Mahsa Amini Human Rights and Security Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, it has been 1 year since the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in Iran, and it has been 1 year during which revulsion to repression has given birth to so many courageous Iranians expressing their defiance of arbitrary restrictions on their freedom.

Nevertheless, it has also been another year of torture and murder at the hands of a fanatical tyranny. With approval of this legislation named for Mahsa, we say to Iranians: ``Your voices are heard, your voices are important, and you are not forgotten.''

While the type of military action against Iran urged by fanatics outside of Iran would be disastrous and counterproductive, through this act we seek to use all other available means to hold accountable the cruel repressors in Tehran.

Those of us who are progressives, opposing any war against Iran, are equally opposed to the Iran war that the government is currently carrying out against its own children. We share the battle cry of peaceful Iranian protesters: Woman, life, freedom.

This bill has little to do with the Iran nuclear agreement, which was wisely negotiated by President Obama's administration and our European allies. The world is less safe today not because of that agreement but because of President Trump's unilateral cancellation of the agreement presenting us today with an Iran that is nearer the development of a nuclear weapon than it was prior to the agreement.

We need to be seeking to do everything we can to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon short of war; but our desire for a safer world should not impair our willingness to do more to make Iran safer for its own citizens.

As Amnesty International reported just this past month, Iranian authorities have been subjecting victims' families to arbitrary arrest and detention, imposing restrictions on peaceful gatherings at gravesites, and even destroying victims' grave markers, and now within the last few days, detaining Mahsa's uncle so that he cannot speak out this Saturday on the anniversary of her murder.

Already this year, the Iranian Government has executed 320 people, doubling the rate prior to Mahsa's death, and giving Iran the wretched distinction of the highest number of executions per capita in the entire world.

Building upon current, existing executive orders, this bill proposes to codify existing sanctions targeting those at the top of the Iranian regime for their human rights abuses and for this egregious action over the last year.

Nevertheless, the attacks on President Biden really are misplaced if this is to be a truly bipartisan initiative. I believe that passage of the MAHSA Act sends a message to Iranians not about this administration, but of the fact that we, the elected Members of the people of the United States, oppose these abuses.

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, passage of this act is not about what this administration has or has not done, but that it reflects the broad determination of this body, the Congress, the Representatives of the people of the United States, to speak out against a brutal theocracy. We stand with Iranians who seek a brighter future where the rule of law and freedom are respected, and hopefully one day there will be an end to the terrible division between our two countries.

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