UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warns of a

Volker Tuerk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, has issued a warning against what he terms the "systematic countering of women's rights and gender equality" in many parts of the world.

Tuerk stated in an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse that he was extremely concerned about the recent "backsliding and pushbacks" he has witnessed against women, notably on social media.

We can see that in social media, for instance, where sexist and misogynistic remarks appear to be tolerated and even flourish, according to the speaker.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan is the "worst of the worst," according to Tuerk, who also referred to their oppression of women as "unparalleled."

The Taliban already broke their commitments to permit women and girls to pursue higher education, and they recently outlawed women from working for humanitarian groups.

The international community must "act in the strongest possible solidarity with the women and girls of Afghanistan, and we need to make sure that this cannot become the norm in the future," the human rights director urged.

Tuerk has also expressed interest in travelling to Iran, where demonstrations have erupted since September, when Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody after reportedly breaking the nation's strict dress code for women. He claimed that he had not yet received a response from the Iranian authorities.

If given permission to travel, Tuerk said he would once more demand an end to "discriminatory acts against women and girls" and bring up the issue of the government's ruthless suppression of the protests. The use of the death penalty in conjunction with the protests really alarmed him.

According to him, "under no conditions at all" the death sentence "must definitely not be utilised in this type of scenario."

Nearly 500 people have reportedly died in the crackdown, according to Oslo-based watchdog Iran Human Rights, while hundreds have been detained.

Tuerk called for a "global consensus" on how to deal with false information and hate speech, how to counter it on social media platforms, how to ensure they act responsibly and "don't add fuel to the fire, to conflict situations, or the backlash that we saw on gender issues," in addition to the systematic measures taken by states.

The U.N. human rights head saw these misogynistic acts as "a last attempt by patriarchy to display its force" against the global movement for women's empowerment and gender parity.

He stated: "They cannot stop the birth of the new world, and I have a very strong belief that patriarchy is not the way of the future, so this will be a thing of the past. It needs to be recorded in the annals of history."