TEHRAN: Iran’s sports minister has ordered a probe into allegations of sexual assault targeting teenagers at a football academy in the country’s northeast, state media reported Saturday.
“A former media manager for the Shahr Khodro football team has claimed on social media that the parents of 15 players from this club and its academy have filed a complaint against the club and its coaches for sexually assaulting their children,” state news agency IRNA reported.
The report did not specify the gender of the minors targeted in the alleged assaults.
Shahr Khodro football club is based in the shrine city of Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.
“Minister of Sports Hamid Sajadi two weeks ago ordered an investigation into reports of assault at a football academy for teenagers in Mashhad,” IRNA added.
Sajadi called for a “firm response” against those responsible for the incident, the agency added.
On Friday, the local newspaper Shahrara reported on its website that the families of players from the club had gathered outside the headquarters of the provincial football organization to protest the “tragedy.”
The families decided to bring the matter to the media when their protest failed to elicit a response, the daily added.
A similar controversy erupted in 2017 when an official in the Iranian football federation’s ethics committee said more than 10 teenage members of a club has been sexually assaulted.
Iran minister orders probe into sexual assault of teen footballers
https://arab.news/r4t4g
Iran minister orders probe into sexual assault of teen footballers
- The report did not specify the gender of the minors targeted in the alleged assaults
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
