DUSHANBE, June 11, 2012, Asia-Plus – International media sources report that despite public screenings of football matches becoming a popular pastime for couples and families in Iran during the 2010 World Cup, women have been banned from watching Euro 2012 in public.
The movie theater screenings of the matches are reportedly now segregated, like so many other aspects of Iranian society and the local police think ladies should be thanking them for it.
ISNA news agency quoted Bahman Kargar, Iran”s deputy police commander in charge of social affairs, as saying that it is an inappropriate situation when men and women watch football in (movie) theatres together. “Men, while watching football, get excited and sometimes utter vulgar curses or tell dirty jokes,” he said. “It is not within the dignity of women to watch football with men. Women should thank the police” for the ban.
The Euro 2012 games underway in Poland and Ukraine are being aired on state television in football-mad Iran.
