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Sunday, February 12, 2017 3:02 pm unwatch 0 52k

GENEVA, Feb. 13, 2017 In a statement that has gone viral on Twitter and Facebook, UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights NGO in Geneva, expressed disappointment that Swedens self-declared first feminist government in the world sacrificed its principles and betrayed the rights of Iranian women as Trade Minister Ann Linde and other female members walked before Iranian President Rouhani on Saturday wearing Hijabs, Chadors, and long coats, in deference to Irans oppressive and unjust modesty laws which make the Hijab compulsory despite Stockholms promise to promote a gender equality perspective internationally, and to adopt a feminist foreign policy in which equality between women and men is a fundamental aim.

In doing so, Swedens female leaders ignored the recent appeal by Iranian womens right activist Masih Alinejad who urged Europeans female politicians to stand for their own dignity and to refuse to kowtow to the compulsory Hijab while visiting Iran.

Alinrejad created a Facebook page for Iranian women to resist the law and show their hair as an act of resistance, which now numbers 1 million followers.

European female politicians are hypocrites, says Alinejad. They stand with French Muslim women and condemn the burkini banbecause they think compulsion is badbut when it happens to Iran, they just care about money.

The scene in Tehran on Saturday was also a sharp contrast to Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lvins feminist stance against U.S. President Donald Trump, in a viral tweet and then in a Guardian op-ed last week, in which she wrote that the world need strong leadership for womens rights.

Trade Minister Linde, who signed multiple agreements with Iranian ministers while wearing a veil, sees no conflict between her governments human rights policy and signing trade deals with an oppressive dictatorship that tortures prisoners, persecutes gays, and is a leading executioner of minors.

If Sweden really cares about human rights, they should not be empowering a regime that brutalizes its own citizens while carrying out genocide in Syria; and if they care about womens rights, then the female ministers never should have gone to misogynistic Iran in the first place, said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

The government has now come under sharp criticism from centrist and left-wing Swedish lawmakers, who said the ministers should not have deferred to gender apartheid.

They go to my country, said Aliinejad recently in the European Parliament, and they ignore millions of those women who send their photos to me and put themselves in danger to be heard. And [the European politicians] keep their smile, and wearing hijab, and saying this is a cultural issuewhich is wrong.

Below, Swedens feminist trademinister Ann Linde dons the hijab and wears a black cloak like her Iranian counterpart.

Writing in the Guardian, Deputy prime ministerLvin contrasted Swedish policy with that of President Donald Trump,sayingthat the world needs strong leadership for womens rights and Sweden will have an increasingly important role to play in this. She added that many countries could learn an important lesson from this.

Her viral tweet above was meant to emphasize her governments focus on womens rights, as opposed to Trump.

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Walk of shame: Sweden's first feminist government don hijabs in Iran - UN Watch (press release)