Causes.com
| 9.12.23
BILL: Demand Your Reps Take Action on Iran - The MAHSA Act - H.R.589
Do you want your reps supporting the MAHSA Act?
Updated Sept. 12, 2023, 7:00 p.m. PST
- The MAHSA Act passed the House on Sept. 12., 2023
Updated March 1, 2023
- Over the past three months, more than one-hundred schoolgirls in Iran have been hospitalized with respiratory symptoms in a series of suspected poisonings.
- Dozens were admitted to the hospital during the most recent incident on Tuesday in the city of Qom, south of Tehran.
- Government officials said the attacks are believed to be a deliberate attempt to force the closure of girls’ schools.
- Deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi said,
“[T]he poisoning of students of Qom was intentional and caused by available chemical compounds. Some people wanted all schools to be closed, especially girls’ schools.”
- The poisonings began five months into the violent protests that engulfed Iran after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody. Girls and women have been at the forefront of both protests and activism.
- Human rights activists have compared the attacks to those carried out by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram in the Sahel, who are violent opponents of female education.
- The former Iranian reformist vice-president Massoumeh Ebtekar said that authorities must,
“[P]ut an end to misogynistic fanatics once and for all.”
The Bill
H.R.589- The MAHSA Act
Bill Details
- Sponsored by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on Oct. 21, 2022
- There are 33 current co-sponsors, including Democrats and Republicans.
- Introduced to the House: Oct. 21, 2022
- Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committees on the Judiciary, Financial Services, and Ways and Means on Oct. 21, 2022
- House and Senate: Not yet voted
- President: Not yet signed
Bill Overview
- The bipartisan bill would impose sanctions on the Supreme Leader of Iran, the President of Iran, and their respective offices because of their human rights abuses and support for terrorism.
- The act comes in response to the September 16, 2022, death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after enduring a beating while detained by the Morality Police for violating the female dress code. The incident sparked protests for women’s rights and democracy in Iran’s 31 states.
- The Iranian regime cracked down against protesters, beating them, using indiscriminate force, and killing hundreds of civilians, including women and children.
What's in the Bill?
Imposes sanctions on Iran’s supreme leader and associated cabinets and individuals
- Enforces sanctions against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, and any member of their offices.
- It would also apply to any economic entities overseen by any offices that are involved in human rights abuses or terrorism and officials of those entities.
Calls attention to the corruption of Iran’s judiciary
- The bill says that Iran’s judiciary “routinely hold grossly unfair trials without due process, handing down predetermined verdicts and rubberstamping executions for political purpose.”
Firmly acknowledges U.S. support of the people of Iran in their fight for human rights
- Pledges that the United States will stand with and support the people of Iran in their demand for fundamental human rights.
- The U.S. will hold leadership accountable for human rights abuses and terror.
- Supports a democratic and non-nuclear Republic of Iran
Lays out broad sanctions
- Reiterates sanctions described in section 105(c) of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010, 22 U.S.C. 8514(c)
- Blocks property of people responsible for human rights abuses, for committing or threatening to commit terrorism, for support of terrorist organizations, and for corruption.
- The bill would also impose visa bans on corrupt Iranian elites and their immediate family members.
What Supporters are Saying
- Sponsor Jim Banks said, “Regular Iranians like Mahsa Amini are being murdered and persecuted by the Iranian regime" and that,
"This bill is intended to hold the most malicious elements of Iran’s regime accountable for human rights abuses and conduct of terrorism while avoiding collateral damages on ordinary Iranians."
Do you support the MAHSA Act? Let your reps know
—Josh Herman & Emma Kansiz
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It is important, as a matter of record, that our country opposes the theologically ordained lethal punishment of young educated women in Iran beuase they dared to protest the morality police's killing of a women for wearing theologically inappropriate attire.
I do not think that sanctions can do much as Iran is already massively sanctioned.
Seperation of Church and State remains an important aspect of responsible governance, because of the asinine, irrational, lethal and just plain awful treatment that the true believers of the one-true-and-only religion can inflict on the non-believers. Those who think that they alone know God's will are really dangerous to any civil society.
Unfortunately not alot we can do about what other countries do within their own borders but we can protect US citizens on US soil including Iranian-Americans.
This bill does protect all US citizens from Iranian Terrorism on U.S. soil by designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization which also triggers harsh sanctions.
