WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) today released the following statement on Columbia University’s decision to allow Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the university.
“I deplore Columbia’s decision to allow the Iranian president to speak on its campus. This is not a question of free speech: no one is questioning Columbia’s right to have Mr. Ahmadinejad speak. This is a question of decency and respect and judgment.
“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the president of a country that ruthlessly crushes freedom, routinely tortures and imprisons its own citizens for crimes like expressing political views opposed to those of the government, and supplies weapons to Iraqi insurgents who use them to attack innocent Iraqis and American soldiers. He does not deserve a platform to speak at any university or at any other institution of freedom, including the United Nations, whose charter expresses its determination to protect the ‘fundamental human rights’ routinely denied in Iran.
“Mr. Ahmadinejad is not someone to be invited to present an alternative view or interesting counterpoint to the mainstream position. His presence at Columbia is an affront to the American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are right now in danger from his country’s weapons, to the Israeli people whose country Mr. Ahmadinejad would like to wipe off the map, and to any human being who values freedom and respects the dignity of the human person.”
