TEHRAN — Iranian officials have taken aim at Ali Karimi, a legendary and highly popular former soccer player who has been speaking in defense of nationwide anti-government protests in Iran, sparked by the Sept. 16 death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, 22, in custody of Tehran’s “morality police,” for violating hijab laws. 

“The prosecutor-general should enter the case of Karimi’s accusations against the entire system and the lies he spreads on social media,” stressed Hossein Ali Haji Deligani, who is a member of parliament and member of the Judiciary Committee within Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly. In an interview with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Fars news agency published Sept. 30, he called on the judiciary to put Karimi “on trial.”  

The 43-year-old former captain of Iran’s national soccer team has capitalized on his nearly 13 million followers on Instagram and Twitter to express his support for the protests in Iran and hit back at claims made against him.  

Last week, hard-line cleric and former member of Iran’s parliament Hamid Rasaee called for the seizure of Karimi’s assets in Iran. Speaking to Iranian state TV Sept. 25, he compared the athlete to exiled Turkish soccer star Hakan Sukur, whose belongings were confiscated on charges of supporting the failed 2015 coup in Turkey, demanding the same for Karimi.