Director general of international affairs of the vice -presidency for women and family affairs stated that the proposal for the removal of Iran from CSW membership is a scenario for imposing maximum pressure and to isolating the Islamic Republic of Iran and recommended the CSW to instead work for stabilizing impartiality and in turn take measures to be seriously concerned with the rights of women in order to avoid any form of politization in order to evaluate the status of women’s rights in different countries based on the indexes of the international documents.
On her address at the special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council and the US proposal for the removal of Iran from CSW membership she stated: “Since the victory of the Islamic Republic of Iran there have been targeted flow imposed against the Islamic Republic of Iran with the intention of regime change and disintegration of the country in various forms and under various events and incidents ranging from the imposed war ,to imposing tough unilateral sanctions, tribal divisions, terrorist attacks, colorful streams ….
She continued that since September 2022 and simultaneous with the death of Mahsa Amini despite reactions of the high- ranking officials of the country regarding this bitter incident demanding urgent follow up of the details of the occurrence the marginal events of this incident suddenly turned into a serious rioting and protest fanned with the hype of the hired media. She added: “In the recent events, efforts were made to invite certain followers by disseminating false news and false killing and imposing mental pressures over the society and damaging the national security. At international level also with the aim of maximizing pressure and isolating Iran they tried to exclude Iran form the global equations including the removal of Iran from the CSW membership and demanded special session from the Human rights council and ultimately, called for a fact- finding committee for reviewing the situation as part of their prearranged agenda.
What happened at the 35th special session of the Human Rights Council?
Dr. Karimi added: “As it was mentioned one of these cases was pursuing the special session on human rights status in Iran and setting up the fact-finding committee. In the first step as part of their agenda, nearly 40 NGOs prepared a letter addressing the Human rights Council requesting to hold a special meeting supported by Iceland and Germany and later followed by 44 other countries and ultimately the meeting was held on 24th November at the 35th special meeting in Geneva.”
Dr. Karimi while reminding the opportunity provided said: “The plan was arranged in a way that the holding of the 35th special meeting initiated by Germany and Iceland coincided with the 35th anniversary of the chemical bombardments of Saddam’s regime over the Kurdish city of Sardasht in Iran and remarked: “ The German government who is now standing in the position of supporting women requesting a special meeting is the very same country who equipped Saddam with chemical weapons causing the massacre of more than 13000 people and injuring more than 100 thousand innocent women and children.
These actions took place when right after the unfortunate death of Mahsa Amini, an independent commission was formed composed of a team of forensic specialists with the aim of examining the various dimensions of the incident. However, the hasty and bias reactions from some of the western officials and their intervention in the internal affairs of Iran prior to the official report of the committee turned these protests into riots and extreme violence and paved the way for terrorist attacks in several cities including Shiraz, Izeh, Zahedan, Isfahan and Mashhad.”
In response to the question regarding the issues raised in the meeting, she stated: “Among the issues raised in the meeting was the impact of sanctions on the life and health of Iranian men, women and children as well as the perpetuation of systematic violence against women and girls in those very countries that claim to support human rights, their rejection of women refugees in the European countries, their general silence over the situation of women in Yemen and the occupied Palestine and the existence of mass graves of native children in Canada as only some of the small examples of unreliability and lack of credibility of those claiming to support the women’s rights.
The accusation of suppressing the “peaceful” protests
According to Dr. Karimi at the meeting representatives of some countries raised charges such as suppression of peaceful protests and the inappropriate use of pressure against protestors in particular, women and children.
The director general of international affairs of the vice presidency for women and family affairs explained:” Instead, some other countries did not support the holding of the special meeting calling it an irrational act. They rejected the proposal to force a new imposed monitoring mechanism against Iran and regarded this attempt as continual intervention within Iran’s internal affairs and condemned the idea. Also, they re-emphasized on their decisive disagreement with the hostile and political initiatives demanding it to be uprooted from the council.”
She remarked: “The representatives of these countries believed that terrorist extremism and extensive fake news campaigns within the international media who for years have been troublesome for our country have fanned the flames of protest against the death of Mahsa Amini and by sharing wrong information they instigated violence and turned it into a political and media war by the dominant countries for destabilizing the government. Countries against the resolution stated that for decades Iran has been surrounded by countries who have imposed unilateral coercive measures against the nation, sanctions which has weakened the most basic rights of Iranians and is regarded as a crime against humanity.”
