UN: Iran kept off Human Rights Council but elected to Commission on Women's Rights

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest." Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website. 

Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States. FOXNews.com learned of the press release only after being alerted to it by Anne Bayefsky director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.

Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights. 

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.

As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.

"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.

The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."

The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.

Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.

"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.

"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."

Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.

Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.

The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.

During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.

The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.

"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."

A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.

Letter by Women’s Rights Activists to Members of the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council

27 April 2010

Your Excellencies,

The news of the Iranian government’s candidacy for membership in ECOSOC’s Commission on Status of Women (CSW) has disturbed women’s rights activists worldwide. According to the available information, ECOSOC members will vote on Iran’s candidacy for a vacant seat from the Asia region on 28 and 29 April.

We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women’s rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on CSW is much preferable to Iran’s membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body.

In recent years, the Iranian government has not only refused to join the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), but has actively opposed it. The Iranian government has earned  international condemnation as  a gross violator of women’s rights. Discrimination against women is codified in its laws, as well as in executive and cultural institutions, and Iran has consistently sought to preserve gender inequality in all places, from the family unit to the highest governmental bodies.

Iran’s discriminatory laws  demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality:  women  lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women’s admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws.

While the Iranian women’s rights movement has inspired equality activists around the world, the Iranian government  has no basic belief in gender equality, and would bring those views to the leadership of  CSW. How would that support CSW’s mission to remove gender inequalities and promote and protect the status of women?

The Iranian government does not respect or implement the Beijing Platform, and has done much to prevent the implementation of this platform. After fifteen years of gains on this front worldwide, Iran explicitly claims that the Beijing Platform has  failed. In recent years, the government has actively sought to justify paternalism and gender-inequality under the guise of traditional values and cultural relativism. Providing an international platform to such a government is a serious threat to women’s rights globally, and not just in Iran.

We, a group of gender-equality activists, caution you that Iran’s membership in CSW is a serious threat to the goals and mission of this institution. The Iranian government will certainly use this opportunity to curtail progress and the advancement of women.

We write this letter hoping that you will oppose Iran’s membership. If Iran’s membership at CSW is inevitable, then we urge you to require its government to make serious commitments to international conventions on gender equality, particularly in implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform and becoming a party to CEDAW.

Respectfully,

Supported by the global sisterhood network and endorsed by

Women’s Learning Partnership

Women Living Under Muslim Laws

BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights (African Network)

CEIPAZ-Fundación Cultura de Paz, Spain

GREFELS (Groupe de Recherche sur les Femmes et les Lois au Sénégal)

Droits Humanins Sans Frontiers

International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

International Coalition Against Violence in Iran (ICAVI)

Khoie Foundation

Association of War Affected Women, Sri Lanka

SILAKA & Committee to Promote Women in Politics, Cambodia

BRAC – Development Organisation Bangladesh

Pacific Resource and Research Center for Women (Arrow), Malaysia