In an absurd twist, Iran is being rewarded for torture and terror with plush United Nations roles. We must put a stop to it
Iran, the antisemitic and warmongering regime, has just been given three key United Nations roles. It’s not too late to change that, writes Hillel Neuer
Around 6000 Iranians from the diaspora demonstrate in the streets of Brussels on February 20, 2023 in Brussels, Belgium. Waving Iranian but also European flags, they call on Iran to grant more freedoms to women. They also demand that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) organization be classified as terrorist Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
Hillel Neuer June 14, 2023
Iran, the antisemitic and warmongering regime long recognized by the United States as a leading sponsor of terrorism, has just been rewarded for its efforts with plush United Nations roles.
Eleanor Roosevelt, who 75 years ago led the United Nations to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, must be turning in her grave.
By emboldening the torturers and terrorists of Tehran with undue recognition instead of holding them to account, the U.N. betrays its founding principles.
Violence Rewarded
The whirlwind of U.N. wins for the Ayatollahs is astonishing.
First, the fanatical regime won election in New York as Vice-President of the U.N. General Assembly. Only six months prior, the same body adopted a resolution condemning gross human rights abuses by Iran, one of only a handful of countries in the world to be censured by the GA.
Iran was called out for its surge in executions, disproportionately applied to minorities, as well as for systemic discrimination against women and girls. The resolution expressed serious concern about the compulsory hijab law and its violent implementation by the Iranian morality police.
In addition, the world parliament strongly urged Iran to cease the use of arbitrary detention, torture and excessive force against peaceful protesters, and to eliminate discrimination based on thought, religion or belief.
The advertisement on a new missile belonging to the IRGC in Tehran states, in three languages, “400 seconds to Tel Aviv.”
The actions of the Islamic Republic have been consistently associated with warmongering, promoting hate, and antisemitism. This is the rationale behind… pic.twitter.com/rZYyD0bMlQ
— Masih Alinejad ?️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 7, 2023
In the apt words of Christopher Lu, the U.S. ambassador on U.N. reform, “Iran cannot act as an honest broker in its role as a Vice President of the General Assembly because it has shown, time and time again, that it does not seek to enhance global peace and security, but rather works against it.”
The Shiite theocracy — which the West has in vain tried to denuclearize and which regularly threatens to wipe Israel off the map — also won election as Rapporteur of the U.N. General Assembly’s Committee on Disarmament and International Security. The regime’s representative is expected to present some 70 draft resolutions this year on issues such as nuclear proliferation, threats to international security and terrorism — even as it is the perpetrator and menace of the very problems these measures are meant to address.
Iran’s past and ongoing breaches of nuclear agreements contradict the very essence of the disarmament committee’s mandate. The assignment threatens to legitimize the regime’s ongoing violations, and discredits the U.N.’s commitment to disarmament.
Human Rights Abuses, Rewarded
The most confounding appointment is the decision to name Iran the Chair of the Human Rights Council’s Social Forum, which takes place in November. Over the past year, the world has watched Iran wage a “violent crackdown on peaceful protests resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people,” as the Human Rights Council put it in an emergency session last year. The Human Rights Council last year created its first-ever fact-finding mission on Iran to investigate abuses during the crackdown, particularly those against women and children. The probe is to present its first report on July 5th.
For this the regime is rewarded?
On May 9th, a joint statement by 19 of the Council’s human rights monitors — including the independent experts on torture, summary executions, and involuntary disappearances — “strongly condemned” Iran for recent executions targeting critics of the government, which were “tantamount to arbitrary deprivation of life under international law.”
And yet, only a day later, on May 10th, the President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Václav Bálek of the Czech Republic, announced his appointment of Iran as Chair of the Council’s upcoming Social Forum, which aims to advance human rights through science, technology, and innovation.
Iranian rights activists were outraged. Bálek claimed that he had no choice: Iran was the only candidate, nominated by the Asian group of states, and he had notified all of the regional groups in advance.
I believe he had other options. The president could have picked up the phone and asked the Americans and Europeans to help mobilize other candidates. That he and all U.N. delegations in Geneva felt no moral compunction to stop this obscene appointment speaks volumes.
As a result, in November, Ayatollah Khamenei’s representative will be holding the gavel, with U.N. human rights chief Volcker Turk and other dignitaries at his side.
A regime that stifles internet freedoms, impedes access to information, and uses technology such as facial recognition to repress dissent — and which just executed people for criticizing the government on social media — will be heading a forum on human rights and technology.
Why it Matters
These appointments send the wrong message at the wrong time, enabling the Islamic Republic of Iran — even as it is shooting protesters in the face and raping human rights defenders in prison — to strut on the international stage as a respected and influential actor.
No less, the regime is able to proclaim victory to its people — witness the instant declarations in state-controlled Fars News, Islamic Republic News Agency and Press TV — in order to dishearten, dispirit and demoralize dissidents.
How did Iran win its U.N. trifecta, and what can be done?
Inside the U.N., too many delegations seek to go along to get along. In their closed world of backroom deals and geographic rotations, a bloody dictatorship is every inch the equal of a liberal democracy. Democracies that pay lip service to the high principles of the U.N. Charter too often ignore them when making critical U.N. decisions.
Our human rights group is fighting back. With a petition backed by 80,000 signatories, we’ve drafted a resolution to overturn Iran’s human rights council chairmanship. It now requires a U.N. member state to formally sponsor and introduce it. I am convinced that Tehran can be removed.
It’s time for U.N. member states to stop legitimizing murderous regimes, in violation of the world body’s founding principles, and to begin holding the perpetrators to account.
To contact the author, email opinion@forward.com.
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