US to seek Iran's ouster from UN's top women's rights body

The United States announced Wednesday it will seek to oust Iran from the UN's premiere global body fighting for gender equality because of its violation of the rights of women and girls and its ongoing crackdown on demonstrators who took to the streets in September after the death of Mahsa Amini.

Vice-President Kamala Harris made the announcement of the US intention to work with other countries to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women, saying no nation that abuses women’s rights "should play a role in any international or United Nations body charged with protecting these very same rights".

She said Iran is "unfit" to serve on the commission and its presence "discredits the integrity" of its work.

At an informal meeting of the UN Security Council later on Wednesday on the protests in Iran, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield added that Iran's membership "is an ugly stain on the commission's credibility" and "in our view it cannot stand".

Established in 1946, the Commission on the Status of Women plays a leading role in promoting women's rights, documenting the reality of women's lives around the world and shaping global standards to empower women and achieve gender equality.

Its 45 members, from all regions of the world, are elected for four-year terms by the UN Economic and Social Council.

Iran was elected from the Asian region and its term ends in 2026.

Thomas-Greenfield said that "while Iran's systematic oppression of women is not new, thanks to the bravery of the Iranian people, the regime’s abuses have been brought to the fore".

The nationwide protests first erupted over the 16 September death of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police.

She was detained for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women, accused of wearing her hijab 'incorrectly'.

Amini's Kurdish first name can be spelt "Jina" or "Zhina".

Although the protests first focused on Iran's mandatory hijab, they have since transformed into a campaign for women's rights and one of the greatest challenges to the ruling clerics since the chaotic years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Before the Security Council meeting, Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saied Iravani read a statement accusing the United States of "a disinformation campaign in a blatant hypocrisy", and of interfering in the country's internal affairs in violation of the UN Charter.

He claimed that Iran "has always been and continues to be committed to the promotion and protection of human rights".

He added that "every government is responsible to protect its people against insecurity and violent and terrorist acts, and upholding law and order, and Iran is no exception".

Iran has for the past six weeks been rocked by protests of a scale and nature unprecedented since the 1979 Islamic revolution, sparked by the death in September of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested by the Tehran morality police.https://t.co/VFNXFD6Rbj

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) November 2, 2022

He refused to answer any questions.

At the informal council meeting, Professor Javaid Rehman, the UN special investigator on human rights in Iran, called the situation since 16 September an unfortunate reflection of the impunity and absence of accountability for rights violations in the country.

"Women and girls in Iran have for decades been brutalised," he said.

Rehman called for "the prompt establishment of an independent investigative mechanism to investigate all human rights violations leading up to and since the death of Mahsa Amini".

Thomas-Greenfield said the United States strongly supports his call "for an independent, international investigation to hold Iranian officials accountable for the violence we’re seeing".