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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 3 (AP) The United States announced Wednesday that it will seek to expel Iran from the United Nations’ premier global body fighting for gender equality for violating the rights of women and girls and continuing to crack down on those who take action. Demonstrator. In September, a 22-year-old woman was detained on the street by morality police after her death.
Vice President Kamala Harris announced the U.S. intends to work with other countries to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women, saying any country that violates women’s rights “should not have a role in any international or United Nations agency” to protect those same rights. ”
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She said Iran was “unfit” to serve on the committee and its presence “undermined the integrity of its work”.
In an informal meeting of the UN Security Council late Wednesday on the Iran protests, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield added that Iran’s membership “is an ugly stain on the committee’s credibility” and that “in our view, it It’s untenable.”
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Founded in 1946, the Commission on the Status of Women plays a leading role in advancing women’s rights, documenting the realities of women’s lives around the world, and setting global standards for women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Its 45 members come from all over the world and are elected by the United Nations Economic and Social Council for four-year terms. Iran was elected from the Asian region and its term ends in 2026.
“While Iran’s systemic oppression of women is not new, the regime’s abuses have been exposed because of the bravery of the Iranian people,” Thomas Greenfield said.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16 in the custody of the country’s morality police sparked nationwide protests. She was detained on suspicion of violating Iran’s strict women’s dress code, accused of improperly wearing a headscarf.
Although the protests initially focused on Iran’s mandatory hijab, or hijab, they have since transformed into a movement for women’s rights and one of the biggest challenges to the ruling cleric since the chaotic years following the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Ahead of the Security Council meeting, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Irawani, read a statement accusing the United States of “blatantly hypocritical disinformation” and interfering in Iran’s internal affairs in violation of the UN Charter.
He claimed that Iran “has been and will continue to be committed to the promotion and protection of human rights”. “Every government has a responsibility to protect its people from insecurity and violent terror, and to maintain law and order, and Iran is no exception,” he added, declining to answer any questions.
Speaking at an informal council meeting, the UN Special Investigator for Human Rights in Iran, Professor Javaid Rehman, said the situation since September 16 unfortunately reflects the country’s impunity and lack of accountability for human rights violations.
“Women and girls in Iran have been brutalized for decades,” he said.
Rehman called for “the swift establishment of an independent investigative mechanism to investigate all human rights violations before and after Mahsa Amini’s death.”
Thomas Greenfield said the U.S. strongly supported his call for “an independent international investigation to hold Iranian officials accountable for the violence we’ve seen.”
Iranian human rights defender and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said two journalists who took photos of Mahsa Amini at the hospital and published coverage of her funeral in some Iranian newspapers are now facing spies in prison accusation. execute the death penalty.
“I’m talking about a country whose government doesn’t believe murder is punishable, but journalism is a punishable crime,” she said.
In a video briefing, Ebadi said the Iranian people asked Western governments, especially the United States, not to sign any agreement that would help the Iranian regime survive.
They also called for a committee to look into the human rights situation in Iran and the recent crackdown, she said, noting that the Geneva-based Human Rights Council had created a committee to look into the human rights situation in Myanmar and could do the same in Iran.
Iranian human rights activist Nazanin Boniadi told the Security Council that “the current protests have the potential to transform Iran from a theocracy to a representative government, which could be a game-changer for geopolitics and the most important key to achieving stability in the Middle East. “
She said the Iranian people want the world to “stop turning a blind eye to their suffering” and commit to supporting their democratic aspirations by uniting against corruption and respecting human rights.
Boniadi also called for an independent international investigative mechanism to look into Iran’s human rights abuses “because there is no avenue for justice at home.” (The Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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