Iran International
Iran's National Security Council has decided that women can from now on attend soccer matches in stadiums, but security bodies are still deliberating the details.
Announcing the news Friday, Mehdi Taj, chairman of Iran's football federation, said a taskforce consisting of the ministries of interior and sports, the federation and “two security bodies” has been set up to decide about the manner of implementing the potentially groundbreaking decision.
The world’s soccer authority (FIFA) has tried to convince the Islamic Republic for nearly a decade to lift the unwritten ban on women attending stadiums to watch male players.
In some instances, authorities have allowed women on a limited scale to watch some matches at the stadium in the past few years but since March 2022 the ban has been reimposed despite FIFA’s insistence on allowing unrestricted access to stadiums to women.
This scenario can repeat itself, whereby the government would allow a few thousand women to enter a stadium just to show to FIFA that there is no ban.
In March 2022, hundreds of women who had purchased tickets online to watch the World Cup qualifier between the national team and Lebanon in the religious city of Mashhad were refused entry.
The women were tear-gassed and pepper sprayed by security forces when they insisted that they had the right to watch the game and protested. Several women were reportedly injured in the incident.
Without apologizing for the violence against women, Iran's football federation blamed “ticket forgers” and women who it accused of lying about their gender at the time of the purchase of online tickets.
Although Iran won the game 2-0, thereby qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar, in an unprecedented turn of events, some Iranians urged FIFA to bar their country from the tournament.
Consequently the #Fifabaniri (FIFA ban Islamic Republic of Iran) and similar hashtags rose to the top of most-used hashtags in Persian-language Twitter at the time.
"FIFA's position … is clear: historic progress has been achieved – as exemplified by the milestone in October 2019, when thousands of women were allowed into the stadium … and more recently when some women were allowed again at the FIFA world Cup qualifier match in Tehran in January – and FIFA expects this to continue, as there can be no turning back," FIFA said in a statement after the incident.
There is little doubt that FIFA has been lenient over the years and the Iranian regime has played around with the international federation, by sometimes allowing a small group of women, even handpicked, to watch a game.
The Islamic Republic has banned female spectators from football stadiums for over four decades. Iranian officials argue that male football fans swear profanities, so the atmosphere of stadiums is not suitable for women even if they are seated in a different part of the stadium.
The ban has led to arrests, beatings, detentions, and abuses against women.
In 2005 a group of Iranian women for the first time defied the ban and managed to get into a stadium in Tehran to watch a World Cup qualifier match between Iran and Bahrain. The clerical establishment was outraged by the incident and used it as an excuse to attack the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami.
The renowned director Jafar Panahi made Offside, a film about the incident which won the Sliver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2006.
Female fans had to wait until October 2019 to be allowed to enter a soccer stadium in limited numbers when authorities had to relent under pressure from FIFA, which threatened to penalize the Iranian federation for gender discrimination.
In September 2019, a female football fan, Sahar Khodayari, who came to be known as the “Blue Girl” after her favorite team, Esteghlal FC, was reportedly sentenced to jail for trying to enter a stadium disguised as a man. She died by self-immolation, causing a domestic and international outcry.
In addition to the large presence of security forces, the 39th consecutive week of protests was a little different as a lot of people have been arrested since last week, when the regime intensified its crackdown and the campaign against the city’s prominent Sunni leader Mowlavi Abdolhamid.
A website, which covers developments in Sistan-Baluchestan Province, published several videos and photos of plainclothes agents in cars across the city, with reports of several arrests.
Unlike previous weeks, Abdolhamid did not lead the Friday prayers and was substituted by Mowlavi Abdolghani Badri, interim Friday imam. However, Abdulhamid's office announced that the decision was made because the senior cleric led a similar event and delivered his sermon for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), in which he also asked his followers not to chant slogans to honor the occasion of the Eid.
Although people followed his order, the walls of the city were covered with political graffiti, themed around expressing support for Abdolhamid, decrying the regime’s persecution of the religious and ethnic Baluch minority in the province, and remembering Bloody Friday.
Justice for the tragic incidents on September 30, 2022, known as Bloody Friday, has been a recurring demand during protest rallies in the province, also reflected regularly in Abdolhamid’s Friday prayer sermons. According to different reports, security forces killed 80 to 100 people, including women and children, on the day.
