On April 19th, in a shameful act, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) elected Iran as its member for a four-year term from 2022 until 2026. The secret vote by the UN’s Economic and Social Council sparked outrage among human rights activists.
Ironically, a few days after this shameful election, we received news that Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court issued another year of prison time for British-Iranian dual-national Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, just a few weeks after she reached the end of her original 5-year sentence.
She was also issued with a one-year travel ban after being found guilty of ‘propaganda against the state’ due to taking part in protests outside of the Iranian regime’s embassy in London in 2009 and speaking to the BBC Persian service.
Electing the misogynist, fascist regime in Iran to the UN Women’s Commission gives it free rein to further suppress and marginalize Iranian women. As a principle, in light of its misogynous laws and constitution as well as its violent and discriminatory conduct towards women, the clerical regime is not qualified to sit on a UN commission which has been described as “vital for women and girls of the world.”
AWYAF and many other activists highly condemn the UN’s election of Iran to the Commission on the Status of Women and have sent letters of complaint to several people including the UK foreign minister, Dominic Raab, and the UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres.