Iran is on the UN committee that decides on women’s rights. Thrown out the front door, it’s back in through the back door

 “How can a terrorist regime that has blinded women, sexually assaulted female political prisoners and subjected them to mock executions be appointed to a UN committee that helps shape human rights programmes?” So says the Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, whom Tehran tried to kill by hiring several hitmen in New York, after the General Assembly yesterday elected the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination. This is not some obscure, powerless assembly. Under General Assembly Resolution 31/93, the Committee is the General Assembly’s “principal subsidiary body” “for planning, programming and coordination”.

This Committee examines the UN’s programme plans, recommends priorities and verifies that programmes comply with their mandates. These programmes concern, amongst other things, “human rights, gender equality, disarmament and the fight against terrorism”. On 14 December 2022, the United Nations Economic and Social Council voted to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women. However, a shrewd regime can be thrown out the front door only to return through the window. Among the countries that allowed Iran’s candidacy to proceed were several Western democracies. A total of 144 countries voted in favour of Iran. Canada and Australia revealed that they had voted against, while there is still no word from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Switzerland.

The regime that currently holds thirteen women on death row for having demonstrated on the streets in January is being called upon to shape global policies on gender equality. The very same regime that enriches uranium beyond all civilised limits, arms militias and regards the annihilation of a UN member state as a strategic objective will sit at a table dedicated to disarmament. And the country that funds, harbours and directs terrorist networks will have a say on how to combat terrorism. By the end of January, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency had confirmed 6,563 deaths resulting from the January unrest, each identified by name and location. A further 17,091 reported deaths were still under review, whilst over 49,000 people had been arrested. The Norway-based organisation Iran Human Rights warned that the final death toll could exceed 25,000. Ten months later, those responsible for that massacre sit on a key United Nations committee.

“Electing Iran’s murderous Islamic regime to a United Nations body tasked with examining women’s rights, disarmament and the fight against terrorism is like putting Count Dracula in charge of the blood bank,” writes Hillel Neuer of UN Watch. Over the past year, Tehran has established a foothold at the UN through appointments to four committees. Four UNESCO committees (the Legal Committee, the International Bioethics Committee, the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property, and the Committee on the Management of Social Transformations). It is also serving as Vice-Chair of the Commission for Social Development, Vice-Chair of the Committee on the Charter of the United Nations, and has now been elected to the Committee for Programme and Co-ordination for the three-year period 2027–2029. Tehran is also a member of the Commission on Population and Development and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

It is hardly surprising that so many people no longer take the UN seriously. The very same system that does not let a week go by without condemning Israel turns a blind eye to a theocracy that hangs its own citizens, oppresses women, takes European citizens hostage and arms terrorists on three fronts. This is not neutrality. It is moral failure masquerading as ‘procedure’.

Western democracies should stop hiding behind nominations based on ‘regional quotas’ or ‘established practice’. If a candidate is blatantly unsuitable, state it openly, every single time, as Washington has done. Call for a vote. Distance yourselves. Call a spade a spade. Iranian women have risked their lives shouting “Woman, Life, Freedom”. The least our governments can do is risk a bit of diplomatic embarrassment. Yesterday, Iranian President Pezeshkian even attended the UN COP31 in Turkey. Another opportunity to discuss one of the Islamic Republic’s great battles: global warming. Perhaps, amongst the climate-related sins, the UN could include the crime for which Amirhossein Mousavi has just been sentenced to death in Iran because of his social media posts: “Corruption on earth”.