For Immediate Release

Contact:

* Manda Zand Ervin, Alliance of Iranian Women : (703) 447-3888 or (410) 531-6198
* Victoria Toensing : (202) 289-7701
* Beth Gilinsky, Women United: Code Red (212) 726-1124 or email :

New York and Washington, May 5, 2010 — International human rights and women’s rights leaders, attorneys, scholars, columnists, Iranian human rights activists, media figures, women in the arts, and other prominent women have joined a nationwide campaign to urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to denounce the recent election of Iran to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

In an Open Letter to Secretary Clinton released today (text below) the leaders expressed their profound concern that Iran was “elected by acclamation” to the women’s rights seat.  Election by acclamation may occur when no United Nations member state requests an open vote.  The signatories, citing reports by the U.S. State Department and international human rights organizations of the Iranian regime’s record of barbaric human rights violations, are seeking answers from Secretary Clinton regarding the failure of the U.S. either to request or require an open vote on Iran’s election to the Commission.

The full text and a partial list of signatories to the letter follows, and more signatories’  names will be released this week.

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AN OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: DENOUNCE ELECTION OF IRAN TO U.N. WOMEN’S RIGHTS COMMISSION

May 5, 2010

Dear Secretary Clinton:

We write as women leaders from across America and from organizations concerned with women’s human rights representing oppressed women and minorities.

We call on you, Secretary Clinton, to denounce Iran’s election to a four-year seat on the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women as an appointment that shocks the conscience of civilized societies.

We also wish to express our utter astonishment that Iran was “elected by acclamation,”  which means that none of the United Nations’  member states – including the United States of America – requested or required an open vote on Iran’s election to the Commission.  Why did the United States fail to request an open vote?

In 1995, to an audience of the Fourth World Conference on Women, you declared: “It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.” You added: “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney of New York said she “believed that you spoke from personal conviction.”

Therefore, we are puzzled and deeply troubled that, as Secretary, you have remained silent regarding human rights abuses under the brutal Islamic Republic of Iran regime.

The government of Iran is the perpetrator of well-known, well-documented and shocking human rights abuses against women.  There are sickening and horrific videos, websites, documented reports of gang rapes, stonings, mutilations, hangings, beatings, burnings and other barbaric acts of violence, intimidation, and humiliation against the women of Iran. Political dissidents, gays, non-Muslim minorities, apostates, and infidels are also targeted in widespread human rights violations and gruesome attacks — all these atrocities are egregious violations of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Two hundred and fourteen Iranian activists recently wrote to U.N. member states to oppose Iran’s election to the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women. Their letter states:  “Iran’s discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality…Women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women’s admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws.”
Click here for more on Iran’s human rights record.

he U.S. Department of State’s 2009 report on Iran’s human rights clearly states the egregious violations of Iran in this area:

•    The government’s poor human rights record degenerated during the year [2009], particularly after the disputed June presidential elections. The government severely limited citizens’ right to peacefully change their government through free and fair elections. The government executed numerous persons for criminal convictions as juveniles and after unfair trials. Security forces were implicated in custodial deaths and the killings of election protesters and committed other acts of politically motivated violence, including torture, beatings, and rape. The government administered severe officially sanctioned punishments, including death by stoning, amputation, and flogging. Vigilante groups with ties to the government committed acts of violence. Prison conditions remained poor. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained individuals, often holding them incommunicado. Authorities held political prisoners and intensified a crackdown against women’s rights reformers, ethnic minority rights activists, student activists, and religious minorities. There was a lack of judicial independence and of fair public trials. The government severely restricted the right to privacy and civil liberties, including freedoms of speech and the press, assembly, association, and movement; it placed severe restrictions on freedom of religion. Official corruption and a lack of government transparency persisted. Violence and legal and societal discrimination against women, ethnic and religious minorities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons; trafficking in persons; and incitement to anti-Semitism remained problems. The government severely restricted workers’ rights, including the right to organize and bargain collectively, and arrested numerous union organizers. Child labor remained a serious problem. On November 20, for the seventh consecutive year, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution on Iran expressing concern about the country’s “serious, ongoing, and recurring human rights violations.” (emphasis added)

•    Source:
The Commission’s mandate is to review and report on women’s human rights and monitor progress toward improving women’s human rights.  Clearly, the election of Iran to such a Commission is an appalling example of hypocrisy. We await your public and clear condemnation of this outrageously sexist and insensitive decision by the U.N.

Signatories (partial list):

• Nazanin Afshin-Jam, International Human Rights Activist, President and Co-Founder of Stop Child Executions

• Irene Alter, President, Center for Policy Research in American Education

• Anne Applebaum, columnist

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Resident Scholar, AEI and Founder of the AHA Foundation (www.theAHAfoundation.org)

• Danielle Avel, Columnist

• Dr. Toby F. Block, Senior Academic Professional (retired) Georgia Institute of Technology

• Gretchen S. Bolton, Treasurer, AHA Foundation, Inc.

• Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, Planet Iran

• Shoshana Bryen, Senior Director for Security Policy, JINSA

• Joy Brighton, Stop Shariah Now

• Bernadette Brady, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

• Christine Brim, Center for Security Policy

• Debra Burlingame, Co-Founder, 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America

• Mona Charen, Syndicated Columnist, Creators Syndicate

• Dr. Phyllis Chesler, the Phyllis Chesler Organization

• Nonie Darwish, President FormerMuslimsUnited.org

• Korrine Diggs, Stop Modern Slavery, Founder and Director, Philadelphia Chapter

• Elaine Donnelly, President, Center for Military Readiness

• Barbara Donno, Nassau/Queens 9/12 Group

• Michelle Easton, President, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute

• Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director, American Center for Democracy

• Manda Zand Ervin, Founder and President, Alliance of Iranian Women

• Clarice Feldman, columnist, Washington DC

• Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Employment Policy, Hudson Institute

• Danielle Frum, author and journalist

• Brigitte Gabriel, ACT for America.org

• Georgette Gelbard, Chairwoman, Cyber Counter Terrorism Center of the Middle East Forum
  

• Pamela Geller, Co-Founder, Stop Islamization of America

• Beth Gilinsky, Founder, Action Alliance and Women United: Code Red

• Catherine Gossman, College of Social Work, The Ohio State University

• Debra Guckenheimer, Ph.D., Northeastern Advance Postdoctoral ResearchAssociate, Northeastern University

• Meghan Gurdon, author and journalist

• Carol A. Haave, former Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, DHS

• Pamela Hall, New York – United American Committee

• Aggie R. Hoffman, Attorney at Law, Los Angeles, CA.
  

• Donna M. Hughes, Professor & Carlson Endowed Chair, Women’s Studies Program, University of Rhode Island

• Laura Ingraham, Laura Ingraham Show

• Margo Itskowitch, Women United, Los Angeles, CA

• Erica Saghar Kasraie, Spokesperson, Confederation of Iranian Students

• Karen Khan, attorney, Women’s Freedom Movement of Pakistan

• Judith Apter Klinghoffer, History News Network

• Andrea Lafferty, Traditional Values Coalition

• Barbara Ledeen, Women United: Code Red

• Janet Levy, Women Against Shariah

• Reggie Littlejohn, Founder and President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers

• Mary Beth Long, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

• Jody Lisberger, Ph.D., M.F.A., Director of Women’s Studies, The University of Rhode Island

• May Long, Christians and Jews United for Israel

• Sheryl Longin, Pajamas Media

• Lori Lowenthal Marcus, Founder and President, Z Street

• Hillary Markowitz, Mothers Against Terrorism

• Faith McDonnell, Director, Religious Liberty Programs, Institute on Religion and Democracy

• Ruth Messinger

• Myra Miller, The Winston Group

• Cleta Mitchell, Esq., Chairman, American Conservative Union Foundation

• Doris Wise Montrose, President, American Children of Holocaust Survivors

• Penny Nance, CEO, Concerned Women for America

• Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh and Cyrus Nowrasteh, The Stoning of Soraya M

• Kate O’Beirne, President, National Review Institute

• Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General, United States Department of  Justice, 2001 – 2007

• Daphne Patai, Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

• Kathleen Parker, Washington Post syndicated columnist

• Joan Peters, Author-Historian: National Committee on American Foreign Policy

• Dianne Post, International Human Rights lawyer

• Racquel Reinstein, attorney
  

• Susan Rosenbluth, Editor and Publisher, Jewish Voice and Opinion

• Mary Rose Rybak, Managing Editor, First Things

• Nicole Sadighi, Fellow, Researcher at the Center for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy for Iran

• Melanie Shapiro, Citizens Against Trafficking, Co-founder

• Nina Shea, Director, Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom; Commissioner, US Commission on International Religious Freedom

• Christina Hoff Sommers, American Enterprise Institute

• Dr. Clare Spark, Independent Scholar Los Angeles

• Sarah N. Stern, Founder and President, Endowment for Middle East Truth

• Linda Stulberg, Women United: Code Red, Michigan

• Dr. Wafa Sultan

• Allyson Rowen Taylor, Women United: Code Red, California

• Giti Thadani, New Delhi – India

• Virginia Thomas, President/CEO, Liberty Central

• Victoria Toensing, Former Chief Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and for Deputy Assistant Attorney General,  Department of
  Justice

• Diana West, Washington Examiner syndicated columnist and author

Women United invites women across America to sign onto this statement.

To become a signatory, please contact (212) 726-1124 or .  An updated list and copy of this letter can be viewed at