Iranian authorities detain footballers in a house party as antigovernment protests continue

Fazel Hawramy

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian authorities detained a number of footballers in Tehran on New Year’s Eve for taking part in a party where alcohol was reportedly consumed, hours after security forces gunned down a number of protesters in the Kurdish areas in the west of the country.

The arrest comes after almost four months of antigovernment protest across the country in which footballers have played a critical role following the killing of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini in police custody on September 16 in Tehran.

“A number of current and former players of one of the main football teams in Tehran were detained in Damavand in a mixed party on a judicial order,” Tasnimnews, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) mouthpiece said on Sunday. “Some of these players were abnormal as a result of drinking alcoholic drinks.” 

Iranian football stars like Ali Karimi and to a lesser extent Ali Daei have become the voice of the protesters in the country calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic in the country. 

Ali Karimi, who lives outside Iran, has nearly 15 million followers on Instagram and has turned social media into a platform to support the people and call for more protests across Iran. “Kudos to the people for resisting against the child-killing regime and the oppressive forces armed to the teeth for 100 days with empty hands,” Karimi tweeted in late December.

The Iranian authorities forced a Dubai-bound flight on Tuesday to land on an Iranian island in order to prevent Ali Daei’s wife and daughter from leaving the country, according to the state news agency. Daei has also been a voice of the protests from inside Iran despite calls for his arrest. Daei said that his wife and daughter were going on a short vacation to Dubai but the authorities said that they were trying to leave Iran for good. 

Tasnimnews implied that some of the footballers detained on Saturday night had supported the protest movement in the country. “It is worth mentioning that some of the detainees have said in their interviews in recent days that they had no desire for competition or speaking about football because of the recent events and in solidarity with people.”

The authorities in Tehran have instigated a severe crackdown against the protesters, arresting thousands of them and militarizing towns and cities. There are various estimates of how many protesters and bystanders have been killed by the security forces. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on Saturday that they have the names of 511 protesters including 69 children killed by the security forces.

On Saturday, another protester Burhan Elyasi was killed in the Kurdish town of Javanrud in the west of the country after thousands of people tried to take part in the 40th-day ceremony of seven other protesters killed by the IRGC and its militia Basij.



Hengaw organization which covers human rights violations in the Kurdish areas in Iran said on Saturday that at least 128 Kurds have been killed in the protest in the past four months across the country with at least 3,000 wounded.

Photos from the town of Javanrud showed that the shopkeepers have gone on strike on Sunday and closed their shops, a sign that this small town at the foot of the Zagros range is not bullied and intimidated by the IRGC and its militia Basij.

The authorities in Tehran have charged many detained protesters with “waging war against God” and national security charges and have arrested a number of prominent celebrities, including film stars. 

Amir Reza Nasr Azadani, a footballer from Isfahan, was sentenced to death in mid-December for taking part in the protest and in connection with the death of three security personnel. However, the arrest of footballers on Saturday in Tehran and massive protest in the Kurdish areas on the same day nearly four months after the protest started is yet another sign that the protest movement is perhaps the most serious challenge to the Islamic Republic regime since its establishment in 1979.