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Iran Football Legend Daei Targeted by ‘Threats’ after Backing Protests 

Iranian football legend Ali Daei. (AFP)
Iranian football legend Ali Daei. (AFP)
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Iran Football Legend Daei Targeted by ‘Threats’ after Backing Protests 

Iranian football legend Ali Daei. (AFP)
Iranian football legend Ali Daei. (AFP)

Iranian football legend Ali Daei on Monday said he had been targeted by threats after backing ongoing protests in Iran triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini.  

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, three days after her arrest by the notorious morality police while visiting Tehran with her younger brother.  

Daei, whose 109 goals at international level was long unsurpassed until he was overtaken by Cristiano Ronaldo, played in Iran's legendary 1998 2-1 World Cup victory against the United States. 

He decided not be go to the World Cup in Qatar due to the Iranian authorities' deadly crackdown on the protests.  

"I have received numerous threats against myself and my family in recent months and days from some organizations, medias and unknown individuals," Daei said in a statement on Instagram.  

"I was taught humanity, honor, patriotism and freedom.... What do you want to achieve with such threats?" he added.  

In the post, Daei also called for the "unconditional release" of prisoners arrested in the crackdown on the protests in Iran.  

Daei earlier this month said he would not be travelling to Qatar for the World Cup, despite having an invitation from the organizers, saying he wanted to be "with my compatriots and express sympathy with all those who have lost loved ones" in the ongoing crackdown.  

His comments come as Iran prepares to face the United States on Tuesday, in a repeat of the 1998 showdown, with Team Melli seeking to reach the final stages of a World Cup for the first time in its history.  

There has been intense scrutiny on football as the protests continue in Iran, posing the biggest challenge to the regime since the 1979 revolution.  

Daei himself reportedly had his passport confiscated when returning to Iran in the early phase of the protests but subsequently had it returned.  

Prominent Iranian footballer of Kurdish origin Voria Ghafouri, who has been outspoken in his support of the protests, was arrested last week.  

Iranian media reports said he had been released on bail. But Norway-based Kurdish rights group Hengaw denied this and said he had been transferred from the west of Iran to jail in Tehran. 

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UN Investigator Says US Sanctions Over Her Criticism of Israel Will Seriously Impact Her Life 

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)
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UN Investigator Says US Sanctions Over Her Criticism of Israel Will Seriously Impact Her Life 

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is interviewed by the Associated Press in Rome, Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (AP)

An independent UN investigator and outspoken critic of Israel’s policies in Gaza says that the sanctions recently imposed on her by the Trump administration will have serious impacts on her life and work.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is a member of a group of experts chosen by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.

Both Israel and the United States, which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation. Washington has decried what it called a “campaign of political and economic warfare” against the US and Israel, and earlier this month imposed sanctions on Albanese, following an unsuccessful US pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post.

“It’s very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the US,” Albanese told The Associated Press in Rome on Tuesday, adding that individuals sanctioned by the US cannot have financial interactions or credit cards with any American bank.

When used in “a political way,” she said the sanctions “are harmful, dangerous.”

“My daughter is American. I’ve been living in the US and I have some assets there. So of course, it’s going to harm me,” Albanese said. “What can I do? I did everything I did in good faith, and knowing that, my commitment to justice is more important than personal interests.”

The sanctions have not dissuaded Albanese from her work, or her viewpoints, and in July, she published a new report, focused on what she defines as “Israel’s genocidal economy” in Palestinian territories.

“There’s an entire ecosystem that has allowed Israel’s occupation to thrive. And then it has also morphed into an economy of genocide,” she said.

In the conclusion of the report, Albanese calls for sanctions against Israel and prosecution of “architects, executors and profiteers of this genocide.”

Albanese noted a recent shift in perceptions in Europe and around the world following an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war.

“It’s shocking,” she said. “I don’t think that there are words left to describe what’s happening to the Palestinian people.”

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led fighters stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians but says more than half the dead are women and children.

Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, the United Nations says hunger is rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the territory and medical care is extremely limited.