Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will be addressing the annual opening of the United Nations Human Rights Council on February 27, prompting human rights activists to call on diplomats to walk out.
“This is a regime that beats, blinds, jails, tortures and kills innocent women for the crime of protesting for their basic human rights and dignity,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the independent non-governmental human rights group UN Watch. “In the past few months, hundreds of protesters in Iran have been killed, scores wounded, and 18,000 taken away and thrown behind bars.”
“It cannot be business as usual at the U.N.’s top human rights body when the representative of this murderous regime is invited to the podium. We are calling on all democracies to show solidarity with the oppressed people of Iran by walking out of the room when he is given the floor, just as they did when Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at the same assembly last year,” said Neuer.
Also speaking that day will be the foreign ministers from France, Germany, the UK, Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, and some 30 other countries, as well as UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and UN human rights chief Volker Türk.
Dear @ABaerbock @MinColonna @JamesCleverly @AHuitfeldt @a_schallenberg @hadjalahbib: On Feb. 27, you will be at the UNHRC when the Iran regime's mouthpiece speaks. This how democracies walked out on Lavrov last year. Please show solidarity with the people of Iran and do the same. pic.twitter.com/Vf7MgRYwaQ
- Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 6, 2023
