Judge Upholds Iran Flag Ban Hours Before World Cup Opener — Iran Flag
A Los Angeles judge kept FIFA’s ban on the iran flag that predates 1979 in place on Monday, hours before Iran opened its World Cup against New Zealand at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Curtis A. Kin denied a last-minute application filed by the Institute for Voice of Liberty and Sam Kermanian in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Curtis A