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Iran’s theocratic regime violently crushed peaceful protests demanding greater religious freedom since the killing of Mahsa Zhina Amini in the custody of the government’s “morality police” on Sept. 16, 2022, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a report released Tuesday.
As many as 537 Iranians have been killed in protests over the young woman’s death and the Iranian regime’s insistence that women wear a hijab in public, human rights advocates say, according to the USCIRF survey. Amini was reportedly detained for failing to wear the mandatory head scarf.
The bipartisan federal panel said the U.S. should take the lead in coordinating “international efforts to counter” the human rights violations perpetrated by Iran’s rulers and the Tehran regime’s “violations of the Iranian people’s right to freedom of religion or belief.”
The USCIRF document said the U.S. should help groups working to “document specific evidence of crimes against humanity in Iran, including those targeting religious minorities and dissidents,” and should “seriously consider” supporting a referral of Iran to the International Criminal Court by the U.N. Security Council.
However, Biden administration officials appear headed in a different direction. On Monday, The Associated Press reported Secretary of State Antony Blinken has signed off on a waiver releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets as part of a prisoner swap deal. The money would be transferred from banks in South Korea to institutions in Qatar, the AP said, and could clear the way for more direct diplomatic engagement between Washington and Tehran.
Critics say the White House should hold off on any rapprochement with Tehran given Iran’s poor record on human rights and religious liberties, and Tuesday’s report will hand them fresh ammunition in the debate. According to the USCIRF report, demonstrators seeking an end to hijab restrictions have been met “with live fire, mass arrests and imprisonment, sexual and gender-based violence, and executions” by the regime, and the repression is only worsening.
“State violence in Iran has persisted for decades, but the Iranian government’s most recent actions have reflected particular brutality,” the report said.
In September of 2022, for example, 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh protested Amini’s death near her school in Karaj. USCIRF reports she was beaten “over the head until she bled,” dying soon after at a nearby home. The report indicated six other protesters were executed between December and May.
The Biden administration has defended this week’s deal with Iran, saying it will free five Iranian Americans held by Tehran and that the Iranian funds being freed from foreign bank accounts can only be used for approved purchases of humanitarian goods. The State Department insisted Monday the U.S. will not ease up on Iran’s record on rights and religious liberties.
“We have not lifted any of our sanctions on Iran, and Iran is not receiving any sanctions relief,” a State Department spokesman told reporters on background. “We continue to counter the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses, destabilizing actions abroad, its support for terrorism and its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
The USCIRF report charged that Iran has also continued to persecute its minority Baha’i population, a religion regarded by Iran’s Ja’afri Shia Islam rulers as a “deviant sect of Islam.”
USCIRF said persecution of Baha’is ramped up after the 2022 protests of Amini’s killing “and is again escalating near the one-year anniversary” of those demonstrations. Scores of Baha’is across the country have been arrested and given excessive jail terms in an effort to tamp down dissent, the report said.
Hours after the report’s release, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 413-2 to pass Resolution 492, “Condemning the Government of Iran’s state-sponsored persecution of the Baha’i minority and its continued violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights.”
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Illinois Democrat, sponsored the measure, which also calls for the release of Baha’i prisoners, and encourages President Biden and Mr. Blinken to condemn Iran’s human rights violations and impose sanctions on those officials responsible for the abuses.
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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