link: https://apnews.com/article/iran-united-nations-de6a87913363105d1fb15b8dbedb24a8
the U.N. Economic and Social Council voted to remove iran from the U.N. global council for gender equality due to their violation of women’s rights in their country and their attempted and ongoing suppression of protests for women’s rights that have been happening with increasing frequency due to the killing a women in custody for not properly wearing a head-covering. the vote was a message to the iranina government with U.S. ambassador linda thomas-greenfield saying “I think we sent a strong message to the Iranian government and we sent a strong message to Iranian women,” after the vote passed by a vote of 29-8 with 16 abstaining. There is an ongoing argument over whether the council can even actually do this and it was requested that the council seek U.N. advice before going through with the vote and removal but the council held a vote and upheld the removal though iran and its allies claim it sets a dangerous precedent
This is obviously a very important move by the U.N. council because it sends a message. It shows the UN does not stand with Iran and their blatant suppression of women’s rights and protests. this ls shows that many countries agree with it as the vote passed easily.now one could argue the abstains were bad but you have to remember that they likely abstained as they dont want to put themselves too far over the line either way as i they side with iran they get a very negative reputation but if they side with the others like the U.S. they run the risk of not being able to interact with iran and its allies.the vote also undermines a lot of iran’s criticisms of the council and their stance on iran as all the votes in favor of removing iran lends credence to U.S. sentiments that iran is not a progressive country especially in regard to women and free speech. Another important thing to note aside from the vote to remove Iran was the vote to not need to seek U.N. legal advice though Iran and Russia wanted it. This is important because it does set a precedent and that precedent is that they do not need all this bureaucracy and countries not in compliance or doing ¨bad¨ things can be held accountable
The things that connect back to that we’ve discussed in class are a couple things. the first is how countries are run drastically affects their social standing in the International world with iran being a very religious country that has literal morality police is now suffering from this is due to the act that their entire government is set up around religion if you’re having a far reaching protest about the religious or its tenets that’s not a small issue people have that’s a protest against the whole of the country and so it makes them unreliable internationally. The 2nd thing I feel this connects to is alliances and how countries are likely to ally with countries like themselves and I feel the votes express this. iran is a country not high on free speech and personal liberties and its allies don’t have very good reputation with those things either and the abstains prove that even if country has no issue with iran the bad press is not something they want to deal with and so they won’t boldly support iran unless they are already seen in that way al la russia.