Iranian authorities said on Tuesday that two former players of the national soccer team who were arrested earlier this month in connection with nationwide demonstrations had been granted bail.
Iran releases soccer players before of the match against the United States
The revelation came only hours before Iran was scheduled to face the United States in the World Cup, a match that officials are extensively advertising as they deal with widespread demonstrations that are now in their third month.
Parviz Boroumand, a retired goalkeeper, was detained over two weeks ago on suspicion of engaging in protests in Tehran and causing property damage. According to state-linked media, Voria Ghafouri was detained last week for “insulting the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government.” The judiciary confirmed their release on Tuesday without providing any further details.
Ghafouri, who continues to play for a nearby club despite not being selected to represent Iran in the World Cup, has long been a vocal opponent of the Iranian government. He criticized Iran’s hostile foreign policy, which has resulted in devastating Western sanctions, as well as the long-standing prohibition on women watching men’s soccer games.
More recently, he expressed condolences for the family of a 22-year-old woman, the death of whom the morality police in Iran used to spark the most recent demonstrations. Additionally, he demanded a halt to the country’s western Kurdistan region’s brutal crackdown on protestors.
Iranian authorities are silent on whether Ghafouri’s advocacy played a role in his exclusion from the national squad.
One of the largest challenges to Iran’s governing clerics since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that put them in power may be seen in the most recent rallies. Rights organizations claim that security personnel have attacked demonstrators with live bullets, bird shot, beatings, and arrests, most of the violence being documented on camera. Human Rights Activists in Iran, an organization that has been keeping track of protests, reports that since the start of the unrest, at least 452 demonstrators have died and more than 18,000 have been jailed.
Authorities have accused hostile foreign forces of causing turmoil without offering any supporting data. The courts claims to have just freed more than a thousand prisoners. After decades of social and political persecution, including the stringent clothing code that is enforced on women, the demonstrators claim they are fed up.
Young women have taken the lead in the demonstrations, removing the obligatory Islamic hijab to show their opposition to religious leadership.
Some Iranians are rooting against their own team during the World Cup because they associate it with aggressive and dishonest leaders. Others assert that the national team, which has players who have publicly shown their support for the demonstrations on social media, speaks for the nation’s citizens. In Tehran’s capital, billboards advertising the squad have appeared everywhere.