Iran: Election to UN women's body a 'tragedy'

Thanks to Jeff Imm of REAL

New York, 3 May (AKI) - Iran's election to an influential United Nations panel that promotes women's rights has provoked fierce opposition in Italy and elsewhere. The Italian daily, Corriere della Sera described the appointment to the UN Commission on the Status of Women as a "tragedy. "Who knows how this commission will defend women's rights when it comes to the Gohar Dasht prison in the northern Iran city of Karai where in 2005 dozens of women prisoners were reported missing and feared to have been the victims of rape and other unimaginable violence," asked Corriere writer Pierluigi Battista in an editorial published on Monday.

On Thursday, the UN announced that Iran, and 10 other countries, had been elected to the high-profile commission for the term beginning in 2011. Apart from Thailand, Iran was the only nation that put forward candidates to fill two empty seats for the commission’s Asian bloc.

Earlier, Iran announced it was dropping a bid for membership in the UN Human Rights Council after facing strong criticism over its human rights record and major opposition from Western nations.

Often critical of the UN, The Wall Street Journal's European edition on Monday published an editorial attacking Iran's seat on the commission and referred to the "nightmare" faced by Iranian women."Ending the kind of nightmares lived by Iranian women was precisely what Eleanor Roosevelt had in mind in 1946, when she read an open letter to "the women of the world" that would help inspire the UN's women's commission," the editorial said. "Its goals were lofty and remain as important.

Reality, as practiced by the UN, has been otherwise.

"The United States made no formal gesture of disapproval during an acclamation vote affirming the Islamic nation's appointment to the 45-nation group. (GC NOTES:Thank You, Obama and Clinton, you sexist pigs).

But US congressman Thaddeus McCotter, a congressman from the state of Michigan condemned the move. "By electing the Tehran butchers to its commission on the status of women — a morally rancid United Nations has salted the wounds of the Iranian freedom movement's regime-murdered martyrs."

Canadian foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon issued a statement on Saturday expressing “serious concerns” about Iran's treatment of women."We deplore this development but will use Iran’s membership on this body to take the Iranian authorities to task for their systemic human rights violations," Cannon said.