Qatar’s contradictions – Authorities allowed Soleimani’s photos raising, and have harassed Iranian fans and players

The Qatar 2022 World Cup continues to face many successive criticism, including political fears and human rights violations, in addition to corruption suspicions. The Iranian team has started over the past few days to stir a lot of controversy during the World Cup.

Soleimani in Qatar

For their part, local sources revealed that the Qatari authorities allowed the removal of the pictures of the founder of Iranian militias in the Middle East, Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in January 2020 after a U.S. raid in Iraq, despite being strict with various nationalities, and preventing any political or human rights demonstrations. According to the sources, the Qatari authorities prevented the raising of the Iranian national flag, which is against the current Iranian regime in Qatar, in addition to preventing the raising of gay slogans, alcohol, fireworks, and others. However, they allowed the raising of the image of the Iranian terrorist, Qassem Soleimani, to reflect Qatar’s support for terrorism, Iran, and its oppressive regime.

Losses of Iran

The match between Iran and England at the beginning of their journey in the Qatar World Cup was not a normal game, and it will stay in our minds for a long time. This is due to, among other things, the reluctance of Iranian players to sing the national anthem, the fact that they suffered a historic loss, and what happened to their goalkeeper, with a political nature and before the start of the whistle. The first matches of the teams of England and Iran, in the second group matches of the World Cup in Qatar, started when the 11th players of the Iranian national team abstained from performing the national anthem during its playing, in solidarity with the protests that Iran has been witnessing since last September, and Iranian television cut the broadcast when the players of the Iranian national team did not sing the national anthem. Fans could be seen wearing T-shirts reading “Ladies, Life, Freedom” at Khalifa International Stadium. Tears could be seen on the faces of some as Ehsan Hajsafi, the team’s leader, called for change and sent his condolences to the families of those killed in the protests.

Diagonal compliance

In the same context, and at the request of the regime in Iran, the State of Qatar has prevented a journalist and media correspondents opposing the Iranian regime from coming to Doha to cover the World Cup freely, and the opposition media intended to travel to Qatar for media coverage of the 2022 World Cup, and despite the issuance of journalists’ FIFA identity cards, the Media Center in Qatar refused to issue these opposition persons IDs, and in another measure, it was announced that the visa of a journalist from Iran International to Qatar, which was issued two months ago, was canceled, without prior notification or announcement of any other reason. Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi had expressed the regime’s concern in Tehran over the free coverage of the news related to the Iranian national soccer team during the Qatar World World Cup, and a key head of Iran ordered the Iranian Foreign Ministry to prevent potential problems to cooperate with Qatari officials in this important sports event.