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Iranian Athletes Call On I.O.C. to Ban Iranian Athletes

Oct 14, 2020 10:00 am By Hugh Fitzgerald 14 Comments

The Islamic Republic recently executed the 27-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari. He had been tortured by the regime until he “confessed” to the murder of an Iranian intelligence officer. The real reason for eliminating Afkari was that in 2018 he had attended an anti-regime demonstration, protesting against the country’s economic degringolade. Because of his fame as a wrestler, Afkari could have been an enormously popular figure around which to rally opponents of the regime, a danger that the mullahs did not want to risk. His execution has led prominent Iranian athletes, and human rights activists, to ask both the I.O.C. (International Olympic Committee) and FIFA (the International Soccer Association) to keep Iran from participating in sports competitions. The report is here:

“Olympics refuses to discuss Iranian regime’s murder of wrestler,” Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post, October 7, 2020:

A new organization comprised of decorated Iranian athletes and human rights activists on Friday urged the International Olympics Committee and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to suspend Iran from all sports competitions because of its reported murder of the champion wrestler Navid Afkari.

Women’s rights campaigner Masih Alinejad tweeted: “We’ve launched a new campaign: #United4Navid. Gold-medal athletes from Iran’s national teams join human rights activists. We’re calling on international sporting federations & Olympic Committee to suspend Islamic Republic of Iran from sporting events for killing #NavidAfkari.”

United4Navid posted videos on its website from Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, former Iranian kick-boxing champion Majid Fallah and former Iranian Greco-Roman national coach Sardar Pashaei, who all called for the Islamic Republic to be suspended. They also cited Iran’s “discrimination against women, including female athletes who have faced numerous restrictions.”

Sardar Pashaei, the renowned Greco-Roman Iranian wrestler, said in a short video on the United4Navid website that “In Iran, Kurdish, Baloutch, Arab, Sunni, Bahai and even female athletes face systematic discrimination.

“I personally witnessed Iranian authorities forcing athletes to refuse to compete with Israeli athletes… Athletes who take part in civil disobedience protests in the streets are arrested, tortured and even executed, especially the innocent young athlete, Navid Afkari,” he added….

“He called on international sport bodies to suspend the Iranian regime, “as long as Iran does not respect human rights and treat its citizens in a fair way.”…

What is so impressive about this effort is that all the Iranians involved in creating United4Afkari, in order to undermine the Islamic Republic’s prestige by having it banned from taking part in international competitions, including the Olympics and the World Soccer Championship, are directly challenging the rule of the mullahs. They are accusing the regime of torture and judicial murder. And they are doing this, incredibly, from inside Iran. They know, too, that they are not too prominent to be punished, for Navid Afkari himself was a world champion Greco-Roman wrestler, and he was executed despite all the worldwide pleas on his behalf. The Supreme Leader, the implacable Ayatollah Khamenei, might decide that the regime will now have to make examples of those behind United4Afkari in an attempt to frighten into silence these entirely too intrepid opponents. He can choose punishments ranging from expulsion to imprisonment to execution, of those involved in this unflinching and direct challenge to the regime’s authority. But will the infliction of such punishments dampen their zeal or, isn’t it more likely, inflame it?

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Filed Under: Featured, Hugh Fitzgerald, Iran Tagged With: #United4Navid, FIFA, International Olympic Committee, International Soccer Association, Navid Afkari


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Comments

  1. mortimer says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 10:56 am

    This was a POLITICAL MURDER of an athlete who was thus made an example of what happens in Iran to dissenters.

    An international protest is required from the Olympic Committee.

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:
    Article 19
    Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
    Article 20
    Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
    Article 21
    (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
    (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
    (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

    Approved unanimously by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948

    Reply
    • mortimer says

      Oct 14, 2020 at 10:58 am

      Athlete Navid Afkari is a martyr of the freedom of dissent.

      Reply
    • Keith O says

      Oct 14, 2020 at 6:19 pm

      Sorry Mortimer, you can quote human rights statutes to the Iranian government all day and they really don’t give a s*#t.
      The only thing that will change things is unfortunately violent revolution.

