Iran Bans Women from Watching Asian Cup in Movie Theaters


Women in Iran could be banned in advance of Iran’s crucial Asian Cup game against South Korea from watching soccer matches in public movie theatres, according to government-affiliated Iranian media organizations. The ban would amount to a virtual prohibition on women watching soccer in public given that they are also barred from stadia when men play.

The proposed ban, reported by the semi-official ILNA news agency and Khabar Online, came in response to a statement by an unidentified police agency warning that "the presence of women and families at movie theatres increases security risks and inappropriate behaviour."

It was not immediately clear whether the Iranian ministry of culture and guidance has confirmed the proposed ban. Iranian movie industry executives said they were waiting to hear a decision from the ministry.

Khabar Online, however, reported that the ban had become effective prior to this week’s match between Iran and the UAE, which was shown in three theatres in Tehran. Khabar Online said women would not be allowed to see the upcoming Iranian match against South Korea.

Iranians have flocked to movie theatres to watch their national team play in Qatar, hoping that its advance to the quarterfinals in the Asian Cup games will position it to win this year’s tournament.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2006 reversed a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to allow women to attend soccer games in stadia. Khamenei and other hard-line government officials and clerics argue that the presence of women at men's sporting events violates Islamic law.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intellectual honesty in Israel & Palestine produces radically different outcomes

Image
  Just published! By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story or listen to an audio podcast click here . Thank you for your support and loyalty. Intellectual honesty is a rare commodity in the divide between Israelis and Palestinians. It is even rarer with the rise of Jewish ultra-nationalism and a generation of Israelis and Palestinians nurtured on prejudiced, biased, and often supremacist perceptions of the other. The irony is that historically, it was far-right militants, and currently, it is fringe left-wing intellectuals who displayed intellectual honesty, even if their conclusions differ radically. With few exceptions, intellectual honesty has long been lost on the Israeli right and left. What intellectual honesty survives is posited in fringe pockets of the left that propagate a paradigm cultural change on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide that goes against the grain of mainstream Israeli and Palestinian thinking and, in today’s fog of war, has
Read more

Israeli & Palestinian war crimes? Yes. Genocide? Maybe. A talk with Omer Bartov

Image
  To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. An audio podcast is available on Soundcloud. Hi, and welcome to the Turbulent World with me James M. Dorsey, as your host. Words matter. No more so than in legal settings. Genocide is the word most associated with Israel's more than one-month-long assault on Gaza. In response to the October 7 Hamas attack against Israel, in which at least 1,200, mostly civilian, Israelis were killed. Genocide and Holocaust scholars, including those who believe that Israel has and is committing war crimes in its assault are divided about whether Israeli actions amount to genocide. Even so, they warn that Israeli actions could lead to genocide, if it not already has. What is certain is that optics streaming out of Gaza of the destruction and the plight of innocent Palestinian civilians, including large numbers of children and babies, explain the popular use of the term genocide when discussing the Israeli assault.
Read more

Pakistan caught in the middle as China’s OBOR becomes Saudi-Iranian-Indian battleground

Image
By James M. Dorsey Pakistani General Raheel Sharif walked into a hornet’s nest when he stepped off a private jet in Riyadh two weeks ago to take command of a Saudi-led, 41-nation military alliance. Things have gone from bad to worse since. General Shareef had barely landed when Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dashed the Pakistani’s hopes to include Iran in the alliance that nominally was created to fight terrorism rather than confront Iran. The general’s hopes were designed to balance Pakistan’s close alliance with Saudia Arabia with the fact that it shares a volatile border with Iran and is home to the world’s second largest Shiite Muslim community. General Sharif’s ambition had already been rendered Mission Impossible before he landed with Saudi Arabia charging that Iran constitutes the world’s foremost terrorist threat . In a recent interview with the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting television network, Prince Mohammed, who also serves a
Read more