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≡ COVENTRY ASKED TO ACT ≡
A second letter from Iranian athletes to International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry (ZIM), posted on 9 March (Monday) is asking not for sanctions against the National Olympic Committee of Iran, but regime change.
Posted by Global Athlete, the letter explains:
● “In our first letter, we laid out the facts. Iranian sport is not governed by athletes. It is controlled by the ideological machinery of the Islamic Republic. Its federations are not independent institutions. They are extensions of state power.”
● “We documented systemic discrimination against women. We exposed the exclusion of Baha’i athletes on religious grounds. We highlighted antisemitic policies that force Iranian athletes to withdraw rather than compete against Israelis. We detailed the institutional presence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at the highest levels of sports administration, including the National Olympic and Paralympic Committees.”
● “The National Olympic and Paralympic Committees of the Islamic Republic do not represent Iranian sport. They represent a regime. They function as political instruments, not sporting bodies. Their mandate is ideological alignment, not athletic excellence. For decades, the Islamic Republic has used sport as a tool to export its doctrine while presenting a sanitized image to the international community.”
● “Madam President, the Olympic Movement claims to stand for equality, neutrality and human dignity. Those principles are incompatible with enforced forfeits based on nationality, religious exclusion, gender segregation and the imprisonment of athletes.”
● “As the first woman to lead the International Olympic Committee, your response to the repression of Iranian women athletes and the politicisation of Iranian sport will define more than a presidency. It will define whether the Olympic Charter is a living document or a ceremonial text.
“In moments of injustice, silence can be perceived as complicity rather than neutrality. We respectfully urge you to act with courage and in accordance with your stated principles by considering the dissolution of the National Olympic Committee of Iranian regime.”
About 200 athletes from a wide variety of sports, plus some academic and media figures are listed as signatories.
The letter comes, of course, during the combined strikes by Israel and the United States against the Iranian regime. On 3 March, Mehdi Alinajad, Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee of the Islamic Republic of Iran, sent his own message to the IOC and to the Olympic Council of Asia “demanding an investigation into ‘grave violations of the Olympic Truce and acts of aggression’ that targeted Iran’s sports community and facilities.”
Observed: The IOC, of course, is in the middle. It has suspended National Olympic Committees before, of course, for varying infractions and expelled South Africa from 1970-91 and Rhodesia from 1975 until it returned as Zimbabwe – Coventry’s native country – in 1980 for racial segregation policies.
What is true now is that nothing is going to be done by the IOC or a host of other international organizations until the strikes by the American and Israelis militaries have concluded.
All would prefer to have a change come from within Iran itself, rather than be imposed from the outside.
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