[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1148 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1148
Condemning the Iranian regime's terrorism, regional proxy war, internal
suppression, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 15, 2024
Mr. Weber of Texas (for himself, Ms. Adams, Mr. Allen, Mr. Amodei, Mr.
Babin, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Baird, Mr. Balderson, Mr. Banks, Mr. Bean of
Florida, Mr. Bera, Mr. Bergman, Mr. Bilirakis, Mr. Bishop of Georgia,
Mr. Bost, Mr. Bucshon, Mr. Burchett, Mr. Burgess, Mr. Calvert, Mrs.
Cammack, Mr. Cardenas, Mr. Carter of Georgia, Mr. Carter of Louisiana,
Mrs. Chavez-DeRemer, Mr. Ciscomani, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mr. Cline,
Mr. Clyde, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Costa, Ms. Craig, Mr. Crenshaw, Mr. Davis of
Illinois, Ms. De La Cruz, Mr. DesJarlais, Mr. D'Esposito, Mr. Duarte,
Mr. Duncan, Mr. Dunn of Florida, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Ellzey, Mr. Ezell,
Mr. Fallon, Mr. Feenstra, Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Finstad, Mr. Fitzpatrick,
Mr. Fleischmann, Mr. Flood, Mr. Scott Franklin of Florida, Mr. Fulcher,
Mr. Gallego, Mr. Mike Garcia of California, Mr. Gimenez, Mr. Tony
Gonzales of Texas, Mr. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Mrs. Gonzalez-Colon,
Mr. Gooden of Texas, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Gottheimer, Ms. Granger, Mr. Green
of Tennessee, Mr. Grothman, Mr. Guest, Mr. Harris, Mr. Higgins of
Louisiana, Mrs. Hinson, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Issa, Mr. Jackson of Texas, Ms.
Jackson Lee, Mr. Joyce of Pennsylvania, Mr. Kelly of Mississippi, Mrs.
Kiggans of Virginia, Mr. LaLota, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr. Lamborn, Mr.
Langworthy, Mr. Lawler, Mrs. Lesko, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Loudermilk, Mr.
Luetkemeyer, Mr. Luttrell, Ms. Mace, Ms. Malliotakis, Mr. Mast, Mrs.
McBath, Mrs. McClain, Mr. McClintock, Mr. McCormick, Mr. Meuser, Mrs.
Miller of West Virginia, Mrs. Miller of Illinois, Mr. Miller of Ohio,
Mrs. Miller-Meeks, Mr. Molinaro, Mr. Moolenaar, Mr. Mooney, Mr. Moore
of Alabama, Mr. Moylan, Mr. Nehls, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Nunn of Iowa, Mr.
Ogles, Mr. Owens, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Panetta, Mr. Pappas, Mr. Payne, Ms.
Ross, Mr. Ruiz, Mr. Rutherford, Mr. Austin Scott of Georgia, Mr. Self,
Mr. Sessions, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Ms. Spanberger, Mrs.
Spartz, Mr. Stauber, Ms. Stefanik, Mr. Steube, Mr. Thompson of
Pennsylvania, Mr. Tiffany, Mr. Timmons, Mr. Turner, Mr. Valadao, Mr.
Van Drew, Ms. Van Duyne, Mr. Van Orden, Mr. Vargas, Mr. Veasey, Mr.
Walberg, Mr. Webster of Florida, Mr. Westerman, Ms. Wexton, Mr.
Williams of New York, Mr. Williams of Texas, Mr. Wilson of South
Carolina, Mr. Garamendi, Mr. Pfluger, and Mr. Johnson of South Dakota)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Condemning the Iranian regime's terrorism, regional proxy war, internal
suppression, and for other purposes.