In the past few weeks, the regime has intensified pressure on the outspoken cleric, arresting several people from his inner circle and his supporters as well as preventing him from leaving Iran for the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
His grandson and several aides have been arrested since last week. The Makki Mosque, Abdolhamid's headquarters in Zahedan has been a center of resistance to the government since popular protests began in September 2022. This is where Abdolhamid delivers his weekly sermons, openly criticizing the regime headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The arrests came a few days after reports surfaced that the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence arm had assigned a hitman to poison and kill the vocal Sunni cleric. The security guards at Makki Mosque arrested a man pretending to be a religious student who allegedly wanted to assassinate the Sunni leader.
According to the report, the suspect admitted that he received a salary of 150 million rials ($300) per week since the beginning of the operation.
Officially known as Sheikh Abdolhamd Esmailzehi, the Sunni cleric is widely popular because of his willingness to challenge Khamenei’s absolute authority. In addition, the country's Sunni minority is systematically discriminated against and the cleric has long been an advocate of minority rights, to the ire of the regime.
During his speech for the Eid al-Adha prayer on Thursday, Abdolhamid again slammed the regime for its atrocities against protesters, especially in the Bloody Friday incident, and decried the country’s judiciary for lack of independence and corruption.
"The judiciary should not be affected by politics", he said, noting that this institution should be a "refuge for the people” but judges follow orders from others, referring to security forces.
"Unfortunately, corruption has taken root in the country today, and the judicial system is no exception... The fight against corruption requires a new mechanism," he added.
He also criticized the authorities for preventing several people in his circle from traveling to Saudi Arabia for Hajj, saying that "I am not complaining about being banned, but the people who were with me, who were neither political nor famous, were sent back from the airport, which is against the text of the Quran."
Etemad wrote Tuesday, June 27, that the move by the office of deputy interior minister for political affairs was intended to help the ultraconservative Paydari Party members by making electoral competition harder for other candidates in the March 2014 elections.
The daily described the move as an initiative to disqualify all the government's critics even before the vetting by the Guardian Council.
Etemad quoted Hossein Jalali, a member of Paydari Party, as saying that "the call made by Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and some of the lawmakers to remove deputy interior minister Mohammad Reza Gholamreza from his post was a kind of blackmail." Jalali added that the hardliners should not surrender to the lawmakers' excessive demands.
Independent and neo-con lawmakers who support Ghalibaf tabled the impeachment motion and the government feared that the parliament was not going to give a vote of confidence to the new agriculture minister. In this way, the government could lose two of its ministers.
Jalali was referring to the motion tabled by some lawmakers to impeach the interior minister if he refused to remove his deputy from his post. More than 200 lawmakers tabled a motion last week to impeach the interior minister. This was a vehement threat, as calls for impeachment are usually signed by between 20 to 40 lawmakers. At the time, the minister promised to remove his deputy as soon as possible.
According to Etemad, Paydari Party members tried to conceal "a major decision" that has been made in and out of the parliament about the next parliamentary election. Earlier, former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani had called the project "purification.” Some Iranian politicians believe that purification is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's idea to consolidate hardliners power in Iran.
Paydari, however, did not expect such a reaction by the parliament as some lawmakers even demanded an answer from President Raisi about the purification plan. Although the interior minister immediately nullified his deputy's statement, according to Etemad, lawmakers are adamant that Paydari has started a gamble over the plan and is not likely to stop it easily.
For the government, it is certainly a meaningful defeat that 100 of those who have called for impeachment of Raisi's Interior Minister come from among the 200 members of the parliament who invited Raisi to run for president in 2021.
Other moves elsewhere in the government indicate that the purification plan is being carried out forcefully across the establishment. A report by Etemad on Tuesday revealed widespread resistance against the purification plan that has been under way at the Iranian state TV where Vahid Jalili, the deputy chief of the state TV and a Paydari figure who is the brother of prominent hardliner politician Saeed Jalili, appointed several Paydari members to key posts at the television ahead of the parliamentary elections. Among the critics are current and former managers of the state television, Etemad wrote.
As a result of the state TV's management by Paydari hardliners, the broadcaster which holds the monopoly of broadcasting, has lost millions of its viewers who are not interested in the Paydari's propaganda. Etemad even quoted Culture Minister Esmaili as saying that "The state TV is losing its status as the nation's point of reference for news and information." Others had warned about the decline in the state TV and the government's social capital since the start of the nationwide protests in 2022.
Former President Hassan Rouhani has also called for putting the state TV at the disposal of the nation for at least two to three years to boost its reputation.