Iran's players did not sing their national anthem ahead of their World Cup opener against England on Monday in apparent support for anti-government protesters in their home country.
Ahead of the Qatar game, captain Alireza Jahanbakhsh said the team would decide together whether to refuse to sing the anthem to show solidarity with the protests that have rocked the regime in Iran.
The Iranian players remained impassive and grim as their anthem was played at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha. Iran has been rocked by two months of nationwide protests since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody on September 16. Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish origin, died three days after her arrest in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic's dress code for women, which includes the mandatory hijab veil.
Some Iranian athletes have chosen not to sing the national anthem or celebrate their victories in support of the protesters.Jahanbakhsh, who used to play for the English club Brighton, was angered last week by a question from a British journalist about the anthem issue.
Every single player has a different celebration and you ask about the national anthem and that’s something that also has to be decided in the team, which we already talked about," he said."But we never made a big deal out of it, to be honest, because everybody is only thinking about football.
The crackdown since Amini's death has left nearly 400 people dead, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights.
The state's response has raised questions as to whether the team represents Iran or the regime that has ruled with an iron fist since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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