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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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.”

The 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: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/nea/136068.htm

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.