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An emergency hearing took place regarding Iran’s old flag being present at World Cup games ahead of its tournament opener on Monday in Los Angeles.
A lawsuit was filed on Thursday by the Institute for Voice of Liberty and an Iran fan, arguing that hoisting the “lion and sun” flag, which represents the country’s previous regime and changed in 1980 following the Islamic Revolution, is a form of freedom of speech.
FIFA banned the flag ahead of the tournament, and Los Angeles Judge Curtis A. Kin upheld it.
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“Free speech is incredibly important, it is sacred, a bedrock of our society, but it is not without limitation, such as private actor, on private property, and as shown by previous cases, regulating in reasonable way,” Kin said, via The Athletic.
“There may be harm to some 2,500 staff members who have to deal with safety protocols,” he added. “It is a tremendous burden to change a long-standing stadium protocol for a massive event in a period of hours. It is hard to see how FIFA could make a change at one stadium and not the rest.”
After attorney Shahrokh Mokhtarzadeh pushed back on Kin’s ruling, Kin then asked a hypothetical on whether fans could “walk in with a Nazi flag or Confederate flag or Soviet flag or that of the KKK?” Mokhtarzadeh said he believed such a fan should be able to.
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FIFA has said that political materials are not permitted and ruled that the flag is “political” in nature. Some of the flags were still spotted inside of SoFi Stadium.
Iran’s presence in the World Cup has garnered some controversy surrounding the ongoing war in the Middle East. After its game on Monday, the team was ordered to go back to its practice camp in Mexico as soon as possible.
Iran played New Zealand to a 2-2 draw in Los Angeles hours after the hearing — its next game will be against Belgium on Sunday in Los Angeles before wrapping up group play against Egypt on June 26.
The game was played in a crackling atmosphere created in part by a conflicted, diasporic fan base that remains furious with the current Iranian government, but is still largely supportive of Team Melli.
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Yet the vast majority of the crowd vocally supported the Iranian players once the match kicked off.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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