The rebellion in Iran, now in its seventh week, arrived on the United Nations on Wednesday with the Security Council holding a casual assembly to debate the federal government’s human rights violations towards protesters.

Western diplomats and rights activists are searching for to take away Iran from the U.N. company centered on ladies’s rights and to type an investigative physique beneath the auspices of the U.N.’s human rights council.

The United States and Albania collectively known as for the casual assembly of the Council, and all 15 member nations attended however many not on the ambassador degree.

“Our words are powerful. They hold weight. And Iranians must hear from us. We must give them our moral support,” mentioned Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The United States introduced it will start an initiative to take away Iran from the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women, a 45-member physique centered on gender equality and the empowerment of ladies.

Vice President Kamala Harris, in a tweet posted Wednesday, mentioned: “Given Iran’s brutal crackdown on women and girls protesting peacefully for their rights, Iran is unfit to serve on this commission. To the protestors: We see you and we hear you.”

Iran is within the midst of a women-led rebellion demanding the tip of clerical rule with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom.” The nationwide protests have been set off by the dying of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police for violating the nation’s obligatory hijab regulation.

Amini’s dying, which her household says was attributable to blows to her head by the police, introduced into sharp focus the systematic abuse that Iranian ladies have endured beneath the present authorities. Women’s rights activists have labored for greater than 4 a long time, with little tangible enchancment, to vary discriminatory legal guidelines on points starting from the obligatory hijab to inheritance, divorce, journey and custody rights.

Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, spoke to the Council on Wednesday, urging the worldwide neighborhood to “stand on the right side of history” by placing stress on Iran, recalling their ambassadors from Tehran and holding the federal government there accountable.

“Many young people in Iran were killed for freedom and democracy; don’t let their Islamic Republic impose more grief on people’s lives,” Ebadi mentioned by way of reside video to the Council. “They will not settle for anything but a democratic and secular government.”

Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, mentioned in an announcement to reporters that “the objective of today’s meeting is clearly to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state,” and accused the United States of spreading disinformation about his nation’s dealing with of the protests.

Videos from Iran have proven safety forces violently attacking unarmed protesters with gunfire, beating them with batons and throwing tear fuel at them at funerals, on the streets, and at universities and excessive faculties. Rights teams say a minimum of 250 folks, together with 32 youngsters and youngsters, have been killed.

Javaid Rehman, the U.N.’s particular rapporteur on the state of affairs of human rights in Iran, informed the Council that within the absence of any home channels for accountability, the worldwide neighborhood should act.

“I would call for the prompt establishment of an independent investigative mechanism to investigate all human rights violations leading up to and since the death of Mahsa Amini,” Rehman mentioned.

China and Russia, everlasting members of the Council and allies of Iran, mentioned that the Council shouldn’t meddle in a sovereign nation’s inner affairs and that its oversight was restricted to issues of worldwide peace and safety.

Gabon, a nonpermanent member, mentioned it condemned the violence focusing on ladies and supported impartial investigations, however added that human rights shouldn’t be politicized. The United Arab Emirates mentioned that gender disparity was a problem throughout the globe and that human rights have been the enterprise of sovereign states.

Ferit Hoxha, Albania’s U.N. ambassador and the co-chair of Wednesday’s assembly, spoke of his private expertise of being raised beneath a communist dictatorship. He mentioned he needed to ship Iranians within the streets a message to not be discouraged.

“Few would dare to think that one day we would have a better life, a second chance,” Hoxha mentioned of his youth in Albania. “The regime crumbled; guess who was on the front line? The youth, the students were there, and as a result, we all had a second life.”