Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) Message to Paris Grand Gathering of Iranians for a Free Iran
July 2016
Hi, I am Congressman Ed Royce from California and I have the honor of serving as Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Our committee remains focused on the threat posed by the radical regime in Tehran and this is a threat you know all too well stripping the rights of the Iranian people has been a consistent policy of this brutal regime since it seized power.
Over the past three and a half decades thousands of Iranians have been taken from family and friends and convicted of vague charges without due process often in closed trials and as we know tens of thousands have been killed, thousands have been tortured in Evin prison. It doesn’t have to be this way.
One hundred years ago, Iranians across the political and economic spectrum rose up to demand basic rights, we must remember that it was a Persian king Cyrus the Great who is credited with drafting the first Declaration of Human Rights. It is amazing that the Iranians today enjoy far fewer rights than their forefathers.
This regime has taken the country in reverse, recent reports found that under President Rouhani, the government of Iran has incarcerated hundreds of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience while executing nearly 1,000 people last year and that’s why my colleagues and I in Congress continue to press for sanctions on senior Iranian officials involved in these human rights abuses. Some of you also have family and friends who have been murdered or maimed by Iranian government proxies in Iraq for too long.
The world has given the government of Iran, this particular government a free pass to attack the residents of Camp Ashraf with impunity, it is time to say enough and that’s why the Foreign Affairs Committee passed House Resolution 650, this critical resolution publicly pushes back against the Iraqi government’s failure to effectively protect the residents of Camp Liberty and calls for their immediate resettlement. We must continue to push back against the Iranian government abuse of human rights at home and abroad and I thank you.
