On Wednesday, UN Watch reported that of all countries to be elected to a 4-year term on the Commission on the Status of Women, Iran was chosen, thanks to a vote of 43 of 54 countries.
No joke: UN elects Iranian regime to top women's rights body.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 21, 2021
Electing Ayatollah Khamenei's Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief.https://t.co/ApcXikZQH7
Caught on video: that moment yesterday when the United Nations announces the election of the misogynistic mullahs' regime to its highest women's rights body. https://t.co/cHJEUFs4mr pic.twitter.com/jTZVM05AZc
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 21, 2021
In expressing his condemnation, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also tweeted that China was selected as well.
It’s disgraceful that #China, who has a record of female infanticide and is committing sexual violence against #Uyghur women, would also join. What a joke. (2/2)
— Senator Rubio Press (@SenRubioPress) April 22, 2021
The report opened in noting "UN Watch is calling on U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and EU states to condemn the UN’s election of Iran to a 4-year term on its Commission on the Status of Women, the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
At least four out of 15 EU and western countries were included in the 43 votes which elected Iran to the seat, which means the United States could have voted for Iran.
GENEVA, April 22, 2021–At least 4 of the 15 EU & Western group democracies at the UN's Economic and Social Council voted to elect Iran to the Commission on the Status of Women on Tuesday, according to a calculation by UN Watch, which urged the countries to reveal their votes.
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) April 23, 2021
The democracies who may have voted in the April 20, 2021 secret ballot for Iran's misogynistic regime include Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Latvia, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) April 23, 2021
UN Watch called on lawmakers from the 15 EU and other democracies to demand that their governments reveal how they voted.
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) April 23, 2021
Although the voting was secret, the fact that Iran's regime won 43 votes means that only 11 ECOSOC members did not vote for Iran.
Therefore, at least four out of the 15 Western democracies did vote for Iran, and possibly more because the 11 countries that did not vote for Iran could be any of the 54 member states of ECOSOC.
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) April 23, 2021
Hilell Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, made a sobering point about this possible involvement from the United States.
I hope that the U.S. & EU states negotiating with the Iranian regime over its nuclear weapons program did not make a Faustian bargain to betray women in Iran who are subjugated, discriminated against in law and practice and criminalized if they sing, dance or show their hair.
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 23, 2021
I've covered the extensive list of human rights abuses the Communist Chinese Party has subjected its own people to, including and especially women, and how the United States could and should be doing more. This includes rape, forced sterilization and forced use of IUDs for Uyghur women, as well as forced late-term abortions for couples who may face the consequences for "unauthorized pregnancies."
While the United States may very well have voted in favor of either or both of these countries, thanks to Biden's pick for our ambassador, Republicans in Congress like Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) are at least trying to move our country in the other direction He recently introduced a bill to defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as there is evidence they have been complicit in enforcing China's One-Child Policy, and continue to be with their now Two-Child Policy.
Numerous human rights groups have expressed concerns with women's rights in Iran. Amnesty International wrote how "Women, as well as ethnic and religious minorities, faced entrenched discrimination as well as violence." United Against Nuclear Iran has a web page on "Iran's War on Women." The Center for Human Rights in Iran has four reports on women's rights so far just this year. Their most recent one, from March 8, is titled "UN: Women and Girls in Iran Treated as Second Class Citizens, Reforms Urgently Needed." It looks 43 countries didn't get that memo.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield did not tweet about Iran's selection, though she did manage to tweet and retweet about climate change no less than five times since UN Watch's announcement.
Should she ever actually address Iran's place or her vote, knowing her track record, she may very well end up defending the oppressive while managing to throw her own country under the bus. As we have covered, the ambassador made anti-American remarks, such as how "we have to acknowledge that we are an imperfect union and have been since the beginning" and that "I've seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles."
She and the White House doubled down on such remarks.