On March 12, Sahar Khodayari wanted to attend a football game. Their favorite Esteghlal Tehran team played that evening in the Asian Champions League against al-Ain from the United Arab Emirates. The young woman, 29, did not get far: She was arrested at the entrance to the Azadi Stadium in Tehran.
Azadi means "freedom" - but for women who want to go to the stadium, there is no freedom in Iran. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Shi'a clerics in 1981 banned women from watching football games by men's teams in the stadium. The Iranian women should be protected by the masculine atmosphere in the stands, it is said in the grounds.
Women only make it to the stands when they disguise themselves as men. Even Khodayari is said to have tried to fake the folders with a blue wig and a long coat, she was a man. The Iranian judiciary accused Khodayari of resisting security forces at the stadium. She remained in prison for several days before being released on bail.
The sister of the dead reports bipolar disorder
The judiciary instituted proceedings against the woman for insulting public order and the police. On September 2, a first hearing on the case should take place in court. This was canceled at short notice, because the judge did not appear because of a bereavement in his family. However, Khodayari was told that she faces up to six months in prison.
After leaving the courtroom, the woman pulled out a bottle filled with a flammable liquid and set herself on fire. She suffered severe burns. An attending physician reported that 90 percent of her skin was burned and she was artificially ventilated. On Monday, a week after the self-immolation, Khodayari succumbed to her injuries in a Tehran hospital.
Her sister told the Rokna online portal that Khodayari had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder two years ago, and she was under medical treatment. The incarceration and the fear of imprisonment made the illness worse. The family had handed over all medical records to the judiciary, but the woman had been treated in court like a healthy person.
Critic of national team captain
Khodayari's self-immolation has louder in Iran, the criticism of the ban on stadium for women once again louder. Many take part in the fate of the so-called blue girl - named after the colors of her favorite team Esteghlal. Among other things, national captain Masoud Shojaei condemned in an Instagram post the rule: "The self-immolation of a woman who was accused of watching a football game - the result of hideous and disgusting thinking - will be completely incomprehensible to future generations," wrote Shojaei. The footballer had already criticized in the past that his mother, his sister, his wife is prohibited from entering the stadium.
MP Parvaneh Salahshouri tweeted: "Where men decide the fate of women and deprive them of their basic human rights and where women help men in their tyranny, we are all responsible for women being incarcerated and burned in this land."
Iran is the only country in the world that generally denies women access to football matches. Iran's President Hassan Rohani had demanded in 2018 that women should attend sporting events. However, there are still powerful conservative forces such as Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri. "If a woman walks into the stadium and sees half-naked men, it's a sin," he said last year, after a small group of women were sent to the Azadi Stadium for a friendly against Iran against Bolivia.
This was an exception - as well as the admission of spectators to the public viewing in the Azadi Stadium during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The Iranian Football Federation FFIRI violates its ban on stadium for women continues to violate Article 4 of the statutes of the World Federation Fifa, which discriminates against women "strictly prohibited" and threatened with infringement with suspension or exclusion.
Iran wants to let women into the stadium against Cambodia
Fifa has been idly watching discrimination against women in Iran for decades. Last year Fifa boss Gianni Infantino visited the Teheran local derby between Esteghlal and Persepolis. Several women were arrested around the game - but Infantino was not given a critical word on neither the general stadium ban nor the arrests.
In June of this year, the Fifa boss then changed his course: In a letter Infantino called on the FFIRI to ensure that in future all Iranian and foreign women can buy tickets and watch matches in the stadium. Despite this, security forces again arrested four women in August for a football match in Tehran. Among them was Zahra Khoshnavaz. She has since gained nationwide fame because she has managed several times to deceive the law enforcement forces in front of the stadiums with a false beard.
Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Sport in Tehran announced that women will be admitted to the Azadi Stadium at the next FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Cambodia on 10 October. Whether it is a one-time exception or the decision means a permanent end to the stadium ban for women is not yet clear.
