Not Allies, Nor Technicalities Could Save Iran In UN Body
Despite all the tactics the Islamic Republic used to keep its seat at the UN women’s commission, the international community dealt another blow over its rights violations.
Despite all the tactics the Islamic Republic used to keep its seat at the UN women’s commission, the international community dealt another blow over its rights violations.
In its last session of the year, 29 members of the 54-member UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted in favor of a US-drafted resolution to "remove with immediate effect the Islamic Republic of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term."
The move was the first time in United Nations history that a country was expelled from the commission, and the second blow to the Islamic Republic over its brutal crackdown on protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody of hijab police. The first step to hold the Islamic Republic accountable was creating a fact-finding mission by the Human Rights Council. The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council voted on November 24 to launch an independent investigation into the regime’s deadly repression that has killed around 500 civilians, including about 60 children.
Iran had tried its best to keep itself part of the commission through rallying its allies and a behind-the-scenes campaign to exert pressure on academic figures to send letters to numerous global bodies to urge them vote against the move. However, the result of was not unexpected as the regime’s membership in the commission was repeatedly condemned even before the current wave of protests.
During the Wednesday session, the Islamic Republic and its friends, including China and Russia, argued that the expulsion of Iran sets a precedent that may be used against other members in the future. As usual, Tehran’s main strategy was not to address the problem directly but instead accuse other countries of human rights violations.
Another strategy of the pro-Tehran camp was to count on countries that have grievances against the US. Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani called the move illegal, describing the United States as a bully. "The US request is entirely illegal, as the Council members are fully aware that there is no precedent in the council practice of terminating an elected member's participation in a functional commission for any other reason,” Iravani said.
The Russian envoy also tried to make the best use of UN technicalities to stop the vote, asking for a legal review of the draft, but Moscow’s motion was annulled by a quick vote before the main decision.
China's Deputy UN Ambassador Geng Shuang said, "Addressing human rights and women's issues by means of removing Iran from CSW would only set a dangerous precedent, send out the wrong message and bring about negative consequences."
The countries in favor of expelling Iran from the CSW were of the opinion that its membership would be a stain on the name of the commission as the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The text of the draft resolution denounced Iran's policies as "flagrantly contrary to the human rights of women and girls and to the mandate of the Commission on the Status of Women."
Referring to the Iranian protesters, US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told ECOSOC that "These women and activists have appealed to us, the United Nations, for support. They made their requests to us loud and clear -- remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women.”
She argued that it cannot do its important work “if it's being undermined from within. Iran's membership at this moment is an ugly stain on the commission's credibility.” She noted, “There are few, obviously, right and wrong answers in diplomacy. But today, today we have an opportunity to do something that is clearly the right thing to do. We can act in this moment to support women. We can act in direct response to our constituents, the global community of women.”
The move has been welcomed by many Western countries, many Iranians and activists. In a statement after the vote, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan described it as yet “another sign of the growing international consensus on Iran and demands for accountability.”
“Over the last week alone, the United States has issued three separate sets of sanctions targeting Iran’s financing of terror, protest-related human rights violations, and provision of UAVs to Russia for attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. We have acted in coordination with the EU, UK, Canada, Australia, and others who have issued new sanctions under their own authorities," read the statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid also praised the decision, saying, "Iran's killing of Mahsa Amini and its blatant violations of women's rights disqualify it from being a member of a committee that deals with women's rights.”
Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion, whose daughter and wife were killed by the IRGC, also hailed the action, calling the regime authorities “the enemies of women, life and freedom.”
Former Donald Trump State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus tweeted, “Victory! The Iranian regime has been kicked off the UN Women’s Commission! At last, a small but important measure of accountability against the Islamic Republic of Iran for their gender apartheid and crimes against women."
Iranians in several cities, including the capital Tehran and in the Kurdish city of Saqqez, the hometown of Mahsa Amini, poured out onto streets celebrating the decision. Most of them see this as a victory because it may lead to more international measures, or at least make the regime retreat from its iron-fisted crackdown.