"The bill further says that “the IRGC, a United States designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, which reports to the supreme leader, continues to perpetrate terrorism around the globe, including attempts to kill and kidnap American citizens on United States soil.”
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202210223600
Would someone please explain to me how the death of this young woman is different from the deaths of young black men in our country by our police. In either case it is horrific! How are we any better, when our own people of color must bring up their children to act a certain way in the presence of the police, to live in fear around government authority? Hep me to understand.
It truly doesn't matter because the Republicans in Congress won't do anything because they're too busy bitching about everything including balloons two of which most likely flew off of some crazy car lot. And on another topic I had to laugh out loud today when I heard that Devin Nunes It's on the congressional "intelligence" committee!
A word ( intelligence ) that should never be used in conjunction with Mr. Looney Nunes! Not only is a loony Nunes a known liar he also carries the banner of supreme idiot. You look at the Republican party people like Nunes people like George Santos and Taylor Greene not to mention Donald Trump and you just have to say WTF! What happened to the Republican party it's populated by idiots, fantasyland believers and liars.
sanctions only hurt the poor and working class of a nation. the wealthy elites who run things are never truly effected.
More sanctions won't do any good. The poorest in Iran will be the ones who suffer.
Today Jim Jordon showed America just why he is the biggest ass in the world when he threatened Attorney General Merrick Garland with contempt of congress, Jordon then got up and ran out of the room because Jordon himself has been under a contempt for Congress subpoena for four months for refusing to testify about the rioters, the Republican rioters who tore apart the house of Congress. You would think a member of Congress that ran from it would be willing to testify. But no Jim Jordan is a filthy lying coward. But that seems to be the Republican party today.
In virtually every country, women are being silenced. The planet has been ruled by patriarchy for thousands of years and look where we are. The world isn't getting better, it's worse. When all women can count on an education and have control of their reproduction, over population and famine will be the first things that will become right in the world. How much more would humanity benefit from women everywhere being actual equals to men?
YES!
I do not believe we can curb the insanity there, when we have not jailed the insurrectionists now serving on Congress HERE! We still have a enthical and moral requirement to act to make it clear that the USA and the free world deplores such actions and policies!
Look, let's say I run a warehouse that's pirating and selling DVDs. I find out that one of my clients regularly beats his wife. Just because I also am doing something morally questionable, that doesn't mean I can't take a stand against his actions and refuse to do business with him anymore.
"You have to keep taking that man's money because you're also a criminal." That makes no sense.
Someone should introduce a bill that will protect American children from being "poisioned" by democrats idiology.
Whataboutism is a cancer. And it works both ways. "What about how black men are treated by the police?" "What about the people arrested for January 6th?"
Both arguments miss the point. Should we impose "sanctions on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi, and any member of their offices"? Should be a no-brainer.
If you witness someone stealing a car, do you not report it because you once stole something from Best Buy? If you see an attempted rape, do you think, "maybe I shouldn't call the cops because I get in a lot of bar fights"?
Girls become women and women mothers. Mothers are our first teachers and lay the fundamental basic building blocks of our childhood. How wonderful it is when a woman is educated and able to understand the world giving this back to her children.
DeSantis is Florida's version of an Ayatollh.
As a woman, it's frustrating to continue us to see women and girl's rights and freedoms taken away.
They will most likely just laugh at it because of the exact opposite behaviors that are continuing against women in our own country. Can't any of you stop DeSantis? He is a Nazi and proud of it.
What is happening in Iran to young girls is so awful beyond words
Justive to All!!
I don't know if it makes any real difference to have sanctions--it certainly won't make evil misogynist men suddenly good people. However if it does get the attention they don't want maybe they will curtail the worst of their offences.
Of course, if the Repubs have their way, in the future, American girls will not be allowed an education either.
Will happen unless Biden on their payroll.
Sanctions are not enough but its a start.
Iran has poisoned 700 girls with toxic gas which is a violation of the the Geneva Protocol (1925), which prohibited the use of chemical weapons in warfare.
The US needs to work with the UN on prosecuting these crimes as Syria (aided by the Russian military) also used poison gas on its citizens as this is a global problem and not one that 1 country can take action on against another country.
https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/chemical/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64797957.amp
Althrough I support women obtaining an education, I am oppose to The USA sticking it nose into the business of a sovernion nation. Are we like Russia going to war because we do not like the internal policies that are different to ours. We need to act as adults not as children.