests of the Iranian people, the Iranian regime has long used its Foreign Ministry and diplomatic representations abroad to orchestrate terror plots and whitewash gross human rights violations in Iran; Whereas, on December 15, 2022, the Special Court for Combatting Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) in Albania sentenced an Iranian national to 10 years in prison on terrorism-related charges, including attempts to engage in espionage against, and the assassination of Iranian dissidents in Albania; Whereas Iran’s malign activities in the Balkans pose a serious threat to United States national security interests; Whereas, on November 23, 2022, the Department of the Treasury announced additional action on Iranian security forces, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces, for their violent crackdown on antigovernment protests in Iran’s Kurdistan Province and surrounding areas; and Whereas, according to the statement issued by the Department of State, on November 23, 2022, The United States continues to support the Iranian people as they protest nationwide That the House of Representatives— (1) condemns past and present Iranian state-sponsored terrorist attacks against United States citizens and officials, as well as Iranian dissidents, including the Iranian regime’s terror plot against the Free Iran 2018–the Alternative (2) calls on relevant United States Government agencies to work with European allies, including those in the Balkans where Iran has expanded its presence, to hold Iran accountable for breaching diplomatic privileges, and to call on nations to prevent the malign activities of the Iranian regime’s diplomatic missions, with the goal of closing them down and expelling its agents; (3) stands with the people of Iran who are legitimately defending their rights for freedom against repression, and condemns the brutal killing of Iranian protesters by the Iranian regime; and (4) recognizes the rights of the Iranian people and their struggle to establish a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran.

Summary: This resolution condemns Iranian state-sponsored terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens and officials and Iranian dissidents. The resolution also expresses support for the people of Iran who are legitimately defending their rights for freedom against repression and condemns the killing of Iranian protesters by the Iranian regime.