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Human Rights Watch has reported that dozens of Iranian women fans have once again been prevented from entering a stadium to watch an international football match.

Iranian authorities denied the women entry to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualifying match between Iran and Lebanon at the Imam Reza Stadium in the city of Mashhad on Tuesday night (29th March), possibly using excessive force, reintroducing a practice that had been thought to have eased in the Islamic republic.

The authorities prevented women, including those who had reportedly already purchased tickets, from entering the venue for FIFA World Cup qualifying match with videos circulated on social media appearing to show women gathered in front of the stadium alleging that authorities used pepper spray to disperse them.

Following the incident, the Iranian Football Federation issued a statement on Wednesday advising that “due to a lack of preparation,” they were not able to accommodate women at the match. The statement also claimed that only nine women had purchased tickets and alleged, without evidence, that “fake” tickets were distributed among fans.

Mohamad Jafar Montazeri, the Iran’s Attorney General, also responded, saying that selling tickets to women while not allowing them into the stadium is unacceptable, and that the authorities should apologiSe and compensate the women.

Commenting on the incident, Tara Sepehri Far, Senior Iran Researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated “Iranian authorities have repeatedly demonstrated they are willing to go to great lengths to enforce their discriminatory and cruel ban on women attending football stadiums

“Given Iranian authorities’ longstanding violations, FIFA needs to follow its own global guidelines on nondiscrimination and should consider enforcing penalties for Iran’s noncompliance.”

Over the past 40 years, Iranian authorities have banned women from attending football and other sports in stadiums. While this ban is not written into law or regulations, the authorities have regularly enforced it for decades. The ban has led to arrests, beatings, detention, and abuses against women.

In September 2019, a female football fan, Sahar Khodayari, known as the ‘Blue Girl’, was reportedly sentenced to jail for trying to enter a stadium. She died by self-immolation, causing a domestic and international outcry.

In October 2019, after the deadline set by world football governing body FIFA set for Iranian authorities to agree that “women have to be allowed into football stadiums,” the Iranian Government permitted a limited number of women to attend a World Cup qualifier match at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium.

However, since then Human Rights Watch allege that the Iranian Government has used various tactics to restrict the number of women attending a sports match at a stadium and only let women enter to watch sports events at stadiums on a rare, ad hoc basis. The authorities have allowed women into stadiums for political gatherings.

Under FIFA’s Statutes (Article 3, Human Rights, and Article 4, Non-Discrimination), discrimination on account of gender - which would include exclusion or interference with access for women and girls to stadiums - is “strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.”

Images: The Imam Reza Stadium in the city of Mashhad (top, credit: Iranian Football Federation) and Iranian women football fans during AFC Asian Cup in Sydney in 2015 (below).

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