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Iranian woman dies after setting herself on fire in protest at possible jail sentence for watching football

AcademicSaucer

AcademicSaucer

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Oct 25, 2017
13,652
A woman has died after setting herself on fire while facing a possible jail sentence for watching a game of football illegally in Iran.

The 29-year-old has not been publicly named but has been dubbed "Sahar" by local media.

She was arrested in March after trying to enter Tehran's main football stadium to watch a match, according to Human Rights Watch.

The sports complex is known as the Azadi stadium. Azadi is the Persian word for freedom or liberty.
Following her arrest Sahar was held in prison before being released on bail. She doused herself in petrol on 2 September after leaving a Tehran court. She died on Monday, according to the semi-official Shafaghna news agency.

Masoud Shojaei, the captain of the Iranian national football team, paid tribute to the fan on Instagram.

"As we are shocked by old limitations set for women, the future generations will be astonished to [find out] that women were banned from entering sports arenas in our time," he said, according to Radio Farda


 
Red Liquorice

Red Liquorice

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Oct 27, 2017
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I just read this and it was one of those news pieces that boggles my mind as to the state of the human race.

It's against the law for women in Iran to attend football matches? It's just beyond comprehension. We are so fucked up as a species, we really are doing it all wrong. We hate ourselves I think, collectively, we hate ourselves.
 
Richter1887

Richter1887

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Oct 27, 2017
39,143
The what now?

Women can't watch football? I really wonder what kind of justification they will give. Reminds me of how Saudi Arabia had some people on the news saying "women need to stay home to make food and take care of the kids" and it was ridiculous.

Poor woman.
 
Komo

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Ron Paul said:
Wasn't the Middle East a lot more women friendly a half century ago? Hard to wrap my head around the regression
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Yes it was. Blame the US for invading Iran and replacing the leader with someone who they'd be able to control, and then doing so bad at his job he got overthrown by some fucking dictator.
 
Dali

Dali

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Oct 27, 2017
6,184
Robochimp said:
I don't know why OP left this out.

"Women in Iran are banned from watching men play football in stadiums, despite the fact that this violates FIFA's constitution."
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The article itself seems poorly written. The title is misleading as the above quote points out. Women aren't forbidden from watching football as the title insinuates. They can't watch it in stadiums, which is still crazy but the distinction is worth knowing.
 
Powdered Egg

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Oct 27, 2017
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User banned (1 week) derailing thread with whataboutery, accumulated infractions
Women were banned from bars in the US up until the 70s. This backwards shit ain't that far away over here.
 
Tremorah

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Dec 3, 2018
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Religions have never made sense to me and i just dont understand how these kind of practices are still in place these times

Fucking awful
 
SpitztheGreat

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May 16, 2019
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Lundren said:
Unescorted women were not allowed in bars because owners were afraid that they would either interrupt or distract businessmen or that they were prostitutes. This happened everywhere, from what I understand.
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I'm going to need receipts for this. Perhaps it did happen, but I highly doubt it was common. More likely it was super localized. At worst there were laws on the books that were never enforced. The people who I know that could drink in the 70s have never mentioned anything like this, and I feel like it would be the kind of thing that would come up in conversation over the years.
 
Arkanim94

Arkanim94

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Oct 27, 2017
14,093
terrible story.

the west has absolute fucked over the middle east and we are going to fuck it over again once we start dialing back our dependency from oil.
 
Lundren

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SpitztheGreat said:
I'm going to need receipts for this. Perhaps it did happen, but I highly doubt it was common. More likely it was super localized. At worst there were laws on the books that were never enforced. The people who I know that could drink in the 70s have never mentioned anything like this, and I feel like it would be the kind of thing that would come up in conversation over the years.
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But in the 1940s, most "respectable" full-service restaurants—ones, that is, with bars—placed severe restrictions on unescorted women, if they allowed them at all. They could only sit at tables, they could stand at the bar but only until 6 o'clock, they couldn't come in in groups smaller than three, etc. All of this was supposedly precautionary lest they prove to be hookers on the prowl.

