Iran ousted from UN women’s body over regime's bloody crackdown, with 29 votes in favour 

Iran was ousted from a UN women’s commission on December 14 at a plenary meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) where 29 members voted in favour of Iran’s removal. The 54-member ECOSOC voted on a US-drafted resolution to "remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term." This move comes as Iran faces vast peaceful protests led by women calling for gender equality who, activists in Tehran have claimed, are being beaten and killed in the country. 

The Commission on the Status of Women is a 45-member committee that is the apex body in the UN responsible for defending women rights and fighting for gender equality. The ECOSOC oversees the commission. Tehran had just started a four-year term starting this year on the commission. 

Tehran had been pressuring members, and the final number of abstentions will give an indication of diplomatic disunity over the issue. Iran and several allies wrote to the council on Monday, arguing that a vote would “undoubtedly create an unwelcome precedent”. Their letter urged members not to back the draft vote to avoid a “new trend for expelling sovereign and rightfully elected states from any given body of the international system.”

Last month, a separate UN body, the human rights council, voted overwhelmingly to set up a fact-finding investigation into human rights abuses in Iran, a move that could make prosecutions in international courts more probable. The UN says more than 300 people have been killed in the crackdown, including at least 40 children. The Tehran regime has imprisoned hundreds and begun what is expected to be a campaign of public executions. 

Why did the Iran protests erupt?

Nationwide unrest erupted almost three months ago after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was arrested by morality police that enforce Iran’s mandatory dress code laws. Amini was allegedly beaten into a coma and died in hospital. The demonstrations have turned into a popular revolt that poses one of the biggest challenges to the Shia clerical elite since they took power in a 1979 revolution. Iran blames foreign enemies and the media for the unrest, and says dozens of security forces have been killed by “terrorists”.