The Minister of Interior said that the ban on women’s presence in stadiums was still effective. “When something is banned by the law, everyone has to abide… For soccer fans, this ban is still in effect and those who wanted to get into stadiums were prevented by the police,” Abdul-Reza Rahmani Fazli added, the state-run ISNA news agency reported on Mar. 8, 2018.
Iranian women are banned from entering stadiums. A few months ago, one of the top ayatollahs declared that the issue is out of question and women must not enter stadiums to watch men’s games, period.
Some of the regime’s officials in charge of women’s affairs had previously promised that the government would pass a “directive” on women’s presence in sports stadiums, but the state-run Fars news agency reported on December 9, 2017, that the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution has removed the issue of women’s presence in stadiums from its agenda, altogether and announced that women’s society faces numerous other problems that enjoy priority.
In its annual 2017/18 report Amnesty International cited the ban on women entering the stadiums. In the section entitled, “DISCRIMINATION – WOMEN AND GIRLS,” it wrote: Authorities defied ongoing public pressure to open football stadiums to women spectators.