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This flow of information comes despite efforts by the Iranian regime to throttle internet access and censor information leaving the country.
One effective method the protesters have hit on has been to use TikTok, the video-sharing app better known for young people posting clips of themselves singing and dancing. The way video clips are shared on the social media platform and the protesters’ clever use of labeling have helped activists circumvent the information blockade of Iran’s tech-savvy security services and reach a wide audience.
As a researcher who studies young people and participatory culture – art and information produced by nonspecialists, including fan fiction and citizen journalism – I believe that TikTok is proving to be an effective tool of political activism in the face of severe repression.
Key to its effectiveness is how TikTok works. Each TikTok video recorded by the user is typically 60 seconds or shorter and loops when finished. Other users can edit or “stitch” someone else’s TikTok video into their own. Users can also create a split screen or “duet” TikTok video, with the original video on one side of the screen and their own on the other.
Stitching and duetting
To use TikTok, a protester in Iran typically uses multihop virtual private networks, meaning VPNs that send internet traffic through multiple servers, to route around government internet blackouts just long enough to post a video to TikTok. There, TikTok users who support the protester “like” the video thousands of times, stitch it into other videos, and duet it to then be liked, stitched and duetted again and again.
In the process, identifying information about the original poster is obscured. Within minutes the protester becomes anonymous even as the message spreads. Even if the video is flagged for violating TikTok’s community guidelines, its sharers like and incorporate its duets too quickly for TikTok to remove the original content from the platform completely.
In one video that has received over 620,000 views, Iranian-American attorney Elica Le Bon urges viewers to share all Iranian content to make sure the world keeps paying attention. In another, TikTok user @gal_lynette directs her 35,000 followers to instantly duet videos made by Iranian women as a form of citizen journalism to “keep their reporting – their story … alive.”
Gaming the algorithms
Elsewhere, TikTok user @m0rr1gu tells her 44,000 followers how to share that content without triggering community guidelines violations. This advice includes using “algospeak,” or code, for bypassing community guidelines violations. For TikTokkers boosting Iranian content, this means altering the word “Iran” in captions, among other tactics.
Gaming TikTok’s algorithm helps ensure that the people most likely to share this content can find it. For example, Iranian-American TikTokker Yeganeh Mafaher tapped a recent celebrity scandal’s virality by titling a video “Adam Levine Also DMd Me,” only to announce “Okay, now that I have your attention, the internet is going to be cut off in Ir@n.”
By removing the word “Iran” but leaving Levine’s name searchable, Yeganeh was gaming the algorithm to help her retain her viewers who were seeking Iranian content while also “hashbaiting” additional users who were following the celebrity scandal. Up to that point, Yeganeh’s most-viewed revolution-related video was a history of hijab laws that garnered nearly 341,000 views. The Levine video exceeded 1.6 million.
Yeganeh’s account had previously recorded her experiences as an Iranian-American citizen and attracted followers interested in Iranian culture. After Amini’s death, she credited her followers with boosting her account to the point that she was interviewed by cable news host Chris Cuomo on NewsNation to discuss the uprising.
Song of a movement
A key element of a TikTok video is its audio track or “sound,” often a song that provides a thematic thread across stitched and duetted videos. The sound of many of the videos depicting the events in Iran, with more than 11.7 million views, is the song “Baraye” by Iranian singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour.
The song’s lyrics are derived from a string of Farsi tweets that detail Iranians’ reasons for revolution. Hajipour was detained because of the song but was later released. “Baraye” has since become a global protest ballad.
Worried for Hajipour’s safety, TikTokkers supporting the uprising united in an effort to shield him from backlash by posting thousands of videos directing users to nominate “Baraye” for the Grammy’s newest special merits award, best song for social change. In October, the song had received 83% of the 115,000 nominations, which has increased international attention on Hajipour and the song.
