Wyden
Calls for Policy Change toward Iran
Expresses
support for Iranian people, Opposition to oppressive Iranian government
July
25, 2002
STATEMENT OF SENATOR RON WYDEN AT NEWS CONFERENCE:
Today we are resolved to see a new,
rational foreign policy toward Iran. A policy that will engage the
proud people of that nation and support their aspirations to be
free of the theocratic state that abuses and oppresses them.
It is time that we recognized that the
forces of extremist clerics and their allies have so completely
dominated the government of Iran that there is no means to achieve
political liberalization within the current system. While President
Khatami has often spoken of liberalization, the last five years
show that either he is unwilling or unable to effect any democratic
change.
In fact, the record of his administration
has been increasing censorship, religious vigilantes and intimidation,
and wide-spread political repression. The state department has identified
systematic abuses including summary executions, disappearances,
wide-spread use of torture and other forms of degradation.
Student dissidents within Iran have
become increasingly better organized, and have been faced with greater
repression. The frequent demonstrations by these students, women,
and even religious dissidents, as well as the growing movements
of expatriates show that there is a yearning for democratic change
within the Iranian people. It should be a core value of our foreign
policy to encourage and support any people who seek only the fundamental
human freedoms laid out in our own bill of rights.
There is also self-interest involved
in this move. The Iranian regime has been supplying arms and cadre
to terrorist movements attacking our allies in Turkey, Armenia,
and Israel and has striven to been a destabilizing force throughout
the middle-east and central asia. This is not the fault of the Iranian
people, but of a criminal class that dominates them and strangles
their hopes for a peaceful and progressive future. In the days following
the tragedy of September 11, it is these people who spontaneously
filled the streets in grieving over the loss of human life.
We must focus all of our efforts in
dealing with Iran toward the people, and their hopes for a free
and democratic nation. The Voice of America, Radio Free Europe,
and Radio Liberty must redouble their efforts to provide the light
of uncensored truth to the Iranian people. The State Department
must cease lending legitimacy to the current regime and pursue a
policy of fundamental democratic change and this administration
must seek ways to aid and sustain those movements that will effect
that change, to the benefit of the Iranian and American people alike.
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