Diplomats and NGO representatives staged a mass walkout at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in Geneva on Monday, as the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian took to the podium to address the council.
The walkout was prompted by calls from activists, many using the hashtag #walkoutIRI, who demanded the symbolic action as a protest against the regime’s sustained human rights violations, especially in the months following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini on 16th September 2022, as tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets across the country to demand a change of government.
In a Twitter post, the Belgian-Iranian politician and human rights activist Darya Safai wrote that the regime ‘have a lot of blood of young people, who stood up for freedom, on their hands’.
Meanwhile, Iran International reports that a number of European governments have held formal meetings with Abdollahian in Geneva, including Belgium and Finland, to the disappointment of activists.
Foreign minister of Belgium, @hadjalahbib who cut her hair in solidarity with #MahsaAmini and us Iranian women a few months ago, now welcomes our oppressors in Europe. Iranian women are still getting poisoned, jailed, raped, blinded and killed, for the crime of #WalkingUnveiled… https://t.co/3Ybw6xAMrM pic.twitter.com/G86bm1DwHb
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 27, 2023