DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
Iran arrested a prominent former member of its national soccer team on Thursday over his criticism of the government as authorities grapple with nationwide protests that have cast a shadow over its competition at the World Cup.
The semiofficial Fars and
Tasnim news agencies reported that Voria Ghafouri was arrested for “insulting
the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government.”
Ghafouri, who was not chosen
to go to the World Cup, has been an outspoken critic of Iranian authorities
throughout his career. He objected to a longstanding ban on women spectators at
men’s soccer matches as well as Iran’s confrontational foreign policy, which
has led to crippling Western sanctions.
More recently, he expressed
sympathy for the family of a 22-year-old woman whose death while in the custody
of Iran’s morality police ignited
the latest protests. In recent days he also called for an end to a violent
crackdown on protests in Iran’s western Kurdistan region.
The reports of his arrest came
ahead of Friday’s World Cup match between Iran and Wales. At Iran’s opening
match, a 6-2 loss to England, the members of the Iranian national team declined
to sing along to their national anthem and some
fans expressed support for the protests.
The protests were ignited by
the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman arrested by the morality
police in the capital, Tehran. They rapidly escalated into nationwide
demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The western
Kurdish region of the country, where both Amini and Ghafouri are from, has been
the epicenter of the protests. Shops were closed in the region on Thursday
following calls for a general strike.
Iranian officials have not
said whether Ghafouri’s activism was a factor in not choosing him for the
national team. He plays for the Khuzestan Foolad team in the southwestern city
of Ahvaz. The club’s chairman, Hamidreza Garshasbi, resigned later on Thursday,
the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported, without elaborating.
The protests show no sign of
waning, and mark one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s ruling clerics since
the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought them to power. Rights groups say
security forces have used unleashed live ammunition and bird shot on the
protesters, as well as beating and arresting them, with much of the violence
captured on video.
At least 442 protesters have
been killed and more than 18,000 detained since the start of the unrest,
according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring
the protests.
The U.N. Human Rights
Council voted
Thursday to condemn the crackdown and to create an independent
fact-finding mission to investigate alleged abuses, particularly those
committed against women and children.
Authorities have blamed the
unrest on hostile foreign powers, without providing evidence, and say
separatists and other armed groups have attacked security forces. Human Rights
Activists in Iran says at least 57 security personnel have been killed, while
state media have reported a higher toll.
The protesters say they are
fed up after decades of social and political repression, including a strict
dress code imposed on women. Young women have played a leading role in the
protests, stripping off the mandatory Islamic headscarf to express their rejection
of clerical rule.
Some Iranians are actively
rooting against their own team at the World Cup, associating it with rulers
they view as violent and corrupt. Others insist the national team, which
includes players who have spoken out on social media in solidarity with the
protests, represents the country’s people.
The team’s star forward,
Sardar Azmoun, who has been vocal about the protests online, was on the bench
during the opening match. In addition to Ghafouri, two other former soccer
stars have been arrested for expressing support for the protests.
Other Iranian athletes have
also been drawn into the struggle.
Iranian rock climber Elnaz
Rekabi competed without wearing the mandatory headscarf at an international
competition in South Korea in October, a move widely seen as expressing support
for the protests. She received a
hero’s welcome from protesters upon returning to Iran, even as she
told state media the move was “unintentional” in an interview that may have
been given under duress.
Earlier this month, Iran’s
football federation threatened to punish players on its beach soccer team after
it defeated Brazil at an international competition in Dubai. One of the players
had celebrated after scoring a goal by mimicking a female protester cutting off
her hair.
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