The United Nations announced on March 13 that Iran will get a seat on the U.N. Women’s Rights Committee.
U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer shared the announcement on Twitter:
No joke: the Islamic Republic of #Iran was just appointed to the @UN_Women's rights committee that judges complaints of women's rights violations.
Yes, a day after the regime sentenced women's rights lawyer Nasrin Sotudeh to 38 years prison & 148 lashes. https://t.co/PPe20erKgV pic.twitter.com/c6bebPqy8j
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 13, 2019
According to @UN, the violations that #Iran will judge include:
• Stereotypical attitudes towards role of women
• Violation of women's rights defenders' freedom of expression & assembly
• Deaths & torture of women in custody
• Impunity for violations of human rights of women pic.twitter.com/xv9Lhr5cgY— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 13, 2019
Neuer also pointed out that Iran adds to a growing number of anti-Israel countries on the committee:
UN Women's Rights Commission (@UN_CSW) is now in session.
Members include:
🇮🇷 Islamic Republic of Iran
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
🇩🇿 Algeria
🇧🇭 Bahrain
🇶🇦 Qatar…And guess which 1 country they'll be condemning next week for violating #WomenRights?
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) March 12, 2019
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), women face myriad restrictions on freedom in Iran, including that they “cannot pass on their nationality to their foreign-born spouses or their children like men.”
“A married woman may not obtain a passport or travel outside the country without the written permission of her husband Under the civil code,” the HRW report adds. “A husband is accorded the right to choose the place of living and can prevent his wife from having certain occupations if he deems them against ‘family values.’”
The report also notes that the Iranian regime has sentenced several women to prison for as long as 20 years because they removed their hijabs during anti-regime protests in December 2017 and January 2018. The regime forces Iranian women to wear hijabs in public.
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