“Baraye” and related hashtags are shared resources that help make TikTok a platform for participatory politics. As the world watches Iran, TikTokkers game the platform’s algorithms to amplify Iranians’ videos beyond the reach of the Iranian government.
There are active TikTok campaigns for everything from Grammy nominations to scripting emails to local representatives and global leaders. Videos teach laypeople to discreetly host Iranian web traffic and direct users to local protests. They share petitions for G-7 leaders to expel Iran’s diplomats and the U.N. to hold the Iranian government accountable for its crimes against international law. As state executions of protesters have begun in Iran, the #StopExecutionsInIran campaign has clocked over 100 million views on TikTok.
These interactive tools and the platform’s algorithm for promoting content are what transformed TikTok from teen dance app to powerful global platform for protest and political action. While much is uncertain as Iranians fight for change and their supporters worldwide flood an unlikely platform to boost their voices, one thing seems likely: The revolution may not be televised, but it will be liked, stitched and duetted.
British Foreign Minister James Cleverly said during a session at the parliament on Tuesday that the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), in partnership with the Home Office, had ensured that the Iranian journalists were protected by the British police.
“The UK remains absolutely determined to ensure that Iran does not intimidate people within this country. We will always stand up to the aggression from foreign nations,” he noted, adding, “We will absolutely not tolerate threats, particularly towards journalists who are highlighting what is going on in Iran, or indeed any other individual living in the UK.”
One day later, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib in a television interview repeated threats to “punish all those” who had a role in popular protests against the regime, wherever they might be.
Khatib on November 9 had said the Islamic Republic regards Iran International as “a terrorist organization,” adding that its workers and anyone affiliated with the channel will be pursued by the Ministry of Intelligence all over the globe.
In November, Volant Media, the parent company of Iran International, said that two of its journalists had been notified of direct threats. It said in a statement the Metropolitan Police had formally notified both journalists that these threats represent an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families. Ken McCallum — the head of MI5, the UK’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency -- said on November 16 that UK authorities have discovered at least 10 “potential threats” since January to “kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.”
Expressing the UK’s commitment to hold the Islamic Republic to account, Cleverly said, “These protests in Iran are a watershed moment. After years of repression, the Iranian people have clearly had enough. They are standing up to the authoritarian regime under which they live. Sadly, the regime has responded in the only way it knows: with violence.”
He went on to say the UK has imposed more than 300 sanctions -- including sanctioning the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in its entirety, adding “We will continue to work with partners to challenge the regime’s aggression at home and its disruptive behavior in the region.”
Declining to disclose plans to hit the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) with further punitive measures after Iran International staff were given armed police protection, he said that it was “counterproductive to detail what future sanctions and designations might be brought in to ensure that the targets of those sanctions do not in any way try to evade the sanctions before they’re brought in”.
Also on Tuesday, UK security minister Tom Tugendhat said that Britain is facing growing interference, threats and influence from state actors including Iran, warning the “emerging era of state-based threats” poses “a challenge to our future and to our society” as well as to freedom of speech in the UK and residents' way of life. “They are threats not just to life — they are threats to our way of life,” he said at London-based think tank Policy Exchange.
The security minister said the Islamic regime’s crackdown on anyone it perceives as a threat to its authority had extended to Britain, noting that “Iran's malign behavior in the Middle East directly threatens our partners and our interests.”
“They are brutally suppressing courageous people in the streets who are calling for an end to the control of a corrupt and corrupted religious security elite claiming authority from God. All of this is clear, much of it has been clear for some time. What’s new is that we’re seeing this grow at home,” he said.
“Since Ken McCallum’s speech just a few weeks ago we’ve seen even more out of Iran,” Tugendhat said. “This is not and has not yet finished.”
Faced with nationwide antigovernment protests since mid-September, the Islamic Republic has blamed foreign-based Persian broadcasters such as BBC Persian and Iran International of “fomenting unrest”, while all media in the country are under tight government control and present protesters as “rioters” and “terrorists”.