Not Just Football: How Iran is bringing anti-government protests to FIFA World Cup 2022
Not Just Football: How Iran is bringing anti-government protests to FIFA World Cup 2022
Iran’s national team lost its opening match at the FIFA World Cup 2022 against England, with the final scoresheet being 2-6. However, the team won hearts across the world by standing in solidarity with the human rights protest movement that has swept their home country.
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As players from “Team Melli” – the national team – lined up to participate in the age-old tradition of singing the national anthem at the swooping Khalifa International Stadium, they stood side-by-side, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. But rather than sing along, their mouths stayed shut, in an apparent expression of support for the anti-government protests in their home country that have broken out since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
This is what courage looks like
The Iranian football team refuses to sing the national anthem on biggest stage in the world
Eleven men, standing shoulder to shoulder, sending out a message without uttering a word#WorldCup #WorldCup2022 #Qatar2022 #Iran pic.twitter.com/n8gtQed4Fl
— Stefan Simanowitz (@StefSimanowitz) November 21, 2022
This isn’t the only way that Iran is supporting the protests that have broken out in the country for over two months.
Iran brings the protests to Qatar
Iranian football fans, who had gathered at the Khalifa International Stadium, were also vocal in their support of the protests. Chants of “Say her name, Mahsa Amini,” reverberated in and around the premises ahead of the match.
Men, women and children were also seen wearing T-shirts saying “Zan, Zindagi, Azadi” (women, life, freedom), a famous chant from the protests in Iran.
“My people in Iran are under a lot of pressure and are being killed by the regime, so we want to use this opportunity to raise a voice for them,” Mahmoud Izadi, one of the protesters in Qatar’s capital Doha, told Al Jazeera.
Some of the protesters also waved banners with Amini’s picture on them at the stadium. Izadi said the demonstrators want the world to pay attention to the situation in Iran and are using the World Cup as a platform because their voices are being crushed in their home country.
Hasti, an Iranian-born American in Qatar to watch Iran’s matches, said that even though she didn’t think a sports tournament was the best place to register a protest, there weren’t too many options left for her people. “We are going to use whatever platform we can get to raise the issue and this may not help the people in Iran directly but it will help show the world what’s happening there.”
While the players opted to stay mum during the national anthem, Iranians in the stands chose to boo and jeer, as a protest against the autocratic regime.
Iranian fans could also be heard chanting “Ali Karimi” in the first-half in reference to the former footballer who is one of the most outspoken critics of the Islamic Republic and one of the most popular faces of the protest movement.
The fans could also be heard chanting “Be-Sharaf”, which means dishonourable in Persian. This is an adjective that protesters have used against security forces in Iran.
That’s not all. Newsweek, citing a video shared on Twitter by Iran International, reported that people in Tehran’s Shahran district celebrated and chanted “Death to dictator” after England scored its third goal against Iran in the match.
A video obtained by @IranIntl shows people in Tehran's Shahran district celebrating & chanting "Death to Dictator" after England scores its 3rd goal against Iran in ongoing match.
Team Melli has been widely called "Islamic Republic's team" for not supporting popular uprising. pic.twitter.com/bu0dm34Ipt— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) November 21, 2022
Players join in
Ahead of the game, the national team’s captain, Ehsan Hajsafi, also broke his silence on the protests and subsequent arrests in Iran, saying that “the conditions in our country are not right”.
At the press conference prior to the match, the 32-year-old said that the players “support” those who have died.
“We have to accept that the conditions in our country are not right and our people are not happy,” he said.
“Before anything else, I would like to express my condolences to all of the bereaved families in Iran,” Hajsafi said at the start of the news conference. “They should know that we are with them, we support them and we sympathise with them.”
“We cannot deny the conditions — the conditions in my country are not good and the players know it also,” he further added, “We are here but it does not mean that we should not be their voice, or we must not respect them.”
Turmoil in Iran
Ever since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September, protests against the government across the country have spread. At Amini’s funeral, the words “women, life, freedom” were first sung. They became a rallying cry across Iran as civil unrest unfolded.
People across Iran — men, women and children — have been carrying out demonstrations across the country and their autocratic regime.
Young women have led the way, removing and burning their head coverings, chanting anti-regime slogans and confronting security forces on the street despite a crackdown that has killed more than 300 people, according to Norway based monitoring group.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said in its latest update on Saturday that the security forces had killed at least 304 people in the crackdown on the nationwide protests since they erupted in mid-September, including 41 children and 24 women.
The group’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said in the statement that despite the high death toll, “Iranians continue taking to the streets and are more determined than ever to bring fundamental changes. The response from the Islamic Republic is more violence.”
Also read: No Country for Schoolgirls: How Iran is crushing dissent by killing teens
Human Rights Activists News Agency, or HRANA has stated that 15,915 protesters have been detained since the 22 September protests with Mizan, a news agency in the country, reporting that three protesters have so far been sentenced to death in Tehran by Iran’s revolutionary court since the movement erupted.
The situation has also prompted the UN Human Rights Council to call on Iran to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests and to immediately release protesters.
The future in Iran is uncertain, but one thing is certain: FIFA World Cup 2022 is much more than another game of football for the country.
With inputs from agencies
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