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VOA \u2014 Iran has once again denied women entry to a soccer stadium to watch an international match, leaving hundreds of ticketed fans locked out, Iranian media said Wednesday.<\/p>\nVOA \u2014 Iran has once again denied women entry to a soccer stadium to watch an international match, leaving hundreds of ticketed fans locked out, Iranian media said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The World Cup qualifier against Lebanon on Tuesday night, won 2-0 by Iran, was played at the Imam Reza stadium in the northeastern city of Mashhad.<\/p>\n
“About 2,000 Iranian women, who had bought tickets for the Iran-Lebanon match, were present in the perimeter of Imam Reza stadium, but could not enter the stadium,” ISNA news agency said.<\/p>\n
Iran’s team captain Alireza Jahanbakhsh joined in criticism of the lockout.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think anything would have happened if women had come to the stadium, and this could promote our culture,” he said, quoted on IRIB state television.<\/p>\n
Mohsen Davari, governor of Mashhad, told IRIB: “I apologize that many people couldn’t enter the stadium.”<\/p>\n
“Unfortunately, a large number of people outside the stadium were deprived of watching the game.”<\/p>\n
In the face of the controversy, President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday instructed the interior ministry to look into the incident.<\/p>\n
For his part, Iran’s attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said on radio that “if conditions allowed the sale of tickets to women, a suitable place had to be found for them.”<\/p>\n
The case was “not acceptable… and shows poor management,” he said.<\/p>\n
In January, women were allowed to attend an international for the first time in almost three years, for a World Cup qualifier against Iraq.<\/p>\n
The Islamic republic has generally barred female spectators from soccer and other sports stadiums since it was established in 1979.<\/p>\n
Clerics, who play a major role in decision-making, argue women must be shielded from the masculine atmosphere and sight of semi-clad men.<\/p>\n
But world soccer’s governing body FIFA ordered Iran in September 2019 to allow women access to stadiums without restriction and in numbers to be determined according to demand for tickets.<\/p>\n
The FIFA directive, threatening Iran’s suspension from competitions, came after a fan, Sahar Khodayari, died having set herself on fire in fear of being jailed after trying to attend a match in disguise.<\/p>\n
She had reportedly been detained in 2018 as she tried to enter a stadium dressed as a male.<\/p>\n
Her death sparked an outcry, resulting in calls for Iran to be banned and its matches boycotted.<\/p>\n
FIFA had been pushing for years for Iran to open its stadiums to women, but Tehran had until 2019 only allowed a limited number of women to attend matches on rare occasions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VOA \u2014 Iran has once again denied women entry to a soccer stadium to watch an international match, leaving hundreds of ticketed fans locked out, Iranian media said Wednesday. The World Cup qualifier against Lebanon on Tuesday night, won 2-0 by Iran, was played at the Imam Reza stadium in the northeastern city of Mashhad. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102592"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102595,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102592\/revisions\/102595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}