NOT A SINGLE STATE, INCLUDING THE US HAS OPPOSED THE MEMBERSHIP OF IRAN ON UN’S TOP WOMEN’S RIGHTS GROUP!!!
http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/united-states-silent-on-irans-appointment-to-u-n-commission-on-the-status-of-women/
FOX NEWS – Today, IRAN officially becomes a member of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Only three days ago, the U.N. General Assembly voted to suspend Libya’s membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council in a desperate bid to save the Council’s tattered reputation and itself.
But not a single state, including the United States, has indicated anything but smooth sailing for today’s membership of Iran on the U.N.’s top women’s rights body.
The double-talk surrounding the Libyan maneuver was breathtaking. It was only nine months ago, after getting to know Qaddafi over four decades, that the General Assembly had elected Libya to serve on the U.N.’s top human rights body. And Libya still serves on the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the U.N. Commission on Information, and the Executive Board of U.N. Women.
FOX NEWS –No gesture of disapproval came during an acclamation vote affirming the Islamic nation’s appointment to the 45-nation group.
A senior official with the U.S. Mission to the U.N. said that the United States was powerless to stop the selection because Iran faced no competition. Yes, the U.S. government was aware this was a possibility,” said the senior official, who requested anonymity because the agency is not publicly commenting on it. “Procedurally, there was no blocking this.”As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women’s rights body.
The Obama administration sought a seat on the Human Rights Council last year, reversing the Bush administration’s policy to boycott the body to protest the influence of repressive states. US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, didn’t comment on Iran’s selection to the women’s commission.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Right and Oversight, blasted the silence of the U.S. to Iran’s selection, saying it is the U.S official position “to be pleasant with gangsters.”
“Iran is the best example. This is yet another example of that strategy. It’s part of the theory of hug-a-Nazi-make-a-liberal. If you treat gangsters in a pleasant way and watch out for their sensitivity, they’ll reform their ways,” he told FoxNews.com.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the U.S. should leverage its contributions to the U.N. “to help produce effective, transparent, and accountable U.N. programs which can help women and others around the globe.” “The U.N.’s apologists must have thought that since Iran withdrew, under pressure, from the 
Human Rights Council race, we would not notice this latest abomination. They were wrong,” she said in a written statement.
“That an Iranian regime that shoots and stones women would be ‘elected’ to a U.N. body supposedly dedicated to women’s rights adds a whole new disgusting twist to the ongoing saga of Iran exploiting the U.N,” she said.
A
high-ranking State Department official told FoxNews.com that Iran’s selection to the commission isn’t as bad as it appears.”We’re not going to stand up and cheer,” the official said. “By the same token, that is less onerous than the Human Rights Council because women in Iran, relative to other countries in the region, actually have greater rights.” ”You don’t have women placed in head-to-toe burkas in that country,” the official said. “You have women elected to the legislature in the country.”
The official acknowledged the death Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian woman who was killed during a post election anti-government protest. ”She was killed because she was a protestor, not because she was a woman,” the official said. “I’m not saying we can take Iran and compare them to the human rights record of any country in the developed world. But in that region, women in Iran have a greater opportunity for education, for business and to participate in politics.”
Membership on the status of women’s commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small a country’s population or how scant its respect for rights.
Iran’s election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but had little effect on Tehran’s bid to become an international arbiter of women’s rights. ”Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” said Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.
That was followed by threats from Tehran’s police chief that women who are tan will be arrested and imprisoned for violating the spirit of Islamic law.
The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women’s rights, issue reports detailing their failings and monitor success in improving women’s equality.
Yet critics of Iran’s human rights record say the country has taken “every conceivable step” to deter women’s equality.
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