After Iranian mountaineer Elnaz Rekabi competed in South Korea without a veil, athletes who in the past challenged the country’s theocratic regime prepared for what was to come. The meaning of his act was clear.
Apprehensions increased when Rekabi soon gave the impression of losing him; Her friends discussed that they had trouble contacting her. Then, an Instagram post attributed to him appeared explaining that his hijab had fallen off without realizing it. The comments at the airport repeated the forced explanation for his transgression, which is widely believed to have been committed under duress.
The flashpoint with Rekabi is another incident fuelling the nationwide protests that were first triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police; She was arrested for “inappropriate hijab. “Repabi’s resolve to compete without her hijab and reasoning that her moves were not an act of protest is consistent with the logic many Iranian athletes and protesters say they faced when the state government intervened. Other athletes who fled Iran, for political reasons, say the government does not hesitate to harass members of their family circle and pressure Americans to make forced confessions. They wear the hijab.
“We know he’s under a lot of pressure. This is not new to us,” says Sardar Pashaei, a former fighter who fled Iran to the United States in 2010, from Rekabi. “The athletes are talking and they’re crossing the red line. “lines of the Islamic Republic. ” He says Rekabi’s recent was in line with the Iranian regime’s remedy of former athletes and protesters. “As soon as they’re arrested, we don’t know them for a few days, and then they show up on TV and start talking against themselves. “
Pashaei, a former head coach of the country’s national team, said he was banned from leaving Iran to participate in the pre-qualifying Olympics because his father was a political prisoner. Pashaei is also executive director of the United for Navid crusade, which grew out of efforts by Iranian athletes seeking to protect fighter Navid Afkari following his participation in anti-government protests. The crusade has called on the International Olympic Committee to punish Iran for its repressive remedy of athletes.
Iran executed Afkari, 27, in 2018 despite protests from foreign human rights groups. The state had sentenced him to death for the killing of a security guard in the 2018 protests, although Afkari maintained that his confession was received under duress through torture.
Soheila Farahani, a former Iranian national volleyball player, is one of many Iranian women who have chosen to leave the country, even if it means separating from their families. Farahani, who identifies as a lesbian, fled to California seven years ago after her sexuality came under scrutiny. Iran criminalizes gay activity and has sentenced LGBTQ activists to death. Iranian security officials questioned Farahani why she didn’t marry and live alone. imprisoned or executed,” said Farahani, a member of United for Navid.
Athletes are heavily monitored when they are abroad. “As an Iranian athlete, when you move on to foreign sports, there are security guards watching you. . . you’re not allowed to go anywhere,” Pachaei says. They stay at the hotel and occasionally take away your passport. However, some manage to escape.
Just last year, Iranian handball player Shaghayegh Bapiri defected to Spain saying there wasn’t much time for female handball players in the country, Voice of America reported. Bapiri, who was in the country for the International Handball Federation Women’s World Championship, denounced the regime’s restrictions on her ability to express herself freely.
Kimia Alizadeh, the Iranian woman who won an Olympic medal, left the country in 2020, exposing the hypocrisy and oppression of women through regimes.
“They said whatever they said, I dressed it. . . Every sentence they ordered, I repeated,” Alizadeh, who won a bronze medal in taekwondo in 2016, wrote in a lengthy Instagram post on Jan. 11, 2020.
Until Rekabi’s actions, the uproar that followed Amini’s death in the gaming world was largely limited to football. The Iranian government confiscated football icon Ali Daei’s pasgame after he supported protests similar to Amini’s death. (His pasgame has since been returned. ) Iran also accused former Bayern Munich player Ali Karimi in absentia of supporting anti-government protesters in widely circulated social media posts. Karimi was now founded in Dubai.
Current players of Iran’s national football team covered their country’s emblem, the national anthem played in September against Senegal, following Amini’s death. Striker Sardar Azmoun expressed support for the protests on his Instagram account, saying he feared it would fire him. of the national team.
And under the Islamic Republic’s puritanical rules, Iranian women are routinely banned from football stadiums, a long-standing challenge that has caught the attention of foreign human rights groups. doors of a courthouse. She had been attacked for trying to enter a stadium disguised as a man.
United for Navid has called on FIFA to ban Iran from participating in the World Cup, noting that Russia banned participation after its invasion of Ukraine.
Pashaei and other advocates wrote in an Oct. 18 letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino that the Iran Football Federation club be suspended until it promises that women can enter stadiums across the country and participate in all competitions organized through soccer’s world governing body.
“It is highly unlikely that the men’s team of the Iran Football Association will be separated from Iran’s widely criticized government leadership; they are one and, in fact, they are not independent; Otherwise, the football ecosystem would have been a safe area for women and women have been allowed to participate,” the letter said.
The regime has been pressuring prominent athletes and Iranians for decades, “but right now it seems more aggressive,” said Farahani, a former national volleyball player from Iran. And now it is conceivable that Rekabi will be under the same pressure.
Pashaei says that, based on how the Iranian regime has responded to politically overt athletes in the past, he believes Rekabi would possibly have faced an ultimatum: “You have two options: either you don’t go back to Iran and you lose your appointments with your family. Or you have to make a forced confession and do what you are told.