Kyrgyzstan and iran. We mention pakistan at the top of our offending nations that hasnt yet been named a country of concern. If there is one at the top of the list that should be so designated, that is pakistan because of the horrific abuses that take place there, including abuses of the community. The other recommendations by the state department were in 2011, i believe. We strongly advocate annual designations. If annual designations arent made, the designations become, in the words of my colleague, the Vice President of our commission, katrina lantos, the daughter of tom lantos, the human rights congressman, she says these decorations become the wallpaper and nobody really notices them anymore. We really need the decorations and were pressing our leadership, we want them to make these designations on an annual basis. Now, as far as why our im just going to stop you for a second because i ask too many questions, but i want to give a chance for ms. Bahari to respond. Thank you. As you mentioned, the rights discussed in the charter apply to only religious minorities officially recognized by the ir irani constitution which includes bahais. As to mr. Mahanis practices, as a bahai we are strictly nonviolent and obedient to the government we live in. We participate in no partisan politics. We have noticed in the last year since mr. Rohanis presidency, we have had mr. Rohani killed and a family stabbed in their home in february of 2014, and there has been no progress in the investigation of their case. Just as of yesterday, there was a report from the Bahai International news that in january, this was the catalog antibahai articles that were on web sites and so forth. In january there was 55, in february there was 72, in march there was 93, april 285, and in may, there were 366 antibahai. Thank you very much. Mr. Automahi . Thank you. Mr. Romani was the result of releasing the blood fonts. Rohani doesnt have the power to change the human rights in iran or even if he would change anything in iran. He is not reformist, as we know. Hes very close to suhamani, and i think we show the regime to show him as a reformist. Thank you very much. Thank you. Pleased to yield to the Ranking Member, mr. Deutsch, for his questions. Thanks, ms. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for being here. Its almost overwhelming that the breadth of abuses in iran is almost too difficult for us to get our arms around. Id like to try to approach it a different way. Doctor, i know you focus on religious freedom, and i appreciate what you do. Let me start with the other witnesses, though. Were viewing all this as a human rights issue. But id like you to speak to the americans, the american people, to help us understand, help them understand what it means in each specific area. Ms. Bahari, what would you say to the religious community in our country to help them understand, help them feel what the type of persecution that the bahai undergo in iran . Well, its simple. Its been nothing except wanting to practice our basic rights, to be able to be married as bahais, to be able to go to school, to be able to continue education, and all for the sake of really just being bahai and refusing to recant your faith. Simple. To the Lgbt Community in america who are engaged to their leaders, help them understand the relevance of whats happening to the community in iran. I just want to emphasize that the issue is not specific to Lgbt Community. It is a broader issue and goes back to i understand that. And i appreciate it, and my point is, its so broad right. That for those of us who spend a lot of time thinking about human rights issues and how to uphold human rights issues around the world, thats how we approach it. Im trying to personalize this for people who may not think much about iran, perhaps dont think much about foreign policy, but absolutely understand and focus on their own community. Its as easy as this. As a person, your individuality, your privacy is constantly being violated and scrutinized by the government. The government decides how much rights you have based on who you are, what Sexual Orientation or gender identity you have, even what gender you have. As congressman smith pointed out, there is a difference between the rights of men and women in iran. Everything has been categorized. And depending on which category you belong to, your rights are different. So for the lbgt community, they dont exist. The official narrative is they dont exist, therefore, they have no rights. So the government continues to violate the rights of lgbt people on the basis that this is a form of perversion. This is not a Human Behavior that can be recognized. And i just want to point out Something Else. Just last week, the parliament of iran issued a form of classified report that shows almost 20 of students in iran have homosexual tendency. So we are talking about a sizeable portion of population whose rights are being violated on a daily basis. I appreciate it. Mr. Alizadeh, for students in america who are engaged in politics, for civic leaders, for community leaders, people who just want to express themselves, can you talk about the type of persecution they would experience in iran . I want to introduce my friend. She is a student actually, she was in the protests in 2009. After rohanis election, she got arrested by Intelligence Ministry just because she was active in the president ial campaign, and she was sentenced to seven years in jail. And since last july, she is in jail, and she should be in jail for another three years. One of my friends has been in jail since 2009. He has been in jail since 2009, and many of my friends are in jail at the moment, and they should be in jail just because they were in peaceful political activities. I appreciate it. Mr. Etemadi, just to finish, i know we talk as i said before, a lot of us talk about human rights. But to look at those rights that are being violated, ms. Baheri, for americans to understand, america with freedom of religion to understand the type of persecution that the bahai and dr. George, as you pointed out, other religious groups face in iran. And mr. Alizadeh, to