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Mahan commercial flight 063, carrying Ali Daei's wife and daughter, which had left Tehran airport at 11:15 am local time for Dubai, was grounded by security personnel at Kish airport in a strange and rare act.

Eyewitnesses have told Iran International that the security agents forced Daei’s family to disembark saying that they cannot leave the country.

In response to the incident, Daei said, “Today, my wife and daughter legally boarded a plane from Imam Khomeini Airport [in Tehran] to go to Dubai, but the plane was returned from Dubai and landed in Kish to drop off my daughter and wife.”

He added that they are not arrested, but if the family was banned from leaving Iran, the police should have told them upon passport check.

Ali Daei is a hero for Iranians as he was an international soccer legend and the captain of the national team from 2000-2006. His record of 109 international goals was broken only 2021 by Cristiano Ronaldo.

“No one has given me an answer. I really don't know what the reason is for such moves. Did they want to arrest a terrorist? My wife and daughter were going to Dubai for a trip and their return flight was on Monday,” noted Daei.

“It’s hard to believe! They passed through the passport control and boarded the plane quite legally, but they [security forces] returned so many passengers from Dubai to drop off my wife and daughter. If there was a problem, why didn't they arrest them? If there is no problem, why did they bring them back?” Daei reacted.

However, state-run news agencies Tasnim and ISNA have quoted an “informed source” as saying that Ali Daei's wife had been barred from leaving Iran “because of inviting people to go on nationwide strikes, but she had managed to revoke the ban through an unlawful way.”

Daei's wife was barred from traveling to Dubai before leaving Iran upon a Judicial order and a decision by the National Security Council headed by the President, the news agencies claimed.

The Islamic Republic's Judiciary alleges that Daei's wife had previously pledged to inform security organs of her decision to travel abroad in advance. However, once the relevant authorities learned about the flight, the plane carrying her was forced to land in Kish.

It’s not clear where the plane has headed after dropping off Daei’s wife and daughter – whether it continued to Dubai or flew back to Tehran.

Many other legendary Iranian soccer players such as Ali Karimi, who is abroad and Mahdi Mahdavi-Kia, Karim Bagheri, Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, and others are supporting the protest movement.

Earlier this month, security forces sealed a jewelry shop and restaurant belonging to Ali Daei after he shut down his businesses to join anti-government strikes.

Daei had also revealed he was threatened after throwing his weight behind the anti-regime protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in mid-September.

The nationwide protests in Iran have continued for 101 days with regime forces killing hundreds of people and detaining thousands of others, including football players and celebrities.

Earlier, Daei decided not to travel to Qatar to attend the World Cup 2022 due to the brutality and deadly force used by the government against unarmed protesters.

Iran has accused Western countries, Israel and Saudi Arabia of fomenting the unrest by people from all walks of life in the country, one of the most sustained challenges to the country's ruling theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Asked by a reporter to comment on Sunday's announcement in Tehran of the arrest of seven people linked to Britain, foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said: "Some countries, especially the one you mentioned, had an unconstructive role regarding the recent developments in Iran.

"Their role was totally destructive and incited the riots."

London’s Metropolitan police detained a man Monday near the office of Iran International under the Terrorism Act after warnings in November that elements connected with Tehran’s intelligence services were trying to target the network’s journalists.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that the seven, including some who held dual nationality, were arrested over anti-government protests that have rocked the country for over three months.

The British foreign ministry had said it was seeking further information from Iranian authorities on the reports that British-Iranian dual nationals had been arrested.

Tehran's allegations of foreign involvement in the protests have been accompanied by arrests of dozens of dual nationals, part of an official narrative designed to shift the blame away from the Iranian leadership.

Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said Sunday, “The Legal Medicine Organization announced its comprehensive and expert opinion in this case, but Amini's family filed a complaint against the medical council of the country.”

He added that the complaint has been referred to the medical board for expertise, and the experts of the medical board have not yet announced their final opinion.

The 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini, died in a hospital in Tehran September 16, suffering from severe head trauma after being arrested by Iran’s ‘morality police’ apparently for improper hijab.

