Iranian football legend Ali Daei has confirmed that Iranian authorities suddenly stopped a plane carrying his family during a flight from Tehran to Dubai on the island of Kish.
Daei, whose passport was briefly confiscated earlier this year for his support of popular protests in Iran, said his wife and daughter legally left the capital, Tehran, before travel ended abruptly on island of Kish, where they were interrogated by the Iranian authorities. , according to the Associated Press.
Daei added that his family plans to travel to Dubai and back to Iran next week.
Flight Radar 24, which specializes in tracking flights, showed Mahan Iran Flight W563 hijacked over Kish Island, before continuing on to Dubai two hours later.
There were no immediate comments from the airline or Iranian authorities.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported that authorities hijacked a Dubai-bound flight on Monday to prevent the wife and daughter of former Iran national football team captain Ali Daei, who supported the protests, from leaving the country. , according to Reuters.
Authorities shut down Daei’s jewelry store and restaurant this month after backing protests on social media, according to Reuters.
The semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that Daei’s wife was placed on a travel ban earlier this month for her support of the protests.
He said he had tried to illegally circumvent the ban without going into detail and that his final destination was the United States.
Ali Daei is considered the most important footballer in Iran, and is the historic goalscorer of his country’s national team, and previously played professionally abroad in Germany and numerous Gulf Arab countries.
Iran has been rocked by popular protests since mid-September after the death of a young woman of Kurdish origin, Mahsa Amini, 22, after 3 days of detention by the morality police.
Numerous celebrities and movie, sports and music stars supported this protest movement, including Ali Daei. The protest movement calls for the overthrow of the country’s Islamic regime, which took place after the 1979 revolution.
Iran accuses Western countries, Israel and Saudi Arabia of fomenting unrest during the protests, which attracted people from all walks of life and posed the strongest challenge to the clerics.
In addition to the arrests, authorities have imposed travel bans on scores of artists, lawyers, journalists and celebrities due to their support for the protests.
The news agency for human rights activists (Hrana) said that as of December 25, 507 protesters had been killed during the riots, including 69.
minor.
He added that 66 members of the security forces were also killed. Authorities are believed to have arrested as many as 18,516 protesters.
