Hijab protests: Iranian football team refuses to sing national anthem to protest brutal crackdown

Doha: Iranian rulers have suffered a major embarrassment after its football team refused to sing the national anthem before the FIFA World Cup match against England in solidarity with the ongoing protests against the “morality police.”

All of the 11 players stood silent during the playing of the national anthem at Khalifa International Stadium in Ar-Rayyan.

Some Iranian fans at the match held banners with the slogan “Women, Life, and Freedom”, one of the main slogans of the ongoing popular uprising in Iran.

Earlier Iranian Minister of Sports and Youth, Hamid Sajjadi, arrived with a number of guests of honor to participate in the opening ceremonies of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Sajjadi arrived in Qatar accompanied by the Iranian national team and was received by Iran’s ambassador to Doha, Hamid Reza Dehghani Boudeh, and the President of the Iranian Football Association, Mahdi Taj, and his deputy, Mansour Qanbarzadeh.

Iran has been rocked by protests by angry women and students after 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was arrested by the ‘morality police’ for allegedly improperly wearing a headscarf.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), 381 people were killed in the recent protests, including 57 minors. The agency said that it also witnessed the killing of 50 security personnel, in addition to the arrest of 16,088 people.