In recent days, pro-regime supporters and anti-government protesters met each other during the world cup game against wales. Some Iranian people insisted “women, life, freedom” while others shouted “The islamic republic”. As FIFA and Qatar prohibited any political, offensive and discriminatory messages, the protesters and pro-government people were not able to enter the Ahmad bin Ali stadium. In addition, while the national anthem came out, the Iran national football team did not salute and pay respect to their country. They did not sing along but stayed in a firm posture with a stiff face. In this journal, I will investigate the fundamental reasons for the confrontation between Iranian people and the behavior of the national football team.

The ignition of the protest started with the death of Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini. She is a 22 years old woman who has died after getting tortured and investigated by the brutal Iranian police. The reason why she was sent to the police was because she did not wear a hijab completely. After the death of the following woman, the president of the Iranian government, Ebrahim Raisi reinforced the hijab regulations and ordered a crackdown on women’s rights. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, it was mandatory for all Iranian women to wear hijab. However as the regulations became harder and harder, ironically, people started to not comply with the regulations. Therefore, the government has used inhuman, brutal ways to put sanctions on their people.

According to Amini's family, they claimed they were told during her arrest that she would be released after a re-education session and during the process, she had died from a heart-attack. The photograph of Amni lying in the hospital has spread out widely in the social media and the condemnation within Iran started to arise. As death followed her, the resentment that people had reached to the highest peak. The protest against the government began in earnest due to the death of an innocent woman who refused to wear a Hijab.
For the leaders of Iran’s Islamic Republic, the movement of refusing to wear hijab is seen as an anti-government movement but also as anti-religion actions. Iran is one of the countries that accentuate the significance of Muslim and perceives hijab as a religious symbol of female modesty. According to Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, an Iranian former lawmaker who now works in the U.S as executive director of the Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy insisted “ the regime thinks if it loses the hijab, they think they are going to lose their identity.” In addition, he claimed “ the Iranian government has tied their sphere of influence to their very existence, and then of course, if they relax it, they are going to collapse”. The hijab, the veil, is a political tool for the dominance of the Iranian government.
Therefore the Iranian government is using violence to control people during the protest and it has caused around 300 casualties in the current stage. A human rights group claims the security forces have killed at least 328 people, 15,000 people have been arrested and 431 of them are students. According to HRANA, it claims over 877 cities and 136 university protests have been held in 137 cities. Additionally, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization (IHR) testified 304 protesters, including 41 children and 24 women, were killed on November 9th. They said protesters have been killed in 22 provinces, including in Sistan and Baluchistan, Mazandaran, Tehran, Kordestan and Gilan.
These days, the Iranian people and women are doubting “Why am I wearing a hijab?”. The unity has been created during the protest and people are accumulating their voices to fight against the oppressive government. People said the hijab caused decades of fear to the country which became a justification for the government to use violence against the citizens. The death of an innocent woman led not only the entire Iranian women but all citizens including men, elders and children to feel guilty to the fact that they have not ever refuted the government. The death of a person made the whole people question for the first time and realized the fact that they have been brainwashed by the government into wearing the hijab.