      Reply
  2. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 11:21 am

    The murder of this Iranian athlete by those heinous tyrants of those in total in the “mullah regime” of Iran is one person on the long and tragic list of severe . brutal cruel and vicious human right abuses by that extremely harsh and oppressive Islamic tyrannical regime of Iran.

    Moreover about that heinously brutal, cruel vicious tyrannical “mullah regime” of Iran has terribly failed to deliver the lying promises it held out the for Iranian people when is first attempted to and then gained and tool power. Now many of the disillusioned and disappointed Iranians have woke up the lies and harsh rule of this Islamic tyranny which they are trapped and forced to exist in. Some of them have even gone further and seen through many falsehoods of the false doctrines of Islam.

    One writer came right out and wrote about this reality when he revealed, in his book, that “The creation of an Islamic republic in Iran has had the effect that many from that country in Iran have become disillusioned with Islam are looking to leave.” [1]

    [1]HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD by William Wagner page 208.

    Reply
  3. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 11:24 am

    About that brutal cruel and murderous Sharia law based tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran which has the official title of “The Islamic Republic of Iran” and also about the chief and head Imam, Ayatollah Khomeini, who had a strong hand in establishing this so called “Republic “

    The very actual essence of that Islamic tyranny, Ayatollah Khomeini, had made in known that “The Islamic Republic of Iran would be Islamic and nothing but .He declared ‘What the nation wants is an Islamic Republic . Not just a Republic, not a democratic Republic, not a democratic Islamic Republic. Do not use the word “democratic” to describe it. That is the Western style. ‘” [1]

    Furthermore, that cruel and tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran regime has severely limited to an extreme much knowledge and wisdom from the outside world. This is because that fiendish and murderous ayatollahs and mullahs in power in Iran are very much afraid the Iranian people might discover different ideas. As the idea’s and philosophy of John Locke

    For example, Locke views the people living under any genuine government are people retaining their individual rights after a government has been established to protect human rights. . In other words, the securing of their rights – the protection of the life, liberty and property of all – is the sole legitimate purpose of government. I If a government begins to abuse those rights it then becomes tyrannical and the governed [the people] retain the right to overthrow that government and replace it with one that does its job properly.

    So that heinous”mullah regime” of Iran, greatly fears such ideas and keeps the people under his hideous control of his tyranny in and the darkness of much limited information.

    [1]`THE HISTORY OF JIHAD by Robert Spencer, page 318.

    Reply
  4. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 11:31 am

    “The Islamic republic of Iran exists and operates as what every fundamentalist dreams of, an Islamic state ruled by sharia …” [1]

    It’s complete blindness , delusion ,folly and error to even attempt to establish Sharia law in North Africa or for that matter any other nation or place in this world.

    About Islamic law ,otherwise known and Sharia law. It should be made known that the actual origin of Sharia law is revealed in a Time –Life book with the title MESOPOTAMIA: THE MIGHTY KINGS copyright 1995. The point is this history book about the ancient pagan world of Mesopotamia informs the reader that “many Islamic laws resemble the Babylon and Assyrian forebears.” .page 150.

    There is the above and other references imply that such pagan teachings were incorporated into the religion that Muhammad manufactured and then started.

    Thus this further reveals that a lot of ancient paganism is part of the whole religion of Islam.

    In other words, ancient paganism makes up much of Islam. Therefore Islam is a hoax.

    [1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 347

    Reply
  5. Peter Buckley says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 11:31 am

    Well we now know for sure that Iran is run by a religious cabal whose beliefs are not shared by the majority of Iranians:

    https://iranintl.com/en/iran/iranians-have-lost-their-faith-according-survey

    Therefore its time is running short.

    My guess is 4 years IF Trump wins. Otherwise, it will take longer, but is doomed anyway.

