UN REMOVES Iran from women's rights body following regime's morality police protest crackdown 

Majidreza Rahnavard (left) had been sentenced to death by a court in the city of Mashhad for killing two members of the security forces with a knife, and wounding four other people, the judiciary's Mizan Online news agency reported. The hanging also came only four days after Mohsen Shekari (right) was executed on Thursday

Two protesters were killed in Nasiriyah in clashes with security forces at a rally after an activist was handed a jail term, authorities said

This is a breaking news story, more to follow... 

The United Nations today removed Iran from its women's rights body over the Islamic regime's brutal crackdown of protests.

Twenty-nine members of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted to expel the Islamic republic from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW).

Eight countries voted against and 16 abstained. A simple majority was needed to adopt the move, which had been proposed by the United States.

The commission meets annually every March and aims to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Member countries vote on the removal of Iran from membership in the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Wednesday 

The decision comes after Tehran on Monday executed a second man in connection with protests that have shaken the regime for months, defying an international outcry over its use of capital punishment against those involved in the movement.

The protests were sparked by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian arrested by the morality police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women. 

Majidreza Rahnavard, 23, had been sentenced to death by a court in the city of Mashhad for killing two members of the security forces with a knife, and wounding four other people, the judiciary's Mizan Online news agency reported.

It was the second execution in less than a week of people involved in protests against Iran's ruling theocracy.

Mizan published images of Rahnavard's execution, showing a man with his hands tied behind his back hanging from a rope attached to a crane.

He was executed just over three weeks after he was arrested in November, rights groups said.

The hanging also came only four days after Mohsen Shekari, also 23, was executed on Thursday on charges of wounding a member of the security forces in the first case of the death penalty being used against a protester. 

He admitted to striking a member of the Basij militia with a knife and to blocking a road with his motorbike alongside one of his friends.

Human rights groups said Shekari was tortured and forced to confess.

The executions drew a sharp rebuke from the United States, with State Department spokesman Ned Price saying they 'underscore how much the Iranian leadership actually fears its own people'.

The director of Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said Rahnavard 'was sentenced to death based on coerced confessions after a... show trial'.

The office of the UN rights commissioner said it was 'appalled' by the news of Rahnavard's execution.

Professor Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, this week called on the international community to apply pressure on the regime to prevent any further executions. 

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told ECOSOC before the vote that removing Iran from the committee was the right thing to do, describing Tehran's membership as an ugly stain on the commission's credibility.'

Iran, 17 other states and the Palestinians had argued in a letter to ECOSOC on Monday that a vote 'will undoubtedly create an unwelcome precedent that will ultimately prevent other Member States with different cultures, customs and traditions... from contributing to the activities of such Commissions.'

Their letter urged members not to back the draft vote to avoid a 'new trend for expelling sovereign and rightfully elected states from any given body of the international system'.

Only five of the signatories to the letter are currently ECOSOC members and were able to vote on Wednesday.

Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani called the US move illegal, describing the United States as a bully.

Activists and rights groups had said Tehran's role in the commission on the status of women was not one to be seriously considered, considering the regime's forces have killed and beaten women calling for gender equality in a peaceful manner.

The nationwide protests triggered by Amini's death have turned into a popular revolt by furious Iranians from all layers of society, posing one of the most significant legitimacy challenges to the Shi'ite clerical elite since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran calls the protests 'riots' and says they have been encouraged by its foreign foes.

The protesters deny any foreign agenda and say they are fed up after decades of social and political repression by leaders they view as corrupt and out of touch. 

At least 494 protesters have been killed since September and more than 18,000 have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been closely monitoring the unrest.~

It says at least 62 security forces have been killed. Iranian authorities have given a far higher death toll for security personnel, blaming attacks on unnamed separatists and militants.

The Geneva-based UN Rights Council voted last month to appoint an independent investigation into Iran's deadly repression of protests, passing the motion to cheers of activists. 

Tehran accused Western states of using the council to target Iran in an 'appalling and disgraceful' move.

The UN says more than 300 people have been killed in the crackdown, including at least 40 children. 

Medics told the Guardian that women are being singled out at protests, with security forces firing shotguns at their faces, breasts and genitals.

The Tehran regime has imprisoned hundreds and begun what is expected to be a campaign of public executions. 

Amnesty International believes 20 more people are at risk of execution for alleged offences in connection with the protests

Security forces have cracked down on the demonstrations, with rights groups accusing them of firing live ammunition, bird shot and tear gas at protesters, as well as beating and arresting them.

EU ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday stepped up sanctions on Iran over the crackdown.

The targets of the new EU sanctions included state broadcaster IRIB, its director and a TV news anchor for airing forced confessions of detainees.

Army commander-in-chief Abdolrahim Mousavi, the deputy interior minister, and regional commanders of the Revolutionary Guard Corps were also hit with asset freezes and visa bans.

Iran sought to preempt the EU move by imposing sanctions of its own against the heads of the UK's domestic spy agency and military, along with British and German political figures.

Iran is already the world's most prolific user of the death penalty after China, Amnesty International says. Public executions are however highly unusual in the Islamic republic, and one in July was described by IHR as the first in two years.

Iran's use of the death penalty is part of a crackdown that IHR says has seen the security forces kill at least 458 people. 

According to the UN, at least 14,000 have been arrested.

Prior to the two executions, Iran's judiciary said it had issued death sentences to 11 people in connection with the protests, but campaigners say around a dozen others face charges that could see them also receive the death penalty.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday halted the execution of a third individual, Mahan Sedarat, according to Mizan, the official news agency of the judiciary.

Earlier this month, Sedarat's family told the reformist newspaper Shargh that his death sentence had been confirmed. 

He was accused of wounding someone with a knife, acting against national security, setting a motorbike on fire and destroying a mobile phone. His family said he denied the charges.

Like the other two, he was convicted of 'moharebeh,' a Farsi word meaning 'waging war against God,' which carries the death penalty. 

He was tried in Revolutionary Court, which typically holds closed-door trials and has come under heavy international criticism.

Italy's foreign minister said on Wednesday he would summon the new Iranian ambassador to condemn 'in the strongest terms' the ongoing violation of fundamental rights and freedoms in Iran.

'I want to summon the Iranian ambassador-designate as soon as he has presented his credentials to the head of state,' Antonio Tajani told parliament.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi vowed on Friday to press on with a security crackdown on protesters a day after the execution of a man over recent anti-government unrest that drew a chorus of Western condemnation.

'The identification, trial and punishment of the perpetrators of the martyrdom (killing) of security forces will be pursued with determination,' Raisi said at a ceremony honouring security forces killed during protests, according to state media.

Amnesty International has said Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 21 people in what it called 'sham trials designed to intimidate those participating in the popular uprising that has rocked Iran'.