(7) According to the United Nations Special 
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the 
Islamic Republic of Iran, as of January 2014, there 
were 895 political prisoners and prisoners of con-
science unjustly detained in Iran. 
(8) On February 22, 2016, 80-year-old Baquer 
Namazi, a United States citizen and the father of 
imprisoned dual United States-Iran citizen Siamak 
Namazi, was arrested while visiting family in Tehran 
and taken to Evin Prison without charge. Baquer 
Namazi suffers from a serious heart condition that 
requires special medical attention. 
(9) On January 12, 2016, Iran’s Revolutionary 
Guard Corps unjustly detained 10 United States 
sailors whose vessel had misnavigated into Iranian 
territorial waters but had a right to innocent pas-
sage under international law. While the United 
States sailors were released after 16 hours, Iran’s 
Revolutionary Guard Corps released humiliating vid-
eos of the capture of the sailors at gunpoint and 
their detention for propagandistic purposes. 
(10) On October 15, 2015, Siamak Namazi was 
arrested while visiting Tehran and detained in Evin 
Prison, where he remains held by Iranian officials 
without charge. 
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(11) In July 2014, Jason Rezaian, a reporter 
from the United States working for the Washington 
Post, was unjustly arrested and held in Iran while 
his health deteriorated until his release on January 
16, 2016. 
(12) On January 27, 2013, Saeed Abedini, a 
pastor from the United States, was sentenced to an 
8-year prison term in Iran based on charges relating 
to his Christian faith and had been unjustly incar-
cerated since September 26, 2012, despite serious 
health issues until his release on January 16, 2016. 
(13) In August 2011, Amir Hekmati, a veteran 
of the Armed Forces of the United States, was un-
justly detained while visiting his family in Iran and 
remained in a prison in Iran on false espionage 
charges until his release on January 16, 2016. 
(14) In March 2007, Robert Levinson, a former 
agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, dis-
appeared in Iran during a business trip and Iran 
has refused to cooperate in the investigation into his 
disappearance. Mr. Levinson is the longest unjustly 
held United States citizens in history. 
(15) The principal leaders of the Green Revolu-
tion in Iran, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi 
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Karroubi, have been under house arrest since Feb-
ruary 2011. 
(16) The United States has designated Iran as 
a country of particular concern for religious freedom 
pursuant to section 402(b)(1) of the International 
Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 
6442(b)(1)) for severe violations of religious freedom 
in every year from 1999 through 2015. 
(17) In 2015, the United States Commission on 
International Religious Freedom found in its annual 
report that the Government of Iran ‘‘continues to 
engage in systematic, ongoing, and egregious viola-
tions of religious freedom, including prolonged de-
tention, torture, and executions based primarily or 
entirely upon the religion of the accused’’. 
(18) The Government of Iran continues to 
propagate anti-Semitism and target members of the 
Jewish community, and reinstated, in 2014, a Holo-
caust denial conference, which had been cancelled 
the previous year. 
(19) On January 27, 2016, as the world 
marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published a 
video denying the Holocaust on his official website. 
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(20) Members of the Baha’i Faith in Iran, esti-
mated to number between 300,000 and 350,000, are 
not recognized as a religious minority under the 
Constitution of Iran, enjoy virtually no rights under 
the law, and are banned from practicing their faith. 
Throughout 2014 and 2015, Iranian authorities 
shut down numerous Baha’i-owned businesses across 
the country. 
(21) More than 100 Baha’is are being held in 
prison solely because of their religious beliefs, in-
cluding the Baha’i leaders Fariba Kamalabadi, 
Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naemi, Saeid Rezaie, 
Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid 
Tizfahm. 
(22) Christians, particularly converts and un-
derground house church leaders, face sustained per-
secution, arrests, legal harassment, and long-term 
prison sentences. Since 2010, more than 500 Chris-
tians have been arrested or detained. 
(23) Officials of the United States have stated 
that the human rights record of Iran is ‘‘abysmal’’ 
and the Department of State has reported that there 
has been ‘‘little meaningful improvement in human 
rights in Iran under the new government, including 
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torture, political imprisonment, and harassment of 
religious and ethnic minorities’’. 
(24) According to the Country Reports on 
Human Rights Practices for 2014 of the Depart-
ment of State, Iranian law states that same-sex sex-
ual activity is punishable by death, flogging, or other 
punishments. Iranian authorities ‘‘harassed, ar-
rested, and detained individuals they suspected of 
being gay’’. While detained, lesbian, gay, bisexual, 
and transgender individuals have reported physical 
abuse and torture by security officers, including sex-
ual assault and rape. 
(25) The Government of Iran continues to com-
mit egregious human rights abuses against its own 
citizens in violation of its international obligations 
under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and 
Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil 
and Political Rights, and the International Conven-
tion on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Dis-
crimination. 
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