Episode 2479: Iran’s Athletes Support Protests, Murray’s Century, Fixing Fidgety Fans, Magical Mbappé
As Iran prepares to play a World Cup on its own doorstep, the country has been swept by waves of protests after the September 16th killing in police custody of 22-year old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the Morality Police in Tehran for wearing her hijab ‘loosely’. The security forces cracking down on these protests have since killed at least 284 people, including 45 children, according to Iran’s Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Now a group of current and former Iranian athletes has written to FIFA asking that their country be banned from the World Cup for human rights violations, while the Ukrainian FA has asked for Iran to be thrown out in retaliation for supplying Russia with attack drones for its war against Ukraine. To talk about this story, we welcome back to the pod Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who was arrested and imprisoned in Tehran in 2014, and who first spoke to us on the pod during the 2018 World Cup.
We also discuss the Ireland team to play South Africa this weekend, the fidgety fan experience at the Aviva, the two most beautiful moments of the last round of Champions League group games and the latest pre-World Cup injury news, while a listener tries to repair some of the wreckage left behind by the Irish educational system.
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