Expressing the grave concern of Congress regarding the continuing gross violations of human rights and civil liberties of the Syrian people by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I stand in strong support of this resolution.

This important resolution supports the people of Syria, who live under a violent, repressive regime. And I am delighted to commend my good friend and distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), for bringing this resolution before the Congress.

It was just 3 weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, that I was in Damascus, Syria, for a series of discussions and meetings with the government of Syria, specifically the foreign minister, our ambassador, and a number of people in Syrian academic and media life.

Last fall, the Syrian Accountability Act was approved overwhelmingly on a

vote of 398 to 4. That bill addressed Syria's behavior in the Middle East, including its sponsorship of terrorist groups and its continuing occupation of Lebanon and its willingness to allow terrorist groups to filter into Iraq. Since the passage of that act, Syria has continued to make only token efforts to prevent the infiltration of foreign terrorists into Iraq. It continues to host terrorist headquarters in Damascus, it maintains 17,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon, it supports the terrorist organization Hezbollah, it transfers Iranian arms to Hezbollah, and it continues its vicious anti-American propaganda on all government-controlled media.

When I met with President Assad in Damascus last year, I urged him to change his government's behavior, both at home and abroad, so that Syria at long last could rejoin the ranks of the civilized world. I repeated that message to Foreign Minister Shaara in a press conference last month in Damascus. Perhaps not surprisingly, while my press conference received considerable attention from the media throughout the region, the Syrian press was prohibited from covering the event. In fact, the Syrians let it be known before my trip that they would be displeased if I were even to hold a press conference. I nevertheless, of course, did so, fully aware that I was delivering a message with which most Syrians agreed but none could utter in public without the severest consequences.

The resolution before us is one result of Syria's failure to heed the advice that I and many others, including our Secretary of State Colin Powell, have given. Another result was an all-too-rare slap from the international community in the form of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, passed earlier this month and long overdue, which calls for an end to Syrian interference in and control of Lebanese affairs, the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, the disbanding of all militias in Lebanon, including Syria's Hezbollah terrorist movement.

The resolution before us today focuses on Syria's brutal suppression of dissent and human rights at home within Syria, for which Damascus must be held accountable. After all, nobody has suffered more from the brutality of the Syrian government than the Syrian people themselves.

Syria continues to commit egregious human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary detentions of political prisoners without trial, imprisonment of parliamentarians who dare to deviate from the Baath party line, censorship and harassment of journalists, and the lightest of sentences for so-called honor killings.

According to Amnesty International, Syria is engaged in a campaign to harass and intimidate human rights organizations until their members leave the country. We cannot credibly say we favor political reform in the Middle East if we ignore Syria's crimes against its own citizens.

In 2003, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights classified Syria as one of the world's most repressive regimes. It is very important that Congress be on record not merely to criticize the Syrian government for its actions abroad but, just as importantly, to express our support for the Syrian people in their struggle to achieve the kind of government they should have.

Mr. Speaker, a Syria that is accountable to world standards and norms, a Syria that respects its own citizens and no longer occupies Lebanon or hosts and supports terrorists must be a central goal of our essential project of reforming the Middle East.

In the long run, a Middle East in which people are stakeholders in public life offers the greatest hope for peace and safety in the region and beyond. I urge all of my colleagues to support this carefully crafted resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 363) expressing the grave concern of Congress regarding the continuing gross violations of human rights and civil liberties of the Syrian people by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 363, the concurrent resolution now under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank the leadership and the chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for bringing House Concurrent Resolution 363 to the floor today. This important resolution expresses the grave concern of Congress regarding the continuing gross violations of human rights and civil liberties by the Syrian dictatorship.

The Syrian regime is one that not only supports and facilitates terrorist attacks against innocent civilians throughout the world, but also engages in a widespread campaign of terror against its own people. Throughout this year, Syria's tyrannical regime has intensified its crackdown against Syrian Kurds and pro-democracy forces inside the country. The arrest and the detention in the last few months of Syrian peaceful demonstrators clamoring for the right to exercise their fundamental liberties is but the latest example of the brutal regime of the dictatorship in Damascus.

International human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others, have reported that the security forces of Syria are targeting emerging Syrian human rights organizations, as well as their attorneys, in an apparent attempt to intimidate those organizations into submission and silence.

Unfortunately, the gross violations of human rights are not limited to Syria's immediate borders. The repressive apparatus also extends into neighboring Lebanon, which Syria continues to occupy, making Lebanon a captive nation.

This fact was recently acknowledged by the international community through the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, calling on all foreign troops to withdraw without delay from Lebanon and to stop meddling in the country's November elections. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians are believed to have been killed or disappeared by Syrian occupation forces or its secret police.

House Concurrent Resolution 363 details and condemns the persistent repression of our Syrian and Lebanese brothers and sisters at the hands of the terrorist regime in Syria. It articulates our support for Syria's human rights and pro-democracy activists and calls on free and democratic nations to take a unified stance and condemn the deplorable and heinous human rights record of the Syrian dictatorship. It expresses congressional support for the people of Syria in their daily struggle for freedom, for respect for human rights and civil liberties, for democratic self-governance, and for the establishment of the rule of law.

House Concurrent Resolution 363 further encourages the President and the Secretary of State to reach out to dissidents and to the nonviolent democratic opposition in Syria. It calls for the United States to assist them in their efforts to help bring freedom to Syria so that they can achieve the ultimate goal of a democratic form of government in Syria that is truly responsive to the needs of its people and has permanently abandoned any support for terrorism and the development of deadly unconventional weapons.

