“violation of human rights”
Baerbock condemns attacks on women in Iran
09/22/2022, 6:12 p.m
Foreign Minister Baerbock wants to strengthen the rights of women worldwide. That should be the core of your work. There is a lot of catching up to do in many countries, said the minister. The situation in Iran, where a young woman recently died, is an example of this.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wants to advance the strengthening of women’s rights as a central element of international politics. “Feminist foreign policy is not a European or Western concept. It is a universal human rights concept,” said the Green politician at an event on feminist foreign policy on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Baerbock named women’s health and reproductive rights as issues of global importance.
Many countries are lagging behind when it comes to women’s health and their reproductive rights, criticized Baerbock, who has been the first woman and mother of two little girls to head the Foreign Office in Berlin for nine months. There is often a fundamental violation of human rights here. If you imagine that there are national or European regulations and laws that say that men are not allowed to do what they want with their bodies – there would be an outcry all over the world, said the minister. “When women are safe, everyone in society is safe,” said Baerbock, one of the central approaches in her concept.
Conversely, “if women are not safe, no one in a country is safe” – this is shown, for example, by the “brutal attack on the courageous women in Iran,” says Baerbock. After the death of a 22-year-old in police custody, there are demonstrations there to denounce the death of the woman and to demand clarification. The young woman was arrested by the moral and religious police last Tuesday because of her “un-Islamic outfit”. She fell into a coma and died in a hospital on Friday. According to the police, the young woman had heart problems and fainted at the station.
Germany wants to call the Human Rights Council
“This is a disregard for women’s rights and thus human rights,” said Baerbock. “That’s why we in the Federal Republic of Germany will also bring this break with women’s rights and thus human rights to the United Nations Human Rights Council.” Germany stands “on the side of the courageous women in Iran”.
The head of the Munich Security Conference, Christoph Heusgen, also called for support for the protest movements in Iran. “What is very important: We must continue to see that Iran is also isolated in foreign policy,” says Heusgen on the program “Frühstart” (you can see it tomorrow morning on ntv). Asked about the courageous women’s demonstrations and how dangerous the protests could be for the leadership in the country, Heusgen says: “This time I see a very special anger that also rose up in the people. There are first cities where the Police in a sense of solidarity.” Heusgen says of the demonstrators: “I very much hope that they will prevail and that the regime will falter.”
According to Iranian state television, 17 people have died since the protests began in Iran on Friday last week. According to the Iran Human Rights (IHR) organization based in Oslo, 31 people were killed.
Baerbock sees the feminist foreign policy she promotes as a central approach to the international enforcement of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. She repeatedly emphasizes that women’s rights are an indicator of the free and democratic state of society.