Iranian women's soccer team refuses to sing national anthem, chess player calls out regime
The players' actions came as Israel continued its war against Iran in the form of Operation Roaring Lion. As the war progressed, Israel successfully eliminated many of the country's leaders.
Iran's women's soccer team refused to sing the country's national anthem before playing a game against South Korea in Australia, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
As shown in the video, the team members stood silently in a row as the anthem's instrumental played.
The soccer game was the opening match of the Asia Cup.
Another Iranian athlete, former soccer star and current coach Ali Karimi, also spoke out against the regime.
In a post on X/Twitter, Karimi celebrated the strike, which leveled Iran's former supreme leader Ali Khamenei's palace to the ground.
"They wanted to turn the White House into a Husseiniya," Karimi wrote, "It turned into a restroom instead."
Iranian chess grandmaster mocks Khamenei's death
Another famous Iranian sports player who spoke out against the current regime during Operation Roaring Lion was French-Iranian chess grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour.
Hejazipour made numerous statements on X/Twitter expressing her distaste for Khamenei's reign, and her joy at his and other Iranian officials being assassinated. She also made several jokes disparaging Khamenei and those surrounding him.
For example, Hejazipour described Khamenei's wife as a trash bag and called those who performed a tribute to Ali Khamenei at Place de la République "mentally ill."
She also said, soon after Khamenei's death, that "Ali Khamenei, the Butcher of Tehran, has died deep underground. He died like a rat."
