Re: Call on FIFA to Suspend the Iranian Soccer Federation
We
bring to your attention, and for your consideration, the concerns of Iranian
Women who are faced with gender apartheid by the kleptocratic and theocratic
regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran
is the only country in the world that bans women from sports stadiums.
In March of this year, a female Iranian soccer fan named Sahar Khodayari, 29, was arrested when she tried to enter a football/soccer stadium disguised as a man. She set herself on fire in front of a court in Tehran last week after she found out she could face a two-year sentence for attempting to enter the Azadi Stadium to watch her favorite team play. Sahar became known on social media as the #BlueGirl, bringing attention to the ban.
Iranian
women have been banned from going to stadiums to watch games when men’s teams
are playing since 1981, shortly after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This ban
represents a fundamental violation of FIFA’s core principles. Article 4 of
General Provisions of FIFA’s
Statutes titled “Non-discrimination, gender
equality and stance against racism” states that discrimination of any kind “is
strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.”
Iran has
continually refused to end the ban despite FIFA’s previous statements against
the exclusion. Also, the Islamic laws prevent Iranian women from traveling
alone or from having equal rights or status in a court of law. Every year
several women get arrested or expelled from stadiums when security forces
identify them as women disguised as men.
All
institutions such as FIFA have for too long closed their eyes on the Islamic
Republic of Iran’s discriminatory behaviors. After the tragedy of the
#BlueGirl, many Iranians, including coach Ali Karimi and former captain of the
national team, are calling for a boycott of soccer games until the ban on women
attending games is lifted.
It is with a great sense of urgency that we call upon the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to support the women of Iran fight against gender apartheid through the firm and strong action of suspending the Iranian Soccer/Sport Federation.
We
sincerely thank you for your anticipated consideration of, and affirmative
action regarding, this urgent humanitarian matter.
International Campaign Against the Outrageous Violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Kleptocratic Regime of Iran
Date: August 20, 2019
No: 2085-15
His Excellency António Guterres
Secretary General of United Nations
The United Nations
New York, NY 10017
Re: International Campaign Against the Outrageous Violations of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights by the Kleptocratic Regime of Iran.
Your
Excellency,
On March 8th, the International Women’s Day, Ms. Maryam Mombeini[i], the widow of an Iranian-Canadian environmentalist, Kavous Seyed-Emami, who died in the notorious Evin prison has been barred from leaving Iran. Maryam Mombeini with her sons Ramin and Mehran Seyed-Emami decided to flee after facing harassment, threats and smear campaigns over their rejection of Iranian authorities’ claim that their husband and father Kavous Seyed-Emami, committed suicide in prison. Iranian authorities confiscated Ms. Mombeini’s Iranian passport at the airport. The two brothers left their mother behind.
Kavous Seyed-Emami, one of the founders of the Wildlife Heritage Foundation, an environmental activist and professor of sociology who fought for Iran’s environmental causes was arrested, after being accused of spying, by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along with several other environmental activists, including Niloufar Bayani, Houman Jowkar, Sam Rajabi, Taher Ghadirian, Sepideh Kashani, Amir-Hossein Khaleghi, and Morad Tahbaz. These environmentalist detainees are some of the best and brightest elite of Iran who were just concerned about saving our planet.
The head of Tehran’s Justice department Gholamhossein Esmaili[ii] declared to ILNA news agency “A group of those who gathered strategic intelligence and handed it over to foreigners have been identified. Some of them were arrested and some others will be arrested soon”. Two weeks after Kavous Emami’s arrest, on February 9,2018, the news of his sudden death was released to his wife, Maryam Mombeini. His suspicious death was labelled as suicide by the prison officials. Until recently, we have no news of the whereabouts of the detainees or their health status.
Islamic Judiciary has announced the suicides of other political prisoners among those arrested during the nationwide anti-government protests in January. With such a background, Prosecutor General of Tehran, Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi[iii], told ILNA news agency “Kavous Emami was one of the defendants in a spying case and unfortunately he committed suicide in prison since he knew that many had made statements against him and because of his own confession.”
