Mohammad Nosrati and Sheys Rezai both face 74 lashes and jail time for committing “ an act against public morality.” What might that be, you ask? What possibly could warrant a whipping and a prison sentence? Well, according to the Soccer Federation the two players committed an "inappropriate and shameful" act. Criminal court judge Valiollah Hosseiny claims they engaged in "inappropriate and immoral acts", all caught on camera. And since thousands of people were privy to this horror, they should be punished.
As a result,
The two have been banned from attending any games with their team. Nosrati has been banned indefinitely and received a 15-percent cut in his pay, while Rezai has been banned from two games and received a similar pay cut.See for yourself exactly what happened in the video below.
Only in Iran!
UPDATE: 11/5/2011
Sheys Rezai received a whopping $300,000 fine, and will not be allowed to play for the rest of the season.
Nosrati was fined only $250,000 and gets to start playing again mid-season. The judge apparently is still trying for the flogging and jail time.
UPDATE: 11/6/2011
From the Tehran times (thanks Robert) Rezai was fired and fined $230,000. Nosrati $194,000 and will sit out 6 games. And still no word about lashings and/or jail time.
Bottom line, whatever the final outcome is- the fact that these two are being punished so severely for simply celebrating a victory goal (along with the rest of the team) is totally ludicrous. But, so typical of the Iranian mullah mindset.
2 comments:
The Nov. 5 update is a Radio Zamaneh article. Radio Zamaneh is not Iran-based. Radio Zamaneh is headquartered in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Here is the link to the article that appeared in the Tehran Times. The Tehran Times is an English-language newspaper published in Tehran, Iran. It is an Iranian newspaper, so I feel that the article is accurate and reliable as far as this incident is concerned. I will have to say that I found the article surprisingly "tame" for an article appearing in an Iranian newspaper:
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index.php/sports/4230-persepolis-sacks-rezaei-for-immoral-goal-celebration
Thank you for the update, Robert. Normally, I would not trust anything that comes out of Iran, but I will add this information to my post.
It is somewhat 'tame', but the whole incident and the repercussions is absolutely ludicrous.
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