    Reply
  6. Glenwood Jarman says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 12:52 pm

    If the Chinese own NBA players would make a stand against the atrocities committed by the likes of the Iranian government, maybe, the American people might respect them. I doubt if there are more than a handful of professional athletes in the West who will stand with the UNITED4NAVID worthwhile movement.

    Reply
  7. Walter Sieruk says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 1:01 pm

    The US sanction ban on oil exports from this the “mullah regime” of Iran is a grand and wise plan. The Trump administration has said that it aims to reduce those exports to zero.” For that Islamic tyranny is hostile against the United States, , the State of Israel and many other nations and the people who are citizens of those countries.

    As for those current economic sanctions that are being held against that Islamic tyranny of Iran Is very good and appropriate. This Islamic rough state of Iran inappropriately it has the word “Republic” in its title. America’s National Security Adviser, John Bolton, had said that goal of the sanctions is not to make a “regime chance” but to cause charge for the better in the actions and polices by the heads of state in Iran . For those mullahs and the others in power in Iran are so thoroughly deceitful, demonic, wicked, vicious and cruel that they will not change their malicious ways. As explain in the Bible “What is crooked cannot be straightened; which is lacking cannot be counted.” Ecclesiastes 1:15. [N.I.V.] Indeed, Those malice -filled and hateful Muslim clerics who have much power in Iran along with the other Islamic stooges who rule Iran “cannot be counted” to make any chances for the better .

    The ayatollahs and mullahs in their likeminded Muslim partners in total governmental control of Iran are very anti- female m as in extremely misogynistic and oppressive ruthless to both girls and woman as well as all of the Iranian people who are trapped in forced to existed in this diabolical Islamic regime. As it is written in Proverbs 15:15. “All the days of the oppressed are wretched.” Likewise, Ecclesiastes 4:1 reads “ I saw the tears of the oppressed – and they have no comforter; power was in the side of the oppressors …”

    Furthermore ,Proverbs 28:15 very well describes such wicked characters who rule Iran as president Rouhani and ayatollah Khamenei . For it reads “Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a helpless people.” Furthermore, such a vicious mindset of heinous arrogance of Rouhani, Khamenei and the other hateful and spiteful Islamic clerics in this “mullah regime” of Iran is reflected in the words from the Bible describing tyrannical villains in power of an oppressive regime. For Psalm 73:6—9 read “Therefore pride is their necklace:: they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil ;their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.”

    Reply
  8. Michael Copeland says

    Oct 14, 2020 at 2:47 pm

    Brave athletes.

    Reply
  9. gravenimage says

    Oct 15, 2020 at 12:15 am

    Iranian Athletes Call On I.O.C. to Ban Iranian Athletes

    The Islamic Republic recently executed the 27-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari. He had been tortured by the regime until he “confessed” to the murder of an Iranian intelligence officer. The real reason for eliminating Afkari was that in 2018 he had attended an anti-regime demonstration, protesting against the country’s economic degringolade
    …………..

    Good for these Iranian athletes for taking a stand. This is an incredibly brave thing for them to do.

    Reply
  10. Peter says

    Oct 16, 2020 at 12:18 am

    Wasn’t Afkari Zoroastrian? Not moslem, correct me if I’m wrong.

    Reply
  11. Giacomo Latta says

    Oct 16, 2020 at 2:39 pm

    Neither the IOC nor FIFA have track records of refusing to deal with subordinate national football associations that just happen to be simultaneously run by government officials where the countries just happen to have human rights abuses. Whenever FIFA has slung out fashionable slogans like Fair Play or Say No to Racism it is because the world has discovered some kind of corruption within FIFA. e.g., payoffs to FIFA officials with money meant to go to poor or backward (in terms of soccer technique) countries, e.g., Michel Platini.
    Rewarding Qatar, that soccer giant where football was born and developed (OK, let’s end the sarcasm here), was the most obvious and egregious example of how filthy FIFA is internally.

    Reply
    • gravenimage says

      Oct 16, 2020 at 11:27 pm

      Yes–that the World Cup is going to be held in Qatar is appalling.

      Reply

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