Iran Notches U.N. Leadership Roles

Iran was appointed to a leadership role within the U.N. Human Rights Council today, as one of the country’s diplomats was tapped to lead the body’s “Social Forum.”

Hillel Neuer, the head of the U.N. watchdog U.N. Watch, posted a letter from Human Rights Council president Vaclav Balek on Wednesday, in which he announced that Ambassador Ali Bahreini of Iran would lead the next gathering of the Social Forum in November.

The forum is a gathering that convenes U.N members, non-governmental organizations, and other international organizations for a discussion every year. The next forum’s focus is “the contribution of science, technology and innovation to the promotion of human rights, including in the context of post-pandemic recovery.”

This isn’t the first U.N. body in which Iran has recently won a prominent role. U.N. members elected Iran to the Commission on the Status of Women in 2021, though it was later removed after the Iranian regime met mass protests last year with indiscriminate violence.

With those demonstrations now largely quashed, Iran has somewhat rehabilitated its reputation at the U.N. and won other posts, and Neuer criticized the U.S. and other countries for failing to block Iran’s appointment to those posts. “The criminal regime in Iran—which tortures protesters, poisons schoolgirls and spreads terrorism worldwide—was recently elected to the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention. While the U.S. and allies did stop Russia from getting elected, on Iran they said and did nothing,” he wrote.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Neuer called on the U.S. to convene the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council to reverse Iran’s appointment to the commission on crime prevention.