Excluding women from restaurants or at least from sections of restaurants was a regular practice for the many places where men held lunch meetings. Some restaurants kept women out entirely; some had special rooms or bars that excluded women; and others only excluded women at the lunch hour, noon-3pm, for example. The argument behind their exclusion was that men only had a limited time to eat lunch and women would monopolize tables as they gossiped and ate slowly. It was assumed that men would have a working lunch, which demanded efficiency. Having women in the room could slow down the process.

For decades, bars excluded single women, claiming the crowds were too "rough" and "boisterous" and citing vague fears of "fallen girls."
 
Jag

Jag

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Oct 26, 2017
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SpitztheGreat said:
I'm going to need receipts for this. Perhaps it did happen, but I highly doubt it was common. More likely it was super localized. At worst there were laws on the books that were never enforced. The people who I know that could drink in the 70s have never mentioned anything like this, and I feel like it would be the kind of thing that would come up in conversation over the years.
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I was a kid in the 70s but I never heard anything like this.

Lundren said:
But in the 1940s, most "respectable" full-service restaurants—ones, that is, with bars—placed severe restrictions on unescorted women, if they allowed them at all. They could only sit at tables, they could stand at the bar but only until 6 o'clock, they couldn't come in in groups smaller than three, etc. All of this was supposedly precautionary lest they prove to be hookers on the prowl.

Excluding women from restaurants or at least from sections of restaurants was a regular practice for the many places where men held lunch meetings. Some restaurants kept women out entirely; some had special rooms or bars that excluded women; and others only excluded women at the lunch hour, noon-3pm, for example. The argument behind their exclusion was that men only had a limited time to eat lunch and women would monopolize tables as they gossiped and ate slowly. It was assumed that men would have a working lunch, which demanded efficiency. Having women in the room could slow down the process.

For decades, bars excluded single women, claiming the crowds were too "rough" and "boisterous" and citing vague fears of "fallen girls."
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This is selective discrimination by certain places. Much like country clubs were exclusive before the Civil Rights laws.

Regardless, we are derailing an important thread.
 
DrewFu

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Lundren said:
Unescorted women were not allowed in bars because owners were afraid that they would either interrupt or distract businessmen or that they were prostitutes. This happened everywhere, from what I understand.
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I'm calling complete bullshit on this. Maybe this was the case in small pockets, not not widespread.
 
DrewFu

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Lundren said:
But in the 1940s, most "respectable" full-service restaurants—ones, that is, with bars—placed severe restrictions on unescorted women, if they allowed them at all. They could only sit at tables, they could stand at the bar but only until 6 o'clock, they couldn't come in in groups smaller than three, etc. All of this was supposedly precautionary lest they prove to be hookers on the prowl.

Excluding women from restaurants or at least from sections of restaurants was a regular practice for the many places where men held lunch meetings. Some restaurants kept women out entirely; some had special rooms or bars that excluded women; and others only excluded women at the lunch hour, noon-3pm, for example. The argument behind their exclusion was that men only had a limited time to eat lunch and women would monopolize tables as they gossiped and ate slowly. It was assumed that men would have a working lunch, which demanded efficiency. Having women in the room could slow down the process.

For decades, bars excluded single women, claiming the crowds were too "rough" and "boisterous" and citing vague fears of "fallen girls."
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The 40's is not the 70's.
 
BlackGoku03

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Oct 25, 2017
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Dali said:
The article itself seems poorly written. The title is misleading as the above quote points out. Women aren't forbidden from watching football as the title insinuates. They can't watch it in stadiums, which is still crazy but the distinction is worth knowing.
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Not much of a difference.
 
Lundren

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Oct 27, 2017
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dallow_bg

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Oct 28, 2017
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Jag said:
I was a kid in the 70s but I never heard anything like this.



This is selective discrimination by certain places. Much like country clubs were exclusive before the Civil Rights laws.

Regardless, we are derailing an important thread.
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Yup, seemed to be for "upper class" establishments that were a boys club usually. No surprise.
These were not laws and it's par for the course that women were treated badly unfortunately.

Anyway yeah, should get back on topic.
 
Shopolic

Shopolic

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Oct 27, 2017
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Fulminator said:
Women can't watch sports in Iran? Wtf?

Rip to her. She didn't deserve this.
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For a dumb reason, women can't go to stadiums to see men sports. They can go cinema, restaurant, park, coffee shop and... with their wives or boyfriends, but not stadiums.
It's one of those crazy things that we see in Iran and no one knows the real reason behind it. Maybe regime sees stadiums as portals to hell...
 