Whereas the United States acknowledges the critical importance of addressing
regional chaos in the Middle East, which has been significantly
heightened since the October 7, 2023, attacks;
Whereas grave concerns persist regarding Iran's complicity in promoting Islamic
fundamentalism and providing support for terrorism and its proxy groups
in the region;
Whereas Iranian regime officials have expressed full support for their proxy
groups' current war and crisis in the region;
Whereas Iranian regime officials talk about the existence of a joint operation
room with their proxy groups at the highest levels, operating amid the
Middle East turmoil;
Whereas ignoring Tehran's direct involvement in the conflict and its ensuing
crisis encourages Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to further fuel the conflict;
Whereas Western nations bear a responsibility to hold the Iranian regime
accountable for its actions that incite violence, terror, and
instability;
Whereas the Iranian regime has been deeply implicated in furnishing support,
both financial and military, to proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen,
Gaza, and elsewhere in the region, as well as on a global scale;
Whereas the Iranian regime has increasingly acted, since October 2023, as the
head of the snake of terrorism and war in the region, from supporting
proxies that vehemently oppose peace in the Middle East to threatening
ships and free trade in the Red Sea, and from targeting American forces
in the region to providing missiles and drones to rogue actors;
Whereas the Iranian regime has stepped up hostage diplomacy as a primary tool of
its foreign policy, using it against Western nations to release its
criminals and terrorists;
Whereas Asadullah Assadi, a senior Iranian diplomat based in the Iranian Embassy
in Vienna, Austria, was arrested in July 2018 and in February 2021,
convicted in Belgium and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in
connection with the planned terror plot against ``Free Iran 2018--The
Alternative'' gathering in Paris, France;
Whereas the Iranian regime's survival depends heavily on its internal
suppression and terror campaign abroad, using its terror proxies;
Whereas significant protests in Iran in the years 2018, 2019, and 2022 have
echoed the demand for the rejection of the Velayat-e Faqih (guardianship
of Islamic jurist) to safeguard the sovereignty of the people in a
republic founded on universal suffrage and pluralism;
Whereas, commencing in September 2022, widespread antigovernment protests were
triggered by the untimely demise of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old
Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the morality police who are
tasked with enforcing Iran's mandatory dress code regulations;
Whereas the leadership of the 2022 protests in Iran has been predominantly
assumed by women and youth who ardently advocate for social freedoms and
political transformation;
Whereas, during several months of persistent protests in countless cities across
Iran, the security forces of the regime caused the loss of life of
hundreds and detained tens of thousands of demonstrators, and among the
arrested, several individuals were executed starting in December 2022,
and continuing to date, while dozens more face the specter of execution
under charges of ``moharebeh'' (waging war on God);
Whereas the uniformity in slogans and strategies employed by protesters
nationwide underscores the overarching aspirations of the Iranian people
for freedom and emphasizes the organized nature of these protests;
Whereas the Iranian regime has arbitrarily and brutally suppressed ethnic and
religious minorities, encompassing Iranian Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs,
Christians, Jews, Baha'is, Zoroastrians, and even Sunni Muslims, and has
deprived them of their fundamental human rights, often culminating in
executions;
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 the Iranian populace has voiced its desire for change by taking over
from the IRGC and Supreme Leader's centers of power;
Whereas, according to senior Iranian regime officials, the activities of the
Resistance Units against the IRGC and the Basij forces have played a
leading role in nationwide Iran protests, particularly since 2022, and
the regime has reportedly killed and detained thousands of them, yet
Tehran remains increasingly paranoid about their activities;
Whereas, in 2023, the Iranian regime started sham trials in absentia of some 104
veteran members of the Iranian Resistance, who are primarily based in
Europe, including in France and Albania, to create a phony legal
precedent against them and have them extradited to Iran or justify
terror plots against them;
Whereas over 3,600 parliamentarians around the world and 125 former world
leaders expressed support for the Ten-Point Plan for the Future of Iran
of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi that calls for the universal right to vote, free
elections, a market economy, and separation of religion and state, and
advocates gender, religious, and ethnic equality, a foreign policy based
on peaceful coexistence, peace in the Middle East, and a nonnuclear