Police claimed that she had a heart attack at a police station, collapsed, and fell into a coma before being transferred to a hospital. However, eyewitnesses, including women who were detained with Amini, reported that she was severely beaten and that she died because of police brutality, which was denied by authorities.

Mahsa's father, has repeatedly emphasized that “he saw himself that there were traces of blood on his daughter's body, in the back of her neck and ears, and many parts of her body, including her legs, were bruised.”

Family lawyers December 9 issued a statement warning that government insistence on their narrative will damage the transparency of the proceedings.

In a press conference on Sunday, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said one of the “enemies’ plots” in the past few months was breaking the norms and redlines of the Islamic regime. He went on to threaten that people who unveil will be strictly confronted. 

Emphasizing that observing hijab – or Islamic dress code – is legally mandatory, he said, "When the law mandates the observance of hijab for women in public places within the borders of the Islamic Republic, we cannot say that [the issue] is personal."

The law’s Montazeri referred to are what more than 50 percent of the people in Iran oppose, but they have no peaceful way of trying to change them, because the regime considers any such attempt a violation of the fundamental precepts of the clerical rule.

The attorney-general added that he believes the way to deal with those who remove the compulsory hijab "needs planning" and "cultural work” before resorting to legal action. 

He repeated the regime’s propaganda line that describes the current wave of antigovernment protests sparked by death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini as a ploy by the West. The United States, United Kingdom, Israel and Saudi Arabia are called “enemies” in the discourse of the clerical regime.

Mahsa Amini was arrested by a patrol van enforcing hijab on streets and suffered a head trauma during her arrest and died in hospital a few days later, triggering the boldest challenge the regime has faced in its over 40 years of existence. 

Montazeri also claimed that the final results of the investigation regarding the case of Mahsa Amini's death have not yet been given to her family. 

His remarks came as he had earlier pretended it had abolished the the so-called ‘morality police,’. However, his Sunday remarks showed that the whole volte face was only a sham to control the nationwide unrest.

Many activists, such as US-based Masih Alinejad, debunked Montazeri’s claim as a sheer publicity stunt or even misinformation spread by a dictatorial regime that is about to fall. 

Following the propaganda stunt about disbanding the ‘morality police’, foreign and Iranian media are full of interpretations of how the regime plans to both enforce the dress code regulations and at the same time appease protesters.

Western governments, including the UK, the US, and Canada, added the hijab law enforcement unit to their list of sanctioned entities. Despite the regime killing about 500 protesters and hanging two, Iran’s police chief threatened the people earlier in December with more "decisive" response in the coming days.

Many women in Iran are now appearing in public without the mandatory veil and regular police are not interfering in a sign that authorities are either unwilling to risk further confrontation with the public or find it impossible to deal with so many women undermining the rule all at the same time. Police forces have also become over-stretched during protests and many have resigned or have applied for early retirement.

In a tweet on Sunday, Pahlavi called on Iranians to participate in the ceremonies to commemorate Kian Pirfalak, Aylar Haqqi, Hamidreza Rouhi, and Sepehr Maqsoudi, victims of state brutality.

According to Iranian tradition the 40th day after the death of a loved one is an important occasion for mourning. The ceremonies for people killed by security forces quickly turn into new protests.

Kian Pirfalak, a nine-year-old boy, was killed in the city of Izeh a town of 100,000 residents in the oil-rich Khuzestan province on November 16.

Security forces opened fire on the family car carrying Kian, his parents, and three-year-old brother for no apparent reason. Kian’s father was also seriously wounded in the shooting. Authorities claimed the family car was attacked by “terrorists”.

Aylar Haqqi, 23, a medical student had reportedly taken refuge in a building during demonstrations, where regime agents found her and pushed her from the top of the building. A rebar pierced through her abdomen and out from her back. However, the regime announced she had died after falling into a construction dig.

Hamidreza Rouhi, 19, a civil engineering student, was killed by security forces in the evening of November 17 in Tehran.

Sepehr Maqsoudi, 14, was killed by regime agents on November 16 during the attack on Izeh market, but the state media presented him as a victim of a “terrorist incident” and kidnapped his body.