By Reuter from Washington Post July 21, 1995

GENEVA -- China and Iran won their battles yesterday to bar accreditation to opposition groups that wanted to attend governmental meetings at the upcoming U.N. women's conference in Beijing.

It remains to be seen whether the Tibetan and Iranian exile groups, along with other private organizations that have drawn objections from various governments, will be given visas so they can attend a parallel conference of women's nongovernmental organizations in Beijing. China maintains that Tibet, which it invaded in 1950, is part of China and that Tibetan women are represented by the official Chinese delegation. Five Tibetan groups were among 19 private organizations whose participation in the official conference was challenged by China, Iran, India, Iraq, Sudan and Bhutan.

Iran persuaded the United Nations not to accredit six private groups to the conference on grounds they advocated violence and were linked to terrorism. The decisions were made by the U.N. Economic and Social Council and announced by its chairman, Ahmad Kamal of Pakistan.

The Fourth World Conference on Women, set for Sept. 4-15, has been beset by controversies. The parallel meeting of private groups seeking to influence the conference's positions on such key issues as poverty and violence against women was moved to an unfinished site 30 miles outside of Beijing.

China and other countries objected to dozens of private groups after the U.N. General Assembly adopted a set of rules to evaluate their applications. A total of 2,182 groups were accredited but controversy continued behind closed doors over 19 organizations. In the end, only eight of them were accredited.