A record-breaking Iranian footballer who supported anti-government protests says his wife and daughter were prevented from leaving the country after their plane made an unannounced stop.
Ali Daei, 53, who had his passport briefly confiscated after returning home earlier this year, said his wife and daughter left the capital, Tehran, legally before their flight stopped on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, where they were quizzed by authorities.
He said his daughter was released but the doors to the flight were closed by then. His family had planned to travel to Dubai and return next week, he said.
Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed Mahan Air Flight W563 being diverted to Kish Island before travelling onward to Dubai a couple of hours later.
There was no comment from the airline or Iranian authorities.
No-one had scored more international goals than Daei, who netted 109 times for Iran before later managing his country, before Cristiano Ronaldo broke his record in 2021.
He is one of several Iranian celebrities to come out in support of protests ignited by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
The Kurdish woman died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code.
The protests rapidly spread across the country and escalated into calls for the overthrow of the theocracy established after the 1979 revolution, making it one of the biggest challenges to clerical rule in over four decades.
At least 507 protesters have been killed and more than 18,500 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group closely monitoring the unrest.
The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to the Revolutionary Guard, said a travel ban was imposed on Daei’s wife earlier this month because of her support for the protests.
Without elaborating, it said she tried to illegally bypass the ban and her final destination was the US. Reports did not name Daei’s wife or daughter, who are not public figures.
Iranian authorities today ordered Mahan Air Flight W563 from Tehran to Dubai to land on Kish island and forced the wife and child of former footballer Ali Daei off the plane.
Daei, a supporter of the protests, says his family wasn't arrested. He wasn't on the plane. pic.twitter.com/h3CRg3EgfM— Kian Sharifi (@KianSharifi) December 26, 2022
Iranian authorities have not released figures for those killed or arrested.
Before his passport was confiscated, Daei, a former Iran captain, took to social media to urge the government to “solve the problems of the Iranian people rather than using repression, violence and arrests”.
The passport was later returned, he said.
The leaderless protesters, rallying under the slogan “women, life, freedom”, say they are fed up after decades of social and political repression by a clerical establishment they view as corrupt and out of touch.
Iranian authorities have blamed the unrest on foreign adversaries like the US and Israel.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said in a statement on Sunday it had arrested seven individuals involved in the protests with a “direct link” to Britain.
Without elaborating, it said some members of the network had dual nationality.
Iran has arrested a number of Iranians with dual nationality in recent years and convicted them of state security offences in closed-door trials.
Rights groups say such detainees are denied due process and accuse Iran of using them as bargaining chips with the west, something Iranian officials deny.
