Father: Sahar’s Death No Ploy for Western Media Propaganda

The self-immolation of Sahar Khodayari, famous as Blue Girl, last week has now turned into a tool in the hands of the western media that are trying to use her desperate death as a propaganda ploy against the Iranian government by means of fabrication and mixing realities and lies to link the sad death of a mentally ill girl to the state stadium ban on women in Iran.

Sahar died at a hospital in Tehran on Monday of wounds she had sustained from self-immolation. Her sad death made everyone profoundly sad all across the country.

Media reports first quoted one of her friends as saying that Sahar, 29, set fire on herself after learning she could face six months in prison for sneaking into a men’s match in March. But the claim was immediately rejected by the judiciary, saying that no decree had been issued for Sahar yet and her case was still being studied. Later her family said her arrest was not even for her failed attempt to sneak into the stadium, but for violating the country’s law on Hijab – Islamic code of dressing – and for struggling and insulting the policemen at the gates of Tehran’s iconic Azadi Stadium.

While Khodayari was being treated for her injuries in hospital, the West-based Persian and English-language media outlets turned her into a new propaganda ploy for female fans’ struggle to watch men’s matches, which is illegal in Iran, after fabricating parts of the story and making a final judgment even before a state inquiry started into the case.

Opposition media and political activists have continued a hype to attract the attention of the international sports organizations and use sports as a leverage to pressure Iran politically and compensate for their failures in fomenting insecurity in the country.

The western media in collaboration with the dissident Iranians outside the country are trying to sanction Iran’s football in cooperation with FIFA for the ban on women’s presence in the stadiums to watch men’s matches. The opposition have been seeking to stir an online outcry to call on the world football’s governing body to ban Iran from international competitions and for fans to boycott matches. But these well-concerted move is aimed at political objectives beyond sports.

They have also criticized the Iranian judiciary for sentencing a girl with bipolar disorder to 6 months in prison for trying to watch a men’s football match.

In response, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said on Tuesday that no sentence had been issued since there had been no trial and the judge was away on holiday.

Sahar’s family members have also confirmed that no verdict had been issued for her yet and she was suffering bipolar disorder when she set fire on herself.

The western media, including France 24, claimed that members of Sahar Khodayari’s family told Iranian media they had come under pressure from security officials not to talk to the media.

Heidar Ali Khodayari, Sahar’s father, dismissed the reports later, and also added, “We did not have any problem to receive her body either and they also told us we are free to bury Sahar wherever we want and we did not have any problem for the burial and funeral ceremony at all.”

Disrespecting Sahar’s death and her bereaved family’s need to privacy for mourning, the Persian and English-language media outlets based in the West have stepped up fabrications in the story to ignore Sahar’s earlier suicide attempts to better link it to the stadium ban on women in Iran.

Sahar’s sad death has been under the spotlight by the BBC. The British media reported that her act came after she heard that she could face six months to two years in prison for trying to enter the stadium, a claim which was later rejected outright by her sister.

While, Persian-language media outlets like BBC Persian completely ignored Sahar’s mental health record completely for days, the English versions came to only touch the issue on the surface to later convince the audience that her bipolar disorder deteriorated after two days of detention at the police station, never bothering to explain that Sahar had stopped taking her pills for about a year, and that her self-immolation happened several weeks after she was released from detention on bail.

The western media outlets are also attempting to pressure the Iranian sports society for rejecting matches with Israeli rivals.

They believe that making the international organizations busy with issues related to Iran will both decrease pressures on Israel (as an occupier state) and increase pressures on Iran as Israel’s enemy to help the regime normalize its ties with the world as 32 world states do not recognize Israel and 22 others refrain from playing against Israelis.

The western media outlets and opposition activists outside Iran also rushed to use a fake picture of Sahar after her self-immolation and death. They used the images of a trans-gender boy, wearing a blue hat, instead of Sahar’s picture to make the story more touching. Both Sahar’s family and Sayna whose photo has been used all across the social media have appeared on different media repeatedly to demand everyone to stop using the wrong picture. Sahar’s family has not yet released any picture of her.

Khodayari was facing a trial, which had been briefly postponed. She was released on bail after being held in jail for three days.

Sahar’s sister confirmed to the Persian-language Hamshahri newspaper that she had been detained for improper hijab, disguising herself as men to enter the stadium and after struggling with the police and insulting officers.

She added that when Sahar entered the stadium last March to watch a football match between Esteghlal and al-Ain teams in Tehran, the police officers stopped her for physical inspection but she told them not to touch her because she was a girl and then she was detained.

Sahar’s sister noted that the family was immediately informed of her detention and went to the police office to release their daughter but the interrogator said that they had to provide a bail for her freedom.

“We did not have the money to provide the bond at that moment” and when the family provided the bond the day after Sahar’s arrest but since it was Thursday (the weekend) they had to wait until Saturday for Sahar to be freed, she said.

While, Persian-language media outlets like BBC Persian completely ignored Sahar’s mental health record completely for days, the English versions came to only touch the issue on the surface to later convince the audience that her bipolar disorder deteriorated after two days of detention at the police station, never bothering to explain that Sahar had stopped her medication for about a year, and that her self-immolation happened several weeks after she was released from detention on bail and not the day after, as they try to inspire the audience.

“Sahar went to the prosecutor’s office a few weeks later to collect her cell phone. It seems that she heard from someone (who is not known if he was an official or not) there that she would receive a 6-month jail term,” Sahar’s sister said, stressing that no court session had been held over the case yet.

“Of course, my sister had a record of illness and bipolar disorder. Several years ago, she committed suicide when she was a university student and was hospitalized for a while. All related medical documents also exist,” she said.

Also, Sahar’s father confirmed that his daughter had mental disorder and was on medication, but meantime, said that Sahar did not believe that she was sick and resisted and refused to take her pills, but her mother poured the medicine in drinks so that she does not understand.

“Yet, her mother had stopped force-giving Sahar her medicine since a year ago. Doctors had warned of the grave impacts of any pause in her treatment and said that she might do dangerous things. Her doctor had also cautioned about the side effects of the drugs, including blindness, and her mother, hence, had stopped giving her medicine anymore,” he said.

The BBC, CNN and others never bother to explain why suicides and crimes by mentally diordered individuals are not blamed on the states in the West, specially in the US and UK that stand above the list in the world ranking of suicide rates.

Now the agitated family who need some time and privacy to mourn the agony of Sahar’s shocking death find themselves in an unexpectedly worsening conditions where the opposition of the Islamic Republic from the US State Department’s admittedly paid agent Massih Alinejad to the widow of the dethroned Pahlavy king, Farah Diba, and the West-based media are all in a propaganda push to steal the story of the death of their beloved daughter for their political ends, and have thus felt forced to appear on Iranian TV to reiterate the truth of her death and demand the opposition to stop politicizing Sahar’s story, even if it takes them to the painful experience of disclosing to the public that their daughter has been suffering mental problems.

In an interview with the state-run TV channel two last night, Mr. Khodayari begged those misusing her daughter’s death to stop fabrications in a show of respect for the family and give them some time to bereave their loved one.

Meantime, the state has promised not to take Sahar’s death for granted, saying that a probe will be launched into the factual and root causes of her self-immolation.

Iran’s Vice-president for Women and Family Affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar has already asked the judiciary chief to look into the case in a letter.