Fri 08 November 2019:
Ahwazi fans chanted “listen Tehran, we are Arabs” during a football match at the Foolad Arena Stadium in the southwestern province of Khuzestan in Iran, a video being shared online showed.
“Listen Tehran, come one Ahwaz. Ahwaz, Brazil. Long live the Arabs, I am an Arab, you are an Arab. Ahwaz is Arab,” one fan can be heard leading the chants among the crowds.
The video was captured during the football match between Foolad and Persepolis football clubs on November 4.
حمایت تماشاگران #فوتبال تیمهای #فولاد و #پرسپولیس در #اهواز از قیام مردم عراق
در نهایت هم وحوش #سرکوبگر رژیم #آخوندی با #گاز_اشکآور به تماشاچیان حمله کردند!#خامنهای_عامل_ویرانی#خوزستان#اعتراضات_سراسری #اعتراضات_عراق#DownWithKhamenei pic.twitter.com/NVFjMpweFK
— Ⓑⓐⓗⓐⓡ (@Bahar_Azadii) November 5, 2019
Other videos on Twitter showed people chanting in support of Iraqi protesters with some fans at the stands holding up Iraqi flags in a section right below a poster showing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
The Arab minority population in southwestern Iran has long claimed that they face discrimination from the central government in Tehran.
Last year, Ahwaz and other cities across the Khuzestan province took part in mass country-wide protests.
Watch: Ahwazi fans chant “listen Tehran, we are Arabs” during a football match at the Foolad Arena Stadium in #Iran‘s southwestern province of Khuzestan, in a viral video.https://t.co/LXQ7ZAaBcp pic.twitter.com/fc1xul1i1M
— Ali Özkök (@Ozkok_A) November 7, 2019
At the time, Amnesty International said authorities arrested and held incommunicado more than 7,000 “protesters, students, journalists, environmental activists, workers, and human rights defenders, including lawyers, women’s rights activists, minority rights activists and trade unionists,” in what they dubbed the “Year of Shame” for Iran.
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