The fates of detainees during anti-establishment protests[iv] and the unrest that erupted in late January 2018 still is unclear. Among thousands of detainees, Sina Ghanbari[v], a 22-year-old, died in custody in Tehran under unknown circumstances on January 6, 2018. Mostafa Mohebi, the head of Tehran’s prisons, claimed Sina hanged himself in the Evin Prison bathroom. Authorities have forbidden the families of those arrested from speaking to the media.
Mohammad Raji[vi], a war veteran, was one of more than 300 members of Iran’s Sufi Gonabadi who were detained following skirmishes with security forces in Tehran on February 19, 2018. He died from blows to his head in prison.
Currently, dozens of dual nationals are in jail in Iran, mostly on spying charges. Iranian physician and researcher, Ahmad Reza Djalali[vii], a resident of Sweden, has been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court’s Judge Abolghassem Salavati[viii], on the charges of “Corruption on earth, espionage, and collaboration with a hostile government”. He has been kept behind bars at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since April 2016.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe[ix], the British-Iranian charity worker, was on holiday visiting her family for Persian new year (Nowruz) in Iran. She was at the airport returning to the UK on the April 3, 2016 with her 22-month-old daughter Gabriella, when she was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. She was sentenced to five years imprisonment after an unfair trial “for allegedly plotting to topple the Iranian regime.” Her daughter’s British passport was confiscated during the arrest, and the 3-year-old remains in Iran under the care of her maternal grandparents.
In the past, in June 2003, Zahra Kazemi[x], a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist, was beaten to death while in custody there. Iranian authorities arrested her as she was photographing the Evin prison. The Iranian authorities have not charged anyone in connection with her death. Since her death, the diplomatic relations between Iran and Canada have been tense.
Golrokh Iraee, a human rights prisoner exiled to Qarechak prison, is in dire condition on her 45th day of hunger strike. Atena Daemi and Golrokh Iraee[xi], were transferred from Evin to Qarechak prison in Varamin for supporting the uprising in January 2018 where they are at risk of developing hepatitis and other contagious diseases.
Soheil Arabi[xii], another blogger prisoner, is on day 33of his hunger strike. The lives of Ms. Golrokh Iraee and Mr. Soheil Arabi are in serious jeopardy.
Outside the walls of Iranian prisons there still are the sharia laws of the Islamic constitution as the barriers that oppose women’s rights and suppress other beliefs and political orientations since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Iranian constitution based on Sharia law stipulates that all women must be fully veiled in public at all times. Women are barred from attending sports events. On February 9, 2018, 35 women[xiii] were detained in front of Azadi Stadium for trying to attend a particularly significant football match. The women were trying to attract Mr. Gianni Infantino’s attention to the ban on women attending sporting events.
On March 8, 2018, there was a strong call, more emphatic than ever, for commemorating the struggle for women’s rights, and progress in gender equality worldwide. In contrast, Iran reportedly impeded Women’s Day gatherings and detained participants. Several women’s rights activists[xvi] have been jailed by security forces.
Maryam Mombeini, like many other
activists’ families, is hostage to the regime. The Islamic Republic’s
security agencies use the prisoners and their families
as bargaining
chips for money or influence. We are facing a
powerful kleptocratic system of political nepotism and familial surrogacy that uses corruption
as a tool to stay in power. The Iranian economy is suffering
from the rampant corruption. The judiciary is suffering from institutional
corruption, and there is no independent court to stop the corruption in other
parts of the government.
These are
some outrageous violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Islamic regime of Iran.
Iran
National Council for Free Elections
appeals to your high office and the
international community to take immediate and effective action to save the lives of
detainees and their hostage families.
We are fearful that these innocent women
and men will not escape suspicious deaths without an international outcry and
firm diplomatic actions by the leaders of the Free World to force the Islamic
republic regime to comply with the following:
Give Maryam Mombeini,
a Canadian citizen, immediate freedom to safely return to Canada;
Take immediate and effective action to save the lives of two jailed
hunger striking prisoners, Mrs. Golrokh Iraee and Mr. Soheil Arabi, whose lives
are in jeopardy,
Immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners;
Allow an independent investigation into the
suspicious deaths in the Islamic regime’s prisons;
End the persecution of women who speak out against compulsory veils and
for access to sports stadiums, and abolish “discriminatory and humiliating
practices” against women in the name of Sharia.
We sincerely thank you for your assistance and consideration to
this urgent humanitarian matter.
