Iran’s national sport which brought many honors for the country, in the past and even now in the era of Iran’s darkest moments, is now experiencing its wane.
Iran’s government a symbol of a medieval system in the 21st century, has made its obligation the destruction of the country’s culture and national values.
The mullahs are burying the country under the dust of a deceitfully presented religion, which is contrary to the people’s thoughts who are constantly insisting on the separation of religion and rule.
The people of Iran always look at the sports heroes who are considered as the symbols of national sports with the country’s honors.
These honors to all Iranians belonging to different currents, strata, and ethnic groups. But in this regime, with its degenerate and backward ideology, the anti-people characteristic, it intends to remove national sports from the country’s identity and impose its reactionary thoughts on the Iranian sports community, contrary to the wishes and beliefs of the people.
But the contrary of this, Iran’s sports icons did not accept the regime’s pressures and backward ideology. Therefore, the Iranian people have always supported them and remembered them as national symbols.
Iran’s national sport is suffering from any damages, and its scope is getting smaller every day due to the pressures by the regime, and it is falling back even from many countries in Asia, which was once considered as one of the most progressive countries in all sports fields.
Many athletes, with their liberal spirit, did not accept the reactionary thoughts and resisted oppression, therefore the most valuable Iranian athletes were tortured and executed by the regime. And women athletes suffered the most from the regime’s pressures because of the regime’s misogynist culture.
The captain of the Iranian national team, Habib Khabiri, was the pioneer of these heroes, who was executed by the regime in 1984.
Forouzan Abdi, a member of the Iranian women’s national volleyball team, was hanged for supporting the Mojahedin Khalq Organization during the 1988 massacre.
Houshang Montazer Al-Zohour, a member of the Iranian national wrestling team in the Montreal Olympics-1976 was executed by the regime in 1981.
Ala Koushali was a player of the Daraei, Persepolis, and Iranian national football team, who were executed in a forest by the regime in 1981.
Mahshid Razaghi, a member of the Omid Iran national team and the Homa Club, was killed by the regime in 1988.
Javad Nasiri, a member of the Iranian national fencing team, was executed in 1988.
Due to these compulsions, various sports in Iran have often reached the threshold of international deprivation.
Recently, the FIFA Arab Cup was recognized by FIFA, therefore, a symbolic match was held between the world team and Arab stars, and an Iranian athlete while wearing the team’s shirt designed for this purpose with flags of all FIFA members participated as an honorary player.
After that state media attacked him and demand that the government must deal with this player and punish him and forced him to apologize for this action.
Over the past year many of the Iranian athletes, because of the regime’s enmity with Israel were not able to participate in international competitions or were forced to step back with excuses like sickness or injures and accept their loss.
The many kinds of pressures on the country’s athletes have forced them to migrate from the country, and over the past years many of them fled the country or when competing they do not accept to come back to Iran and demanded asylum from the hosting countries.
Omid Ahmadi-Safa, the kickboxing champion of Iran and the world, took refuge in Germany. Kimia Alizadeh, Rio 2016 Taekwondo Olympic bronze medalist; Mina Alizadeh, Saeed Fazl Ola, rowing champions; Vahid Sarlak, Saeed Molaei, Mohammad Rashnonejad, and Javad Mahjoub, judo champions; ‘Dina Pouryunes, Ehsan Naqibzadeh, Kasra Mehdipour, Amir Mohammad Hosseini and Raheleh Asemani are among the athletes who have left Iran and taken refuge in various countries.
Alireza Firoozja, a chess master, won the first title among the 108 top chess players in the world in the Grand Switzerland competitions. According to media reports, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, there were five Iranian players on the refugee team.
A few months ago, two athletes from the bodybuilding team left Iran and took refuge, and the latest example is Shaghayegh Bapiri, the captain of the women’s handball team, who took refuge in Spain.
