As anti-regime demonstrations in Iran reach 75, many of the protesters are hoping that the US men’s national team at the World Cup and the Biden administration can send a signal of support for the protesters.
Some protesters believe that an Iranian loss or draw in the upcoming match against the United States will hurt the regime on the world stage and fuel the protesters’ struggle.
In an encrypted telephone interview with Fox News Digital on Monday, an Iranian woman who calls herself “Mahoora” and lives in southern Iran said, “It’s not just some people in Iran, it’s the majority of people in Iran who want the United States to win” on Tuesday. The silent majority [of Iranians] did not celebrate the regime team’s win against Wales.”
Mahoora explained that Iranians are rejecting their national team, saying, “Because a football team should bring honor to its people. They must be our champions. But right now, people on the street are being killed. And people are burying children after they were killed, and the mullahs’ soccer team was reunited [President] Ebrahim Raisi and celebrating someone’s birthday and laughed together. And they didn’t pay attention to people. The players just wanted to be the center of attention.”
He added: “The people of Iran know the United States as [a] symbol of democracy and the Iranian people yearn for democracy”.
Reports said many Iranians did not cheer or celebrate after Iran’s win against Wales at Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar on Nov. 25, 2022.
(AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
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During Fox News Digital’s interview with Mahoora, the internet connection was frequently cut due to the clerical regime’s efforts to cut off conversations during the protest movement taking place in the totalitarian state.
Mahoora noted that “after the mullahs’ football team won against Wales, the Iranian people did not celebrate. The regime brought in the terrorists, Hezbollah, from Lebanon and the Houthis from Yemen to celebrate the victory.”
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali “Khamenei is right [a] servant of Russia. Khamenei is stealing Iran’s wealth,” Mahoora said.
Mahoora cannot provide his full name due to the violent crackdown on dissent against the regime.
According to the NGO Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the clerical regime has killed 451 protesters and jailed 18,170 since mid-September. HRANA said 60 security personnel died during nationwide demonstrations.
Reports from Iran say the Iranians cheered England’s win against Iran and are now pulling for the United States as they face Iran in a World Cup match on November 29, 2022.
(Richard Sellers/Getty Images)
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The riots across Iran were sparked by the September 13 arrest by morality police of Mahsa Amini in Tehran for her alleged failure to properly cover her hair with a hijab.
Mahoora mentioned three Iranian football stars who are not in Doha, Qatar, the site of the World Cup, but stand with the Iranian people against the Khamenei regime: Ali Daei, Ali Karimi and Iranian-Kurdish player Voria Ghafouri.
The Iranian regime has imprisoned Ghafouri for his show of solidarity with the “woman, life, freedom” movement that is developing in Iran.
Tina Ghazimorad, editor-in-chief of London-based broadcaster Manoto TV, echoed Mahoora’s scathing criticisms that the Iranian team is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Islamic Republic’s radical ideology and state security apparatus. Manoto is one of the most popular Farsi-language channels outside Iran and is known for his criticism of the regime.
“The Islamic Republic hijacked the national team like everything else in Iran because they made it political. The IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] manages sports teams,” Ghazimorad said.
The US government has sanctioned the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization. Fox News Digital has reported on terrorist links between Iran’s karate team and the IRGC.
Ghazimorad said “Iranians are rooting for every other team that plays against it.”
Iran is facing international criticism following the brutal beating of a protester at the hands of riot police.
(The foreign bank)
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He continued: “For many Iranians, this is a national team and they have not shown any proper reaction to what is happening to Iranians in Iran. Many people who have lost their lives [in the protests] supported the national team. This is a very political team. The Islamic Republic is about to create a false enemy, the United States All dictators need a false enemy. The animosity of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the United States … for more than 43 years has been unjustified.”
According to Ghazimorad, the Tehran regime shifts attention from the failures of the Islamic Republic to this manufactured enemy: “The people are not suffering sanctions but because of the actions of the Islamic Republic.” Ghazimorad also the “actions of the Islamic Republic have led to sanctions”.
The US and the EU have imposed sanctions on the clerical regime for its drive to build a nuclear device and for its widespread human rights abuses.
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Ghazimorad said it was impossible to build a wall between sport and power politics in Iran.
“Everything for the Islamic Republic is not pure sport or pure art because the Islamic Republic makes everything political,” he said. “It is a wrong argument to try to separate sport from politics. Sport has been politicized in Iran.”
A striking example of the Iranian regime using sport as a political tool, Ghazimorad said, is the “team that met Raisi before going to Qatar and the goalkeeper [Alireza Beiranvand] he bowed to Raisi.”
Beiranvand then broke his nose in Iran’s match against England. Iranians in Iran were “happy with that ‘goalkeeper’s broken nose’ because this is some kind of punishment.”
Ghazimorad said Iranians want the national team to step up protests against the regime. He pointed to a recent tweet posted by his channel showing Iranians cheering for England while watching the match in Iran.
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“Staying there and not singing [the] national anthem, that’s not enough,” Ghazimorad said. He said Iran’s soccer team could have “kneeled like the England team or put on black armbands.”
The recent murder of 9-year-old Iranian boy Kian Pirfalak, thought to be the youngest victim of Iran’s rulers’ purge of protesters, has sparked a new rampage in Iran and against the country’s football team.
“The Iranian team had a photoshoot and they laughed and that increased the anger. The photoshoot destroyed them because they were just laughing. The photoshoot happened just one day after Kian’s death. Instead of laughing, they could have just pose,” said Ghazimorad.
Fox News Digital has sent press requests to the US State Department, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Foreign Ministry and its mission to the United Nations, as well as the US men’s national soccer team.
The US team briefly deleted the Islamic Republic of Iran flag emblem from its Twitter account as a show of sympathy for protesters in Iran. Tehran’s rulers have fired back, urging the world’s football body, FIFA, to suspend the American team.
Iranian-American journalist and women’s activist Masih Alinejad told Fox News that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a “gender apartheid regime” because “half the population in Iran isn’t even allowed to go to a stadium and watch [a] football (soccer) match.
University students in Tehran attend a protest on Oct. 7, 2022, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police.
(AP Photo)
Iran’s ban on women in football stadiums has not prompted FIFA to punish the Islamic Republic. Alinejad also said that the Iranian football team does not represent the Iranian people.
Lisa Daftari, Iranian expert and editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, told Fox News Digital: “Imagine how dire the situation is for Iranians who don’t actually root for their own team, as they see their national team as not a extension of the Iranian people but aligned with the Islamic regime”.
Iranians protest in Tehran, September 20, 2022, over the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by the country’s morality police.
(AP Photo/Middle East Images, File)
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Daftari added, “We saw in the Iran/England match how the Iranians were cheering when the opposing teams scored, and they could do the same while cheering on the United States in this match. At the very least, we will definitely see the Iranians use this opportunity to call on the United States to support their movement”.
There is a striking parallel between the 2022 World Cup and Iran’s first appearance at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, Iranian observers say. In 1978, Iranians took to the streets to protest the rule of Iran’s last royalist ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
A year later, the Islamic revolution ousted the Pahlavi dynasty.
Questions now abound whether the theocratic Islamic state is on the verge of collapse due to the massive protests rocking Khamenei’s regime.
