Before their opening World Cup match against England, the Iranian team refused to sing their national anthem and stood instead in silent protest. This was an expression of support for anti-government protests in Iran.
Journalist and commentator Melanie Phillips writes that this act of conspicuous defiance may well result in ‘official harassment, arrest and far worse when they return to Iran’. Some fans shouted and jeered during the anthem; others held up signs saying ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’.
Iranian fans also chanted ‘Ali Karimi’ in reference to the former footballer who is one of the most outspoken critics of the Islamic Republic, and one of the most popular faces of the protest movement.
Phillips quotes the New York Sun, in which Benny Avni writes that ‘the Iranian team’s fans in the stands booed the anthem, while outside the stadium Iranians chanted: “Death to Khamenei”, Iran’s Supreme Leader’.
‘I looked at the players’ faces and I thought they were grief-stricken,’ Iranian-American author and essayist, Roya Hakakian, told the Sun. ‘This is such a significant moment because the eyes of the world are on this. It will definitely be welcomed by the people, because they want the world to know. It is more effective than all the CNN coverage of Iran. The players took everybody by surprise.’
Speaking before the game, Iran captain Ehsan Hajsafi said the players ‘support’ those who have died. Players also covered their national team badge when they played two warm-up internationals in September.
Iranian state television cut away from its coverage of the anthem to a previously shown wide shot of the stadium.
As we know only too well, the protests in Iran were sparked by the death in custody in September of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was detained by the ‘morality police’ for allegedly breaking the strict rules governing the wearing of head scarves, and died in their custody.
Crackdown
Human rights activists say more than 400 protesters have been killed and about 16 800 others arrested in a crackdown by Iran’s security forces.
In stark contrast the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) issued a press release on 21 November 2022 drawing attention to South Africa’s embarrassing stance: ‘SA Government to Host Iran, Oppressor of Women’s Rights, During 16 Days of Activism’.
Indeed, the South African government has invited Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to visit the country on 28 November.
‘Shockingly,’ the SAZF points out, ‘this visit is set to take place in the middle of the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign. For the past two months, the Iranian government has violently suppressed protests calling for women’s rights. It is morally repugnant that our government, which claims to champion [efforts against] gender-based violence (GBV), would welcome the Iranian minister as a foreign dignitary during this or any time. The South African government has also extended an invitation to the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, to visit our country in 2023.’
Raisi was a member of the ‘Death Commission’ where he became known for, and implicated in, one of the world’s largest mass executions, in which more than 30 000 people were executed, including children and pregnant women.
‘These invitations portray the shallowness and hypocrisy of the ANC government’s statements and commitments to the fight against GBV. How can our government be so vocal about women’s and children’s rights but then invite these suppressors of women to our country? The South African government has yet to utter a single word of support for the women and girls of Iran.
‘The SAZF points out that the protests, inter alia, have called for an end to institutionalised misogyny and the patriarchal fundamentalist rule but have been met by the country’s authorities with truncheons and bullets. The USA and the EU have exercised harsh sanctions against the Iranian government in response to Iranian police opening fire on crowds of people who gathered to mourn at the graveside of Amini.’
Hasty executions
According to the NGO, Iran Human Rights, one protester has been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court. Evidence from official reports suggests that the Islamic Republic may be planning to carry out hasty executions in respect of at least 20 protesters facing charges that are punishable by death.
‘Director of Iran Human Rights Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The international community must strongly warn the Islamic Republic of the consequences of executing protesters [by] (summoning) their ambassadors and implementing stronger effective human rights action against state officials”.’
A draft resolution has also been introduced to expel Iran from the United Nations’ (UN) Commission on the Status of Women.
‘As the world denounces the oppression of women by the Iranian regime, the ANC government welcomes it.’
The SAZF condemned this engagement and called on the ANC government to stand with the Iranian people against the oppressive Iranian regime, and to show support for its state-sponsored GBV campaign.
Few would be surprised by the government’s actions. The ANC has long since abandoned human rights as a core foreign policy principle.
For archaic, ideological reasons the ANC regards the kleptocratic, undemocratic, human rights-shy government of Russia as the ‘successor’ to and embodiment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which supported the ANC in exile as a client in the Cold War.
The ANC includes among its friends the brutal, socialist dictatorship of Venezuela; North Korea, still the most repressive regime in the world; and the dilapidated, socialist state of Cuba.
Iran is an unabashed theocracy, its human rights abuses are legion, it is the major supporter of Islamist terrorist groups, and is pursuing the development of a nuclear bomb.
Undemocratic countries
The ANC expressed support for Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution of 1979 and Khomeini expressed support for the ANC’s struggle against apartheid; this is the glue that forever holds the ANC government and Iran together, irrespective of time or circumstances. The same applies to all the undemocratic countries that the ANC supports.
We can discern, therefore, that there is one overarching, unwavering principle in the ANC’s foreign policy: we support countries who hate the West, while the commission of human rights violations against their own peoples is not a factor.
Liberal constitution notwithstanding, as Aesop said over 2 500 years ago: ‘A man is known by the company he keeps’.
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