think that for americans to stop a moment and think about what it would be like to be persecuted, to be subject to death, frankly, because of your Sexual Orientation, and mr. Etamadi, for you to help us understand for students, for people who just are engaged and take views that are in opposition to the government, the threats, the possibility of going to jail, the persecution that they face, thats, i think, how we need to think about it here. These are tremendous violations of universal human rights. And finally, to journalists who face the same thing in iran. To journalists am thin this cou i would suggest the same thing. Think about what it would be like for you in iran and let all of us be guided by those notions of how our own lives could be turned upside down because of what we believe, who we are, the way we voice our opinions. Im so grateful for your being here today to help shed light on that for us. Its very moving testimony that i hope moovves all of us not ju on the committee, but as a nation. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Mr. Alizadeh, thank you for underscoring human rights on the table when discussions of Nuclear Weaponry are at hand. How do you trust a totalitarian regime on enrichment issues, on whether or not they have a bomb or plan on making bombs. Its plural, not singular. When they mistreat, torture and murder their own people as well as three americans who are being held unjustly. Abadini testified at our hearing we had here in december and before that at a frank wolf hearing, and at the wolf hearing, shockingly, the administration told nokmei that there was, quote, nothing we could do to help her. Astounding. Thankfully, secretary curry, when he heard that, did reverse course for the state department, but frankly, it still is not part of the negotiating, and maybe somewhere on the periphery, but far off the periphery, it would seem to me. Yesterday i chaired a hearing on human rights in north korea. We heard from ambassador at large from south korea, the republican korea, ambassador lee, who talked about a grand mobilization on behalf of the North Koreans who are being decimated by the newest kim jonguna and talked about the gulogs and talked about how bad the mistreatment really is. To sudan, cochair and creator of a human rights effort, talked about the abject failure of human rights and how human rights had grossly detear rater because they were not even on the table and people were not subjected to relief they might have gotten. The same issue being replayed with iran. Weve done it on trade issues with china, were doing it on trade issues with vietnam and many others, but the north korea and iranian absolutely are appropriate parallels and very, very discouraging that it is not there front and center. Again, how do you trust a regime that butchers its own people . I would say to ms. Baheri, in 1983, i joined president reagan at the white house when they had a mobilization and president reagan spoke out boldly how alarmed and dismayed we were at the persecution of bahai in iran. And he talked about the 150 men and women who had been hanged or shot since khamenei had come in. One of those was your dad, obviously, and my greatest sympathy, all of us, on behalf of the committees, for your enormous loss. Not surprisingly, just like the chinese, they made your family pay for the bullets that murdered your father. Again, underscoring why human rights have to be front and center and not on the peripheral negotiations, if they are that. So thank you for being here and bearing witness. Dr. George, on the cpc issue which you spoke so eloquently to when you were here testifying for my subcommittee just a few weeks ago, i think members have to realize since 2011, not a single cpc designation that is also a frank wolf legislation, the freedom act, called for annual designations, and frankly, like you said, wallpaper. If we dont have those designations and a robust enforcement there are some 18 prescribed sanctions that were meant to be utilized when a country showed indifference, or worse, doubled down and made things worse. You talked about how things got worse under rohani. Not even a designation in 2011. I make a call again to obama. Designate cpc countries. Do it now, and as you indicated, there are many more that ought to be added to the current list which are just languishing and theres nothing being done. We dont even have an ambassador at large. I chaired the hearings and marked up the bill for the International Freedom act in this room back in 1988. This is not what we envisioned, a nonenforcement of that very important human rights piece of legislation. So dr. George, i would like to ask you, you pointed out in your testimony that official policies promoting antisemitism have risen sharply and jews have been targeted in israel. Could you elaborate on that . You pointed out the issue of sanctions. I wrote the sanctions act. We worked very closely with the europeans on who we sanctioned in the regime in minsk. The numbers of people on both sides of the sanction, theyre almost the same people, if not identical. You pointed out the European Union has 90 people sanctioned to our one. Youre encouraged there is at least one, the mayor of tehran, but where are the others . We have the law in place to do it. 901. If it was a world cup score, it would be a blowout. We need to add to and update that list. You also finally i do have a lot of others but ill just go to your answers. Dr. George . Yes, thank you, congressman smith. Ill take a moment to address the particular issues that you wanted me to talk about. We have noticed, our staff has noticed that since rohani assumed the presidency, there has been a toning down of the antijewish rhetoric that we had seen from government officials during the ahmadinejad period. What we havent seen is any corresponding diminution of the pressure against the Jewish Community as theres still 20,000 jews remaining in iran, a fraction of what was once a flourishing and Large Community there. So, yeah, theres been a toning down of the rhetoric but no real action to make things any better or any