Iran has voted to execute 15,000 participants in a women’s rights protest. Iran sits on the United Nations women’s rights committee, along with nations such as Afghanistan and Somalia. Despotic regimes that violate human rights also sit on the UN’s Human Rights Council, such as China, Eritrea, Cuba, and Sudan.
Meanwhile, Newsweek reports than a member of Iran’s parliament who voted to execute the protesters has arrived in New York City to participate as a member in a U.N. human-rights committee meeting, which will deal with other topics, not the Iran human-rights situation.
As Newsweek notes,
Demonstrators have flooded the streets in Iran in the weeks following the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested by Iran’s morality police and accused of improperly wearing a hijab, or headscarf, while visiting the country. Amini … was severely beaten while in custody and later died from a fatal head injury….Earlier this week, the Iranian parliament voted to approve the death penalty for the protesters, who mostly consist of university students and women.
Parliament member Zoreh Elahian, who voted in favor of sentencing the protesters to death, is in New York City to attend a meeting of the General Assembly’s Third Committee. The panel’s agenda deals with social and humanitarian affairs and human rights issues…Elahian is being accompanied by Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy judiciary chief [who detains protesters and issues death sentences]
Iceland and Germany have requested a special session with the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) to discuss the “human rights situation in Iran”… Iceland in Geneva tweeted, “We stand in solidarity with the brave women & men marching for their rights.”
The protests in Iran have occurred in dozens of cities, and many demonstrators have been killed in clashes with Iran’s security forces. Nearly 15,000 protesters have been arrested and are now subject to the death penalty after 227 out of 290 members of parliament voted in favor of executing demonstrators. In Iran, those who are sentenced to death are most often hanged while in prison, although some executions are carried out publicly. Many of the protests involved women resisting Iran’s Islamic rules by burning their hijabs and cutting their hair in public. In addition, several Iranian sports teams have refused to sing along with the country’s national anthem. Women also are taking to social media to express their discontent with Iran’s leadership.
