Virulently Pathological Iran, As Paragon Of Virtue

The existing laws in my country do not allow me as a woman to walk in public without wearing the veil; I, as a woman, do not even have the freedom to choose my own dress. The laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran do not allow me to travel or get an education without the permission of my husband. I cannot even get married without the permission of my father."
"The laws in my country do not allow women to sing solo as our voice allegedly runs the risk of provoking men. Under laws of the Islamic Republic, my share of inheritance is half of that of my male relatives. Under the laws of the Islamic Republic, just last year more than 18,000 women ended up in court for being ‘badly veiled.’ UN Women was created by the United Nations as a body for gender equality and for the empowerment of women. If so, isn’t it an insult to women to give the leadership role to those governments that oppress their own women?"
Masih Alinejad, Iranian journalist

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an agency whose purpose is to alert the world community of occurrences that run counter to the purpose of the United Nations, but which become an integral part of UN activities which render the organization a mouthpiece of human rights abusers has issued another alert. He has most recently issued a condemnation of the UN for the election of Iran to the top post of a UN arm in support of women's rights, UN Women.

As Mr. Neuer put it in writing letters of protest to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, it is their moral responsibility to at the very least speak with sincere regret that yet another occasion has arisen where a UN arm has been hijacked by a corrupt organizational operation enabling Iran, one of the world's most abusive countries, one that sponsors terrorism, promotes instability internationally, foments hatred, and aspires to nuclear weapons, to take up an important post for women's rights.

It is a despicable act of ultimate cynicism that members of a UN body would see fit to elevate the Islamic Republic of Iran to such a body "which sends absolutely the worst message to Iran's women's rights defenders, and to the world, concerning Iran's dismal record on child marriages, forced head-coverings, domestic violence and gender inequality", wrote Mr. Neuer. Yet the reality now is that the UN agency tasked with supporting female equality and empowerment has been made a mockery of.

"By elevating Iran to a global leadership post on women’s equality, the UN is legitimizing a regime that systematically treats women as second-class citizens. Iran is considered one of the worst countries in the world on women’s rights, ranking 137th out of 142 countries in the latest Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum", he pointed out. This kind of outright moral fraud is common enough within the United Nations and its various human rights arms.

Countries known for the dismal level of their human rights abuses, their corruption, their commitment to inequality find themselves elevated to posts whose purpose is to single out member states whose performance on all these vital human rights indices is hopelessly backward. Yet these countries and their dreadful human rights records proliferate in the UN, which has a habit of tippy-toeing around the most egregious abuses, and certainly avoiding 'naming-and-shaming', so the result is the abusing countries nominate and elevate those most like them to these sensitive positions.

"Time and again, Iran shows contempt to the founding purpose of UN Women, and should never have been elected to its board. The UN’s election of Iran by an overwhelming two-thirds majority is a moral outrage that threatens to undermine the UN Secretary-General’s own report on Iran’s pervasive discrimination against women", wrote Mr. Neuer. Iran won 36 out of a possible 54 votes from the UN Economic and Social Council.

The countries with the absolute most afflicted and afflicting records in all the positive areas of human development, interaction, equality and basic human rights, like many other human-rights-abusing countries that are members of the United Nations are able to thumb their noses at veracity and honour, courage and human rights as they flagrantly conduct themselves in violation of all those virtues, while sanctimoniously claim to be upholding the very values that make us decent human beings.