The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on Wednesday expelled Iran from the body in reaction to the country’s crackdown on nationwide anti-government protests.
This is the first time a country would be expelled from the global women's rights body.
Iran was removed from the 45-member commission by a majority vote with several countries expressing outrage over the death of Mahsa Amini and the Islamic Republic’s violent crackdown on rights protesters, The Times of Israel reports.
Amini died in police custody after she was arrested for not wearing hijab the right way, sparking violent protests across the country.
29 countries, including the US, Israel, Canada, Japan, and several European nations supported the US-led motion to expel Iran from the commission; eight countries, including Nigeria, Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Oman, Nicaragua, and Bolivia voted against it, while India, Tunisia, Indonesia, and 13 others abstained.
Russia, which is cooperating with Iran in its invasion of Ukraine, was voted down when it raised a procedural objection in an attempt to stall the vote.
Russia's envoy also accused Western countries of hypocrisy, saying that the commission did not interfere during the protests over George Floyd in the US.
“Each state has not only the right but the obligation to maintain public order.
“Did we meet regarding the membership of the United States on the commission after the wave of violence and vandalism following the death of George Floyd?” he said.
Similarly, China accused the commission of “bullying, hypocrisy and double standards.”
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In his reaction, Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan condemned Iran’s Middle East terror activities and called for an end to nuclear negotiations.
“This regime’s destructive nature cannot be changed. This is a regime that doesn’t care about its people, it only cares about its survival,” Erdan said.
He expresses support for the Iranian rights protesters, saying the protesters’ motto, “Women, life, freedom,” in Farsi language.
“We Israelis salute their bravery and view ourselves as true allies of the Iranian people,” he said.
The Times of Israel reports that on the eve of the expulsion vote the Islamic Republic mounted a frantic secret campaign to stop the vote as revealed by leaked documents.
According to some documents obtained by Iran International, the Iranian regime pressurized some academic figures to send letters to numerous global bodies urging them to vote against the expulsion.
One of the documents is a formal letter from a Ferdowsi University of Mashhad advisor to her colleagues that includes a list of UN missions' emails and a list of things professors should address in their correspondence.
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the main world intergovernmental body exclusively assigned to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
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