different for the Jewish Community, like all the religious minority communities in iran, they are third class citizens or worse and always subject to harassment of all sorts. So we dont have any good news to report beyond the rhetorical side for the Jewish Community in iran. Were you asking me particularly about the Jewish Community in iran . Also about the sanctions regime and its yes, we need those annual designations, we really do. We urge the administration to do that. We urge every administration, it doesnt matter if its a republican or democrat, to make those designations and then to use those sanctions that are available under the act, which was passed by congress, signed into law in the 1990s by president clinton. They are there to be used. They are effective tools when they are used. We saw this about a decade ago when the tools were used very effectively against vietnam when it was a very gross abuser of religious freedom. We saw some real benefits for persecuted religious people in christians alike in vietnam. We then removed them from the cpc list to encourage the Good Behavior we had seen to reward the progress that had been made, and unfortunately they slipped right back into their old patterns of behavior and became an abuser again. So we find ourselves in 2014 recommending that vietnam, for example, again be shifted over to cpc status. Thats another designation we would like to have made. We need to make those did he say i go n designations. They need to be made known. And the violators, we have it now. Exactly right. The tools are there in the legislation to put travel restrictions on people, officials who are responsible for the brutality and for the abuses. To freeze assets. Those tools are available as well. You know, make the people who are responsible for these human rights abuses whether theyre actually committing the abuses or whether they are tolerating them and letting them occur with impunity, make them pay a cost, make them suffer a cost. The tools are right there in the administration. Lets use it. Again, just before i yield back, angel nosius is one of the most effective human rights persons i know. We have delinked human rights on the talks of nuclear issues. This would be iran. My hope is its never too late to relook at that, and i would encourage the administration, especially with the deadline coming up with the three americans, but also on behalf of those iranians who are suffering daily in tig ndignities and tor be bold about it, have lists. Something reagan did so excellently throughout the entire time he was president , he showed the secretary of state wherever they went, especially the soviet union, before they met with soviet officials, they proffered a list and said, we want progress on that because its linked to Everything Else we do. Could i ask a question on that . Sure. Does my colleague agree we just passed the sanctions legislation does my colleague agree there is a clear link between sanctions and the elevation of the issues. He said, well, as durnl described. Oh, there is definitely a sanction. I think our targeted sanctions are the best and i think our witnesses have pointed that out. We dont want to hurt the iranian people. Thank you very much. Thank you. And i recognize, i guess mr. Conley . I thank the chair and i welcome our panel. Dr. George, i assume, though, youre on the u. S. Commission of International Religious freedom, but listening to your testimony and your answer to questions, im assuming you agree that we cant cherry pick which groups we advocate for, which groups we say deserve special protection. Its a whole panoplea of human rights and Human Rights Violations we need to be concerned about. Would that be an accurate statement on my part . Im here today i know, thats why i read your title. To talk about the religious freedom, so im constrained by the religious mandama legislative mandate that we have, so i can talk about religious freedom. Rjts Freedom Abuses are linked to other basis, so in those circumstances, our commission feels as though its within our mandate to call attention to those abuses because they bear on religious Freedom Abuses. Theres nine of us. We represent a range of viewpoints on a wide range of issues where united based on the commitment of religious liberty, but the chairman speaking out of turn, offering his own personal opinions, which may not be shared by the other commissioners, we are, in our capacity as commissioners, and i in my capacity as chairman stay within the lines. Lets stay within your rubrick. Would it be advisable if the kon congressman and the administration said, were going to focus on roman catholics or iran. Therefore, were not going to be talking about any other religious because were pretty close to that one. Our mandate is based on the civil rights of all people, so we dont distinguish. Thats my point. We dont cherry pick. Although your mandate has to do with religious freedom, you might take the point by extension that we dont want to be cherrypicking rights and human rights, either, just as we dont within your purview. Im sure thats true, and there are many philosophical and political debates about contours of rights, if soandso is a right or is not a right. Those are the disputes you have in the congress and that we have among the american people. To what extent do you deal with how do you deal with sort of the cultural barriers . So, for example, i mean, america was founded by some pretty passionate founders who wanted to make sure that there were careful boundaries. In fact, jefferson referred to them, i believe, as firewalls between the state and religion, and some of them actually professionally cut their teeth on exactly that. Madison spent his early professional career in my home state of virginia fighting against the established church of virginia. He wanted religious liberty for other nonestablished groups. So to what extent to what extent is it a cultural issue . Iran doesnt have that tradition. Iran has an overwhelmingly eun taer denomination. And one could understand not justify, but one could understand, therefore, there is going to be tension when peo