Member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Heritage: The texts of the Achaemenid tablets show that Iranian women and men had equal rights 2500 years ago

A member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Heritage pointed out the return of the Achaemenid tablets to the country, stating that the text of the tablets indicates that Iranian women and men had equal rights at that time. Mohammad Beheshti added that decoding these tablets, which were written in Elamite, shows that Iranian women and men enjoyed equal rights in wages and sick leave during that historical period. This comes as the UN Special Rapporteur recently described the status of women's rights in the Islamic Republic as 'gender apartheid' and called for international actions to hold accountable the authorities violating human rights and women's rights in Iran. On the other hand, Mohammad Beheshti, a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Heritage of the Islamic Republic, referred to the newly arrived shipment of Achaemenid tablets, which was loudly celebrated by supporters and media of the thirteenth government as 'the achievement of Raisi's trip to America,' stating that this was the fifth shipment of these tablets and that the process of returning these ancient artifacts to the country began in 1999. He noted that 'these ancient objects are often returned during the annual trips of presidents to New York' and added: 'The Achaemenid tablets were transferred to the United States during the reign of Reza Shah for the study of the scripts and their decoding by an American researcher, and after the revolution, some attempted to confiscate them due to political issues, but this did not materialize.' The Islamic Republic of Iran announced on Thursday, September 21, that after prolonged legal efforts to retrieve its ancient artifacts, thousands of clay tablets from the Achaemenid era were returned to Iran on a plane carrying Raisi from the United States. However, the statements made by Ebrahim Raisi, the president of the Islamic Republic, upon his return to Iran were met with widespread reactions from users on social media. Raisi thanked the 'Iranian Embassy in New York' for its efforts to retrieve these tablets on Thursday night after returning from America.