Dr. Karimi believes that the events occurred under such conditions whilst according to the approval of some of these countries Iran has always been committed to promoting and supporting human rights, has always been working with the council, the office of the high commissioner and other UN institutions and has continued to work based on mutual respect and constructive efforts and prosperous interactions with these bodies.”
The director general of the international affairs of the vice-presidency for women and family affairs added: “Finally, they recommended the council to act based on the principle of impartiality and prevent the misuse of human rights doctrine as a mechanism for intervening in the internal affairs of other countries. The internal intervention in the affairs of countries and manipulating human rights for political purposes was an issue that was objected by countries and they underscored that in recent years they have witnessed an increasing level of politization and confrontation.
Ratification of a resolution for forming a fact- finding committee by the end of 55th session of the Human rights Council
In response to the question: What was ultimately the result of that meeting?
She said: “In the end, the resolution was ratified with 25 votes for composing a fact-finding team by the end of the 55th session of the human rights council designated by the president of the human rights council. This committee was tasked to conduct research on the claims regarding the violation of human rights in Iran and to submit a report to the council.”
The fact-finding committee: “An unprecedented and historical act or a political and biased action?”
Dr. Karimi in response to another question from ISNA which stated that the White House has named the fact- finding committee on Iran an unprecedented and historical action explained: “In the very words of the followers of this action against our country this act is indeed totally political, hostile and biased. To impose such a supervisory mechanism against Iran is a new attempt within a set of interventional activities of these set of countries within the internal affairs of Iran who have no other intention but to weaken the Islamic foundations of the country.”
She also reinstated: “Peace and stability in the Middle East is not favorable to the oppressive superpowers in particular the USA. Specially, with regards to our country that ever since the Islamic revolution by establishing the only Shiite ruling system in the world it has pursued a new power model.”
In response to the question what is your opinion with regards to the request proposed by the US for the removal of Iran’s membership from the CSW and the voting that occurred on 14th December?
Dr. Karimi replied: “On the pretext of the recent events in our country an attempt took place by some female representatives from western countries whereby they planned, led and mainstreamed with the aim of removing the Islamic republic of Iran from the CSW membership which we believe this attempt occurred with the ultimate aim of completing a puzzle for isolating the Islamic Republic of Iran and to exert maximum pressure which is regarded contradictory to the interests of the citizens of a country.”
Karimi continued: “The proposal for excluding Iran from the UN CSW was raised by a group of women’s rights activist and representatives of countries who fail to have an appropriate record in guaranteeing and observing the human rights of the women of their own countries and this occurred merely to defend the rights of a set of a prearranged group of women who work in line with their political interests.
In her opinion, in today’s world despite international efforts for promoting and upgrading the rights of women we are witnessing many severe instances of violation of human dignity of women and young girls in the framework of forced sterilization of women with disabilities, women refugees and women of certain race and color with the aim of racial improvement, increase in domestic violence, and based on gender and the women homicide in Europe , the systematic violation of the Palestinian human rights by the Israeli regime , violation of the rights of the colored women and the refugees and displaced women in Europe and US, the increasing rate of human trafficking among young girls and women to the western countries with the aim of sexual exploitation, the deplorable situation of refugee women in the refugee camps , the degrading moral and human dignity of women , the destruction of family foundations and the increasing rate of single parent children who have never experienced a family.
In the founding document of the Commission on the Status of Women there are no mechanisms forecasted for removing a country from its membership
Dr. Karimi with regards to the reason why they called Iran’s exclusion from CSW as historical and unprecedented said: “This attempt is historical and unprecedented for there are no mechanisms defined in the founding document of the commission on how to exclude a member country and this is the first time that such a proposal has been offered regarding a member country which proves and approves that the human rights council and its predecessors i.e. the Commission on the Status of Women have turned into a political instrument in the hands of western countries for their exploitational objectives and so one cannot expect those very basic tasks of this institution to be fostered . The Islamic Republic of Iran took the seat with the votes of the Asian countries and this action is in a way a disrespect to their votes.
She further explained that last year our country became member of the CSW through the voting of the ECOSOC member countries for a period of 4 years.
Of course, this is not the first time that Iran is a member of an international institution and since 2011 this has been repeated for a third time. From the early days of disseminating the news of Iran’s membership at the CSW the hostile angers of the so -called human rights groups were instigated and it proved that they do not wish to display an image of Iranian women other than their own way of portrayal to the world. For years, family foundations are under destruction and the status of women are undermined to the level of western models in the form of cheap and shallow way of supporting the rights of women in a deceptive way and through pressure and bias they have taken away the opportunity from the people of other parts of the world to have their voices heard.