Deleted member 19003

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Sexist policies in bars and "protecting" women from them is a thing, but the US wasn't enforcing a national policy and arresting women for it afaik. Not a good comparison to what Iran is doing here.

Pretty ridiculous to try to bring up the US in this topic as a whataboutism anyways. Rip to that woman. I hope her death shocks some sense into them.
 
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Fisty

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Oct 25, 2017
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That is true conviction and courage, my god I cant even imagine having the strength to go through with that. RIP
 
brawndolicious

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Oct 27, 2017
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Shambalakan said:
For a dumb reason, women can't go to stadiums to see men sports. They can go cinema, restaurant, park, coffee shop and... with their wives or boyfriends, but not stadiums.
It's one of those crazy things that we see in Iran and no one knows the real reason behind it. Maybe regime sees stadiums as portals to hell...
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I don't know how true it is but I ways heard that it was to "protect women" since men get too aggressive and swear too much during sports games?

Of course that's a bullshit justification but that's what I always heard from family in Iran.
 

Deleted member 26398

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It's the same hijab law bullshit. Men also need to cover their bodies from knee up to the neck. The hijab laws are bullshit but even worse is that it's always women who have to pay the price. You are probably wondering why it's OK to women to watch sports on TV and the reason is that apparently the religious law applies differently to watching something live or not live. Live sports in Iran are broadcasted with a few seconds of extra delay for that reason. It's the reason given by authorities but everybody knows that the real reason is that the regime wants to oppress everybody especially women. At this point anybody who goes to stadiums or plays football precessionally and doesn't at least say anything is complicit in my opinion.
 

Deleted member 27246

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Woman dies after setting herself on fire to protest possible jail sentence for entering a football stadium.

"The US also had some vaguely similar local laws back in the 70's you know!"
 
Shopolic

Shopolic

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brawndolicious said:
I don't know how true it is but I ways heard that it was to "protect women" since men get too aggressive and swear too much during sports games?

Of course that's a bullshit justification but that's what I always heard from family in Iran.
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Maybe that's the reason (the regime that I know don't care about those things though) but as you said, that shouldn't restrict women who love to see football from doing that.
 
Lundren

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Tence said:
Woman dies after setting herself on fire to protest possible jail sentence for entering a football stadium.

"The US also had some vaguely similar local laws back in the 70's you know!"
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Noted. Next time people demand receipts I'll assume they don't actually want them.

This is a terrible story and I don't have much of anything to add. Everyone deserves equal rights no matter their sexuality, gender, sex or race.
 

Deleted member 27246

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Lundren said:
Noted. Next time people demand receipts I'll assume they don't actually want them.

This is a terrible story and I don't have much of anything to add. Everyone deserves equal rights no matter their sexuality, gender, sex or race.
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I wasn't actually referring to you but to the person who brought it up in the first place. Should've made that clearer.
 
Dali

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BlackGoku03 said:
Not much of a difference.
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Except one makes sense in the context of this being a Muslim middle easternern country and the other seems far fetched even for an area that is known for weak women's rights. Iran has a women's national soccer team. I wasn't the only one raise an eyebrow at the title thinking "wow, jail just for watching a football game?" so I clicked the article and that little bit of information became apparent. I'm not even sure she got to watch it at all which would make the title not only misleading but almost completely inaccurate. The article says she was watching the game but she was refused entry. Not sure the design of the design of the stadium but that seems like a difficult thing to do.

I read in another article that she was trying to get in disguised as a man but when she was told she was going to be searched she said she was a woman and refused entry. It's a radio free europe article so I'm loathe to post it but nothing was out if line with other articles I've read.

Anyway this is all to say facing jail time for trying to gain entry to a forbidden public space as a woman in the ME sucks, but isn't really a head turning article title. The ME is known for having many public spaces off limits to women or it being restrictive of their comings and goings. So while you think there's not much of a difference I think an article saying they were facing jail for watching a game and set themselves on fire is not the same as stating the real reason they were facing jail.
 
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nelsonroyale

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Oct 28, 2017
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This is tragic. What an incredibly fecking stupid and cruel law. A beautiful country ruled by some real scumbags.
 
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