NCRI – On Friday, 19 June 2015, during a Volleyball World League match at Azadi Stadium in Tehran, the suppressive elements and hirelings of the Iranian regime severely attacked Iranian women and even Iranian or foreign female reporters battering and preventing them from entering the volleyball hall of 12,000 seats capacity.
This was despite a demagogic declaration by Hassan Rouhani’s government that it would issue authorization for women to attend this international match at the stadium.
However, the security forces and regime’s suppressive agents put aside the deceptions of Rouhani’s government and officially announced that women are not allowed to watch the game and warned them not to come to Azadi Stadium. Nevertheless, a number of women and female reporters did show up at Azadi Stadium where they were attacked by regime’s security agents.
It is a long time that the tumult of presence of women at the sport matches in Iran has proved troublesome to the Iranian regime. The International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) announced last month that preventing the presence of women in sport arenas and depriving them of watching the matches is a breach of the Olympic Charter and if continued will result in rejection of regime’s volleyball team from international games. Thus, Rouhani’s government, announced that the problem with the presence of women in sport arenas would soon be resolved. However, this empty promise lasted just a few days and by assaulting and battering women yesterday, the misogynic regime of mullahs insisted on its medieval policies.
Meanwhile, FIVB and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) turned a blind eye on the rights of women and Iranian people in adherence to the policy of appeasement and Western government’s negotiations with Rouhani’s government. They ignored the abhorring violation of Iranian women’s rights contrary to the Olympic Charter to acquiesce the mullahs.
The Sports Committee of the National Council of Resistance scolds and condemns the reactionary policy that bans presence of women in sport arenas. This committee emphasizes that refraining from evicting regime’s Volleyball Federation from the International Volleyball Federation that is part of the appeasement policy violates the UN Charter, the Olympic Charter, and the fundamental rights of Iranian women.
There is no doubt that any policy against the Iranian people in the form of ping pong-, wrestling- and now volleyball-diplomacy would get nowhere and the Iranian people would soon throw this misogynic religious dictatorship in the dust bin of history and overthrow it. Then, the appeasing and plundering governments that resort to such antihuman measures against the Iranian women and people will have only achieved the tarnishing of their own image.
The Sport Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran calls on all Iranian women, men and athletes to rise up against the clerical regime in every city and sport arena of Iran and it demands the expulsion of the Iranian regime from international federations and the International Olympic Committee.
Sports Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
Moslem Eskandar Filabi
June 20, 2015
