By Natasha Phillips
Afsaneh Nadipour, Tehran’s former ambassador to Denmark, has been nominated to sit on the advisory committee of the United Nations Human Rights Council, drawing criticism from pro-democracy groups. While she was serving as ambassador, Nadipour was accused by Denmark of trying to force Islamic-style divorces on Iranian women living in the country.
NUFDI is alarmed by the regime in Iran’s nomination of Afsaneh Nadipour to the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. This is a travesty of human rights.🧵 pic.twitter.com/piXYcR6jd9
— National Union for Democracy in Iran (@NUFDIran) August 26, 2025
The Islamic Republic nominated Nadipour, who is currently one of four women out of a total of nine nominees. The election will take place during the council’s 60th session, which started on Sept. 8 and finishes on Oct. 8 this year. The committee is made up of 18 advisors who serve for a three-year period and are eligible to be reelected once.
It is “worth noting” that “when Afsaneh Nadipour, who may become a member of @UN_HRC‘s advisory committee, was #Iran‘s regime’s ambassador to Denmark, there were reports that the Iranian embassy in Copenhagen pressured Iranian women living there to accept divorce terms blessed by local imams which would result in them losing custody of their children, contrary to Danish law,” Jason Brodsky, an analyst at the Washington-based think tank the Wilson Center and a former Policy Fellow at the White House said in an Aug. 28 post on social media platform X.
“This is transnational repression and should disqualify Nadipour from this advisory committee,” he added.
Nadipour was the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ambassador to Denmark from October 2020 until October 2024. She was summoned by Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod in October 2020 to address reports that the Iranian embassy had contacted Iranian women living in Denmark to accept divorce agreements drafted up by imams in the country.
In October 2023, she wrote a letter which rejected criticisms about gender equality in Iran made in an online conference by 16 female foreign ministers from around the world. The criticisms followed the death of Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, 2022 while in police custody for allegedly flouting mandatory hijab laws.
Nadipour was the target of an attempted attack at the Iranian embassy in Denmark in June 2023 by an assailant with a knife. The suspect was apprehended by an embassy worker who was injured during the incident, and subsequently taken into custody.
From 2018 to January 2020, Nadipour held a role as the special assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Citizenship Rights, according to her curriculum vitae. She worked at The Hague from 2015 to 2017 as a counsellor for the legal department of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Nadipour also worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2013 to 2015 as a senior negotiator.
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The election process for advisory committee members to the U.N. Human Rights Council consists of nominations submitted by U.N. Member States, who can nominate or propose candidates from their own country. The council encourages members to nominate women candidates to support a balanced, gender-based representation within the committee.
The nomination has been criticized by several other people on social media.
“Afsaneh Nadipour served a regime that commits gross and systematic persecution of women, in both law and in practice,” said Hillel Nueuer, executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. Watch (a non-governmental organization monitoring UN activity) in an Aug. 26 post on X. “Afsaneh Nadipour served a regime that requires a woman to receive permission from her father to get married. The legal age for a girl to marry in Iran is 13—with even younger girls allowed to marry with paternal and judicial consent.”
“Afsaneh Nadipour served Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime which imprisons courageous women’s rights activists for the crime of peacefully demanding their human dignity,” Neuer added. “Why, then, is the U.N. electing one of the world’s worst oppressors of women as a world judge on human rights?
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Meanwhile, the Washington-based advocacy group the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) said in an Aug. 26 post on X: “NUFDI is alarmed by the regime in Iran’s nomination of Afsaneh Nadipour to the U.N. Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. This is a travesty of human rights.”