The people of Syria and the dissidents, such as the chairman of the Committees For the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, need our support. Upon being temporarily released from jail last month, this human rights activist said: ``I will persist. I will never retreat. And I will continue to exert more pressure for democratic initiatives.''

My colleagues, we cannot stand idly by and allow the Syrian regime to continue these deplorable practices. We too must maintain the pressure on this pariah state. And so, accordingly, I ask my colleagues to support this important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, last fall, the Syrian Accountability Act was overwhelmingly approved. That bill required the President to impose a number of economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria if the Syrian government failed to end its support for various terrorist organizations, refuses to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, and fails to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Correctly, the President invoked such sanctions earlier this summer.

Since the passage of that act, Syria continues to host terrorist headquarters in Damascus, it maintains 17,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon, it supports the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and it continues its vicious anti-American propaganda on government-controlled media.

The Syrian regime is one that not only supports and facilitates terrorist attacks against innocent civilians throughout the world, but also engages in a widespread campaign of terror against its own people.

In 2003, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights classified Syria as one of the world's most oppressive regimes.

According to Human Rights International, in 2003 the Syrian Government used its vast powers to prevent any organized political opposition, continued grave abuses including the use of torture in detention and arbitrary arrests, and allowed violence and societal discrimination against women.

Unfortunately, the gross violations of human rights are not limited to Syria's immediate borders. The repressive regime also extends into neighboring Lebanon, which Syria continues to occurpy. This fact was recently acknowledged by the international community through the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, calling on all foreign troops to withdraw without delay from Lebanon and to stop meddling in the country's November elections.

For all these reasons, I support wholeheartedly House Concurrent Resolution 363, which condemns the continuing gross violations of human rights and civil liberties by the Syrian dictatorship.

Mr. Speaker, H. Con. Res. 363 details and condemns the persistent repression of the people of Syria and Lebanon by the dictatorial Syrian government. It articulates our support for Syria's human rights and pro-democracy activists and calls on free and democratic nations to take a unified stance and condemns the deplorable and heinous human rights record of the Syrian government. Also, it calls for the United States to assist Syrian dissidents in their efforts to help bring freedom to Syria.

I take this opportunity to speak directly to the President and urge him to take these instructions seriously. With respect to Syria, the United States must encourage greater openness, democratization, and economic reform, and to do so it must engage with civil society.

As president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) I am intimately aware of the success of the Organization in motivating the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries to sigh on to progressive standards of human rights and internal goverance. The United States should use a similar strategy of encouraging civil society activists in Syria.

The people of Syria struggle daily from freedom, respect for human rights and civil liberties, democratic self-governance, and the establishment of the rule of law against an authoritarian and tyrannical regime. I support them in their great effort, and denounce the oppressive government of Syria.

Therefore, I ask my colleagues to support this important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this important resolution, and I thank both of my colleagues, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for introducing this important resolution.

Despite recent sanctions put on Syria pursuant to the Syria Accountability Act by our government and warnings that the sanctions will continue until Syria ends their support for terrorism, Syria continues to play host to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. We know Hamas took responsibility for the suicide bombings in Israel a couple of weeks ago, and yet Syria continues to harbor Hamas leaders. Despite claims that Syria is not an occupying force in Lebanon, recent reports indicate that Syria forced the Lebanese government to keep their hand-picked president in office for another term, basically violating the Constitution of Lebanon. So the fact of the matter is that Syria continues to interfere in Lebanese affairs and is, in fact, an occupying force.

Syria has committed a laundry list of human rights abuses not only in Lebanon but also against its own people. It has imprisoned hundreds of political prisoners without charges, including two journalists from Lebanon who wrote editorials against Syria's occupation.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken on several occasions regarding Syria's systematic oppression of the Syrian Jewish community. Those Jews who remain in Syria, and there are very few, they nonetheless face constant terror and intimidation from Syria's secret police, nightly curfews and have been forced to carry special identification cards.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join with me in supporting this resolution. Syria has proven to be a destabilizing force in the Middle East, and it is critical that we urge the international community to take a stand on Syria's abysmal human rights record.

Mr. Speaker, I support and applaud the authors of H. Con. Res. 363 for urging Syria to live in peace and security with the international community and for condemning Syrian human rights violations. The U.S. Congress is an appropriate venue for highlighting human rights abuses and forum for urging other nations to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Every year Congress passes dozens of resolutions condemning human rights violations throughout the world. Unfortunately, while there are a plethora of countries that demand censure, the House of Representatives tends to focus more frequently on a few specific countries like the People's Republic of China, Iran and Syria; all countries that we must prod to do better. Many of the statements regarding human rights violations in H. Con. Res. 363 apply to numerous other countries in the world.

If we condemn one country and turn a blind eye to the very same abuses in another country, the magnitude and moral legitimacy of our censure is greatly diminished. For example, H. Con. Res. 363 condemns: ``The family law of Syria as applied to Muslim women is governed by Sharia law and is discriminatory in marriage, divorce, and inheritance matters.'' But Sharia family law is also practiced in numerous other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia.

Syria needs to understand that by passage of H. Con. Res. 363, the United States Congress expects Syria to improve its human rights record and adhere to the rule of law. Approval of H. Con. Res. 363 should also signal to other countries that the United States will continue to express its disapproval of violators of basic human rights and disregard of the dignities of its citizens.