The coordination council of the Iranian Ansar-e Hezbollah warned that they would counter women’s presence in sports stadiums based on Khamenei’s order of “fire at will.”
Hossein Allah-Karam, head of the coordination council of Ansar-e Hezbollah, published the statement on his Instagram and wrote, “This organization has complaints about the Ministry of Sports and Youths which has illegally and unlawfully dragged hundreds of women and girls as spectators to the recent volleyball games of men.”
Hezbollah students also issued a declaration on Friday, June 16, to the speaker of the mullahs’ parliament (Majlis), Ali Larijani, in which they demanded prohibition of women’s entry to stadiums to watch the World League Volleyball games in Tehran.
The declaration reads in part, “Please order tending to this matter, otherwise, we would have to prevent it based on Khamenei’s ‘fire at will’ order….”
The Ansar-e Hezbollah is protesting women’s entry to stadiums while it has not been facilitated, yet.
In the wake of the first game played by Iran’s national volleyball team which a limited number of women attended, Shaqayeq Yazdani, wife of the team’s medical doctor, wrote in her Instagram, “Unfortunately, entry to the stadium has not been sanctioned for all women and only the wives and families of members of the national volleyball team whose names have already been registered by the federation can enter after providing proper identification.”
Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ supreme leader, used the term, “fire at will”, in a speech on June 7 to a group of youths whom he called “officers of the soft warfare.” This was the same day when the mullahs’ parliament and Khomeini’s mausoleum were attacked in Tehran. He said the young men had permission to “fire at will” to criticize the cultural policies of the government. (The state-run ILNA news agency – June 17, 2017)
