By: Robert Schmad, Daily Caller News Foundation
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) still plans to have Iran lead a human rights forum just weeks after Hamas, a group funded and trained by Iran, carried out terrorist attacks across Israel that killed at least 1,400 people.
The 2023 UNHRC Social Forum is set to take place between Nov. 2 and Nov. 3 and will focus “on the contribution of science, technology and innovation to the promotion of human rights, including in the context of post-pandemic recovery,” while being led by Iranian ambassador Ali Bahreini, UNHRC President Vaclav Balek announced in May. Iran killed hundreds of human rights protestors this year, provided material support to the terrorist group that killed more than 1,000 Israeli civilians and is designated by the State Department as a state sponsor of terror.
In addition to killing more than 1,000 people, Hamas kidnapped children and raped women, according to reports. The State Department said in 2021 that Iran funds, arms and trains Hamas.
The Israeli government says that Iran funnels roughly $100 million to Hamas a year, CNN reported.
Iran helped Hamas plan their attack on Israel, according to unnamed sources interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The United States has been unable to verify these reports and Iran denies direct involvement in the attacks, The Hill reported.
Iran did, however, praise Hamas’ attacks, saying they were “in line with the continuation of victories for the anti-Zionist resistance in different fields, including Syria, Lebanon and occupied lands,” according to Politico.
Hillel Neuer, a human rights lawyer who serves as the executive director of UN Watch, asked the UNHRC why it was allowing Iran to chair a forum on human rights despite its record on the matter.
“We have to ask, on what basis did this council appoint the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran as the chair of this UN Human Right Council’s Social Forum, starting on Nov. 2?” Neuer said. “We ask the United Nations, how can you elevate and celebrate a government the beats, blinds, tortures and rapes women for the crime of demanding their basic human rights?”
This isn’t the first time the UN has come under fire for its handling of Islamic terrorism.
Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called on the UN’s secretary general to resign after he said Hamas’ terror attacks “did not happen in a vacuum” and that the “Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” Fox News Digital reported.
“The shocking speech by the @UN Secretary-General at the Security Council meeting, while rockets are being fired at all of Israel, proved conclusively, beyond any doubt, that the Secretary-General is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner,” Erdan tweeted.
The UNHRC did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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