Republic of Iran;
Whereas it is incumbent upon the Iranian people to determine their destiny,
based on their vote, as the sole criteria for political legitimacy;
Whereas the executions of as many as 30,000 political prisoners during the 1988
massacre were carried out under the fatwa by then-Supreme Leader
Ruhollah Khomeini to speedily kill all political prisoners who remained
loyal to the main movement in the Iranian Resistance, i.e., the
Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI), with subsequent death commissions
established on July 19, 1988, counting among their members the current
Iranian regime's President, Ebrahim Raisi, with the express purpose of
carrying out the fatwa;
Whereas the IRGC has, for over four decades, played a crucial role in internal
suppression, terrorism, and regional proxy wars and has garnered
designation as a terrorist entity by several nations, including the
United States;
Whereas the right to self-determination constitutes an inherent and inalienable
right of all peoples, including the Iranian populace, forming a
cornerstone of international law and duly enshrined in numerous
international instruments, including the Charter of the United Nations
(1945), which underscores the principles of self-determination;
Whereas, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ``it is
essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last
resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights
should be protected by the rule of law'';
Whereas the Declaration of Independence of the United States emphasizes,
``whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new Government'', and that ``when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their
future security'';
Whereas the President of the Iranian regime, Ebrahim Raisi, who has been
personally implicated in torture and execution since the inception of
the regime, played a prominent role in the 1988 massacre and the
suppression of the demonstrations of 2019 and 2022;
Whereas over 900 women and men of Camp Ashraf 3 are former political prisoners
who witnessed prison crimes of the Iranian regime, and many of them are
witnesses of the 1988 massacre and other political killings in Iran,
among them eyewitnesses of crimes committed by Ebrahim Raisi, who must
be fully protected for potential testimonies before any international
courts investigating the killings in Iran;
Whereas, in November 2021, the Swedish judiciary moved the whole court in
Stockholm to Albania for two weeks to facilitate hearing testimonies of
7 former Iranian political prisoners now residing in Camp Ashraf 3, who
were considered vital witnesses for a trial related to the 1988
massacre;
Whereas that Swedish court, in December 2023, upheld the earlier ruling of a
life sentence for Hamid Nouri, implicated in the 1988 massacre where he
was one of the perpetrators in one of Tehran's prisons; and
Whereas, in an April 19, 2016, letter to a European Parliament Vice President,
the Prime Minister of Albania wrote, ``Albania is fully engaged and
committed to ensure for the Iranian refugees all rights stipulated in
the Geneva Convention 1951, in the European Human Rights Convention and
in the whole international legislation'': Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) unequivocally condemns the Iranian regime's actions in
the Middle East leading to and since the October 7, 2023,
attacks, which have contributed to terrorism and regional
instability;
(2) affirms that addressing the call of Iranian protesters
for fundamental changes within Iran contributes to peaceful
coexistence among neighboring nations and enhances regional and
global security;
(3) acknowledges and upholds the Iranian people's inherent
right to determine their political future, as articulated in
the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
(4) calls for holding the Iranian regime accountable for
its actions through the continued imposition of sanctions and
to support the Iranian Resistance's Ten-Point Plan for the
Future of Iran;
(5) urges the free world, given that the people of Iran
have been deprived of all their fundamental rights and
political paths for change within the framework of
international law and the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, to recognize the rights of the Iranian people, the
protesters, and the Resistance Units to confront the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and repressive forces to bring
about change;
(6) calls on the United States Government, in cooperation
with our ally Albania, to ensure the full protection of the
Iranian political refugees in Camp Ashraf 3 in Albania against
the Iranian regime's plots and pressure and for them to benefit
from all rights stipulated in the Geneva Convention 1951 and
the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to
life, liberty, and security, and protection of property, as
well as freedom of expression and assembly; and
(7) recognizes the rights of the Iranian people and their
struggle to establish a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear
Republic of Iran.
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