Soccer referee Mahsa Ghorbani had enough of threats from the Iranian authorities, so this year she decided to flee.
She was heading for Great Britain, but on 23 December, when she had reached Denmark, she was arrested. It writes Berlingske.
“I don’t doubt for a moment that the threat to her is very serious and that she is on the run for good reason,” says her defense lawyer Daniel Rosenkilde to the newspaper.
Mahsa Ghorbani spent the night in Danish police custody and, after a constitutional hearing on Christmas Eve, was charged with forging a German residence permit.
Information about the Iranian football referee is scarce, but a few days ago she gave an interview to the exile media Iranwire. Here, Mahsa Ghorbani describes how she was subjected to death threats.
In the interview, which was published on 16 December, she says that she should have been part of the refereeing team which was supposed to referee the match between the two Iranian teams Esteghlal FC and Persepolis FC. According to her own statement, she was pressured by the Iranian authorities to withdraw and submit a medical declaration to the international football association FIFA. But she refused to obey. And it had consequences.
“They repeatedly threatened me with acid attacks and said: ‘You’re just a woman. You are nothing. Who do you think you are?’” she tells Iranwire.
“I always wanted to stay and achieve success in Iran, but I reached a point where I was threatened with death.”
Already in 2018, Mahsa Ghorbani defied the clergy’s dress code. Although as a woman she faced the requirement to cover her legs, she refused. For a match, she wore shorts so that the lower part of her thighs and her knees were visible.
Berlingske writes that the Eastern High Court will decide within a few days whether the football referee can be released.
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