She added that the CSW is one of the first intergovernmental institutions which was established in 1946 with 51 member countries as a subsidiary body of Economic and Social Council with the aim of decision making and policymaking on the advancement of women’s status.
She continued this commission is one of the main international foundations which focuses on women issues and it is has the task of submitting its reports and recommendations to the UN Secretary General. Currently, it has 45 members from countries around the world who are appointed by ECOSOC for a 4 -year period.
The commission she said, are composed of 13 member countries from Africa, 11 from Asia, 4 from Eastern Europe, 9 from Latin America and the Caribbean region and 8 countries from the West. She further said the history of Iran’s membership in this commission goes back to 1998 in several other periods (2010-2014). Also based on the UN voting system, in April 2014 Iran’s membership was extended for the years 2015 -2019 and in the new period from 2022 our official membership was extended until March 2026. This membership in addition to having access to the right to vote was an opportunity to display a more complete picture of the achievements and innovations gained in the area of women and family. In addition, within the scope of dialoguing and mainstreaming by influencing the documents of the periodic sessions and meetings of this institution it would have been an appropriate opportunity for the member countries.
The cancellation of Iran’s membership from CWS would create a dangerous and bias praxis
Dr. Karimi continued: “Until the pandemic the Iranian delegation participated at the official session of the CSW annually which is held in March each year for a period of 14 days and even during the pandemic in the form of virtual system we took part in the form of delivering speech, participating at sub- meetings and holding exhibitions and meeting representatives from other member countries with the aim of introducing the status of women in I R Iran. In fact, the efforts were intended to share our experiences and extend cooperation with the member countries in the form of public diplomacy provided at this large gathering. The exclusion of Iran from the CSW would not only undermine the credibility of one of the highest-ranking international bodies in the area of women but it would pave the way for political misuse by some countries to influence their goals and political intentions into this institution.
In response to the question that what would be the response of Iran in order to secure its status at the CSW? Are there any chances for cancelling this exclusion from the CSW?
She replied:
“With a rich ancient culture of over several years and divine Islamic teachings Iran from the very early days of the victory of the Islamic revolution has always supported the innate dignity of women and has endeavored to reach gender justice as part of its priorities and has continued to provide the grounds for strengthening and developing processes and structures as to support the human rights and to encourage women for participation at various decision making, administrative and higher education levels all showing that the government is determined to offer practical support to women. Dr. Karimi added there is a special attention to economic empowerment of rural women, the nomads and the women headed -households, by providing insurance for women housewives as well as insurance for women headed- households which has led to the rise in the life expectancy of women to 78 years of age. The rate of illiteracy has declined to less than 10% among women. There is also an equal access of girls and boys to education and thereby education justice, there is a high percentage of female in the medical studies reaching to 40% and 30% as specialists, an increase in the rate of women faculty members in medical sciences to 34% and there is a rise in the rate of women faculty members university fields to 33.5%. There are over 1121 women working as judges and there is an annual increase of 3% for women judges since2011. There is also a 56% rate of girls’ admission to universities which are all a small example for the progress of women and girls in I. R. Iran.
She reminded that all these achievements have been gained under circumstances that our dear country has been confronted with many oppressive sanctions and according to the report of UN special rapporteur the impact of these sanctions in social -economic areas are particularly grave. She continued: “Moreover, this prearranged action not only is in contrast with the fundamental declaration of the human rights institutions it is also a systematic violation of the women’s rights therefore, the proposal to remove Iran from CSW membership would actually mean that the international atmosphere and the existing experiences are not only far from supporting the rights of women but also it is a violation of the rights of Iranian women.
It is hoped that by disapproving the proposal for removing Iran from the CSW commission grounds would be paved for initiating a constructive collaboration of women around the world.
Dr. Karimi emphasized; “It is hoped that by disapproving this proposal grounds will be provided for positive cooperation and interaction among women worldwide in a non- political and just atmosphere since providing a just and fair mechanism with the aim of sharing the successful experiences of the countries in promoting the advancement and progress among women focusing on the special cultural, religious and political features are some of the measures that the institution should take into consideration in order to strengthen its institution .
Dr. Karimi addressing the CSW said: I strongly recommend CSW to formulate an impartial and universal supervising mechanism for evaluating the status of women in the countries based on the indexes of the international documents in order to prove its impartiality and its true concerns towards the rights of women in a non -political way. During the past decades, assuming the universality of the approaches from one hand and imposing single forms of human rights standards to the global community overlooking the cultural diversity led to adopting dual and biased standards towards supporting human rights in particular, the rights of women.”