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When Zeinab Sahafy was a baby in Iran, she would go to her grandmother’s home to look at soccer on tv. Sooner or later, her uncle requested if she want to see the gamers in individual. Since ladies have been banned from reside matches, he as a substitute took her to see the nationwide workforce as they arrived at Tehran airport and adopted them in a automotive all the way in which to the stadium. Witnessing the thrill on the gates, Sahafy resolved she would watch the following sport from contained in the stadium.
In Pink Card, a brand new four-part sequence in regards to the Iranian ladies preventing for his or her freedom by way of soccer, we find out how Sahafy disguised herself as a person as a way to attend matches, and documented it on social media. She now lives in exile in Turkey after the Iranian authorities declared her an enemy of the state. Requested what would occur to her if she returned to Iran, Sahafy says she would possible be hanged.
Seamlessly mixing memoir, sporting historical past and geopolitics, Pink Card comes with a formidable pedigree. It’s written and offered by the American-Iranian producer Shima Oliaee, who co-created Dolly Parton’s America and The Vanishing of Harry Tempo, two of Radiolab’s most interesting mini-series. The timing can be placing: three years within the making, the sequence arrives within the wake of months of anti-government demonstrations in Iran, triggered by the demise of the Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini in September 2022 in police custody. Extra just lately, protesters have been executed.
For Oliaee, that is additionally a private story. Her mom, a eager footballer, grew up in Iran and was on the entrance line of protests within the run-up to the 1979 revolution. Fearing for her security following the institution of a theocratic regime, her household put her on a flight to Reno, Nevada. Now, between making cups of espresso, her mom shares her experiences as a university freshman in Tehran earlier than her college was shut down, and adapting to her new life within the US.
There’s tragedy in Pink Card’s tales of people standing up towards their oppressors: the devastating remaining episode is about Sahar Khodayari, who was arrested in 2019 and confronted a potential six-month jail sentence after sneaking right into a soccer match. Quite than doing so, she set herself on fireplace in protest.
However there’s additionally pleasure and optimism within the tales of ladies discovering ingenious methods to subvert the system. To grasp the 40-year battle over soccer stadiums, Oliaee tells us, is to know the struggles of Iranian ladies. Discussing her love of soccer, Sahafy captures the defiance of feminine followers as she observes how “even within the weakest moments, there’s at all times that sliver of hope and chance that we might win the match . . . There are occasions once we really feel like the sport is over, however in truth it’s simply getting began.”
30for30podcasts.com/pinkcard
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