Iranian President's Speech At U.N.

IRANIAN PRESIDENT'S SPEECH AT U.N. -- (House of Representatives - September 20, 2006)

(Ms. FOXX asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we witnessed an Iranian dictator lecture us on freedom, democracy and justice. Ironically, in his own country, this tyrant denies his own people the basic rights of freedom of speech and freedom to assemble. Women are denied rights of inheritance, divorce and child custody, and youth of their rights of self-expression and economic creativity.

While he may resent us for being powerful, he does not realize that the foundation of our power is rooted in the freedom of our great people to pursue happiness, to innovate and to speak freely. These rights are denied to the people of Iran, and that is why, even with the soaring prices of oil, more than 40 percent of the Iranians are living below the poverty line.

Today in Iran dissent is brutally repressed, and terror is the regime's only instrument for domestic or foreign policy. This tyrant accuses the free world that they are denying the people of Iran their rights to nuclear energy, yet he forgets that the Islamic regime is denying the great people of Iran their God-given rights to self-respect and human dignity. He spoke of universal justice, yet he denies the Holocaust, and has threatened to wipe Israel off the map.

This regime wrongfully portrays the war on terror as a war of civilizations, yet uses every opportunity to export its brutal ideology, violently, to the other nations. We are not at war with any religion or civilization. We are at war with terrorism and terrorist interpretations of any religion. We need to protect the civilized world from the threat of Islamic fascism.

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