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By Abdolrahman Mahabadi, political writer and analyst<\/p>\n
With the 2018 FIFA World Cup officially kicked off in Russia, millions of people across the world are watching the games in different ways, with each match making some shed tears out of sorrow and others smile out of joy. That\u2019s how such tournaments are reflected in people\u2019s feelings.<\/p>\n
Like other participating nations, it\u2019s quite natural for Iranian people to be happy about Iran\u2019s victory over Morocco. But the people are also extremely upset about the mullahs taking advantage of such victories, as they know more than anyone else that the regime ruling their country is the number one enemy of Iran\u2019s sport and sports fans. The Iranian people know quite well that, just like many other issues, Iran\u2019s sport has been suffering a bleak situation ever since the mullahs came to power.<\/p>\n
According to official remarks, the regime obtains its legitimacy not from people, but from God, a fake God that\u2019s too different from the God Iranian people and the world worship. That\u2019s why the regime has no place in people\u2019s delight, with the happy reactions by the likes of regime\u2019s president \u2018Hassan Rouhani\u2019 following a victory being nothing more than a deception.<\/p>\n
A look at vilayat-e-faqih regime\u2019s shameful sports record reveals the regime\u2019s long history of hostility towards sports: instead of adequately funding the country\u2019s sport, women\u2019s in particular, the regime allocates the country\u2019s whole budget to exporting fundamentalism and terrorism.<\/p>\n
Many of the country\u2019s athletes and sports champions, including Habib Khabiri, have been executed by the mullahs\u2019 regime, while many others were forced to leave the country and still many more had to say goodbye to the field, and die in obscurity at home or abroad.<\/p>\n
Aziz Asli, Iran\u2019s goalkeeper during the \u201860s and \u201870s, Aziz Kiani (Iran\u2019s heavyweight wrestler and Gholamreza Takhti\u2019s teammate) were among the champions who chose to die in obscurity abroad but not to give in to the regime, as their heart kept beating for Iran and the Iranian people while always holding the mullahs\u2019 regime responsible for millions of Iranians\u2019 forced immigration.<\/p>\n
Habib Khabiri was Iran national football team\u2019s captain in 1979. He played center back. \u201cHabib was a genius in Iran\u2019s football at the time,\u201d says Habib Naebagha, formerly Khabiri\u2019s teammate and colleague and now a member of the NCRI, adding \u201che was the best Asian player of his time. He was a two-feeted player who, despite being relatively short, could win every one-on-one battle thanks to his athletic \u2018little Hercules\u2019 body.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Habib Khabiri was arrested in 1983 by the mullahs\u2019 oppressive regime. Putting Khabiri under extensive tortures and pressures to break him down in front of Khomeini\u2019s TV cameras, the regime eventually executed him by firing squad on June 21, 1984, for his supporting the PMOI.<\/p>\n
And Habib was not the only one. There were many other athletes that were executed by the mullahs\u2019 regime, including Hooshang Montazer-al-Zohoor (former national team\u2019s Greco-Roman wrestler), Ala Kooshali (former Darayee, Perspolis, and Iran national team\u2019s football player), Mahshid Razaghi (former Tehran\u2019s Homa football player), Majid Hajbeigi (former Tehran\u2019s Karate champion), Manouchehr Zangouee (former Khouzestan basketball player), Majid Nazari (former Tehran\u2019s judo champion), Seyed Mohammad Ataroudi (former Taekwondo champion and coach) and Forouzan Abdi (former national volleyball player).<\/p>\n
While sports fields and stadiums in every country are places for promoting human values, altruism and building a healthy society, in Iran under the mullahs\u2019 regime, however, such places are either destroyed, held in poor conditions, or turned into places for hanging Iranian people\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
In addition to assigning the stadiums and sports places to the Revolutionary Guards and state-linked entities, the regime targets any athlete who dares to speak up in support of the people and their uprising. On July 15, 2017, young athlete Aliasghar Nahvipoor, who couldn\u2019t remain silent and indifferent, and started rebuking a mullah when he saw him insulting a young woman in Shahr-e-Ray subway station, was heroically martyred under regime agents\u2019 barrage of bullets.<\/p>\n
Regime\u2019s anti-people Revolutionary Guards and Basij are now not only widely present in all economic, political, military and administrative affairs of Iran\u2019s society, but they also have the final say in the country\u2019s sports clubs, particularly premier football clubs\u2019 boards of directors.<\/p>\n
While more than 50 percent of Iran\u2019s population is below 35, the country\u2019s sport is suffering such a scourge, in such a way that the country\u2019s per capita sports spaces is only 60 square centimeter.<\/p>\n
Iranian sportswomen, on the other hand, have been experiencing even much worse compared to their male counterparts, as by the order of Khamenei and other mullahs, women are banned from practicing their favorite sports, watching sport matches in stadiums, being aired on TV, having access to proper sports places and having many other sports related rights. Iranian regime\u2019s banning women from attending the stadiums was one of the issues that late Asma Jahangir, former UN Special Rapporteur on Iran\u2019s human rights, had pointed to in her reports.<\/p>\n
There are more than a few Iranian veteran athletes and members of the PMOI that, in addition to being involved with their daily activities against the mullahs\u2019 regime, are both planning to attend the NCRI\u2019s Grand Gathering on June 30 in Paris, and also invite other Iranians, Iranian athletes in particular, to join and support the Resistance of Iran. These include: Moslem Eskandar Filabi, Asghar Adibi, Hassan Naebagha, Bahram Maveddat, Abbas Novin-Rouzegar, Mohammad Ghorbani, and Mohammad Tehrani, to name a few.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Abdolrahman Mahabadi, political writer and analyst With the 2018 FIFA World Cup officially kicked off in Russia, millions of people across the world are watching the games in different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":51597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[178],"class_list":{"0":"post-24960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran-a-world","8":"tag-save"},"yoast_head":"\n