Iran is expected to be expelled from a U.N. organization for women on Wednesday due to its policies against the rights of women and girls, although some nations are anticipated to abstain from the vote, according to diplomats.
A U.S.-drafted proposal 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” will be put to the vote by the 54 members of the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The Commission on the Status of Women, which has 45 members, holds yearly meetings in March with the goal of advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Iran’s removal has “consistently seen growing support,” a U.S. official told Reuters.
Iran, 17 other states and the Palestinians argued in a letter to ECOSOC on Monday that a vote “will undoubtedly create an unwelcome precedent that will ultimately prevent other Member States with different cultures, customs and traditions … from contributing to the activities of such Commissions.”
The letter urged members to vote against the U.S. move to avoid a “new trend for expelling sovereign and rightfully-elected States from any given body of the international system, if ever perceived as inconvenient and a circumstantial majority could be secured for imposing such maneuvers.”
Only five of the letter’s signatories are presently eligible to vote on Wednesday because they are ECOSOC members.
The Islamic Republic hanged a man in the open on Monday after he was found guilty of killing two security forces personnel, official television reported. This was the second protester executed in less than a week.
Three months ago, nationwide upheaval broke out as a result of the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman detained by morality police enforcing the Islamic Republic’s mandated dress code rules.
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