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.”
