Geneva, November 3rd, 2023 – Drawing parallels to the Biblical story of Queen Esther, ECI’s Rebeka Goba called out the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran as “modern day Hamans”, as Iran took the chair of the two-day Social Forum of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Thursday afternoon. (Haman was the mastermind behind the evil plan to exterminate the Jews in the Book of Esther.)

“This regime has nothing else to offer its people and the people outside of Iran than death and destruction; still it has been appointed chair of the Social Forum of the UNHRC,” she said in a rally on Place des Nations in Geneva on Thursday afternoon as the Social Forum was being conducted inside the UN Palais des Nations.

“Letting this Social Forum be chaired by these modern-day Hamans contradicts the very purpose of the Human Rights Council and symbolizes a total surrender to the very values and principles that this body was established to uphold,” she said.

In a blog text in the Times of Israel on Wednesday, one day before the Social Forum officially kicked off, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell called on the European Union to remove Iran from its position as chair of the annual Social Forum, pointing out the inconsistency of giving prestigious human rights awards to those who are protesting for human rights and fundamental freedoms inside Iran while at the same time elevating those responsible for those same human rights violations, that is the Islamic Republic of Iran, to the chair of a human rights conference.

The two-day Social Forum of the UNHRC, which comes to a close today on Friday, November 3rd, focused on the contribution of science, technology and innovation to the promotion of human rights.