Iranian security forces arrested one of the country’s most popular footballers on Thursday, accusing him of spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic and trying to undermine the national World Cup team.
Former member of the national football team and one-time captain of Tehran club Esteghlal, Voria Ghafouri, has spoken out in favor of Iranian Kurds and called on the government to stop the killing of Kurdish people on social media. He was previously arrested for criticizing Iran’s former foreign minister, Javed Zarif.
Iran will play Wales on Friday. The Iranian team has already been embroiled in controversy after failing to sing the national anthem before a match against England, and Ghafouri’s arrest has been seen as a warning to the players to repeat their protest.
Fars New Agency reported that he was arrested after a training session with his club Fuld Khuzestan on charges of “damaging the reputation of the national team and spreading propaganda against the state”.
Other agencies said he was accused of “insulting and trying to destroy the national football team and speaking against the regime”.
In recent days, ministers have accused Ghafouri of being a Kurdish separatist, but he replied that he would give his life for Iran. Earlier this year, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said: “Some people, who benefit from the country’s peace and security, enjoy their jobs and their favorite sports, bite the hand that feeds them,” many thought Ghafouri. .
The 35-year-old footballer was a member of Iran’s 2018 World Cup squad, but was surprisingly not named in the final lineup for this year’s World Cup in Qatar.
Originally from the Kurdish-populated city of Sanandaj in western Iran, Ghafouri posted photos on his Instagram in traditional Kurdish dress in the mountains of Kurdistan, but is a cult hero beyond Iran’s north-west. Sanandaj endured one of the most violent crackdowns on protests after the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini, and Ghafouri visited those injured in protests in Mahabad.
In 2019, he distributed a blue jersey in honor of Sahar Khodyari, a woman who self-immolated after being jailed for trying to watch an Esteghlal match at Azadi Stadium. After another incident of violence against female football fans in 2021, Ghafouri wrote on Instagram: “As a football player, I am truly humiliated to play in an era where our mothers and sisters are forbidden to enter the stadium.”
Many fans suggested Esteghlal, his career at the championship-winning team was cut short as punishment for speaking out in June. Others argued that in his mid-30s, Ghafouri was too old for the Iranian top flight.
He recently tweeted: “Stop killing Kurdish people!!! Kurds themselves are Iran…Killing Kurds is equal to killing Iran. If you are indifferent to killing people, you are not Iranian and you are not human…All tribes belong to Iran. . Don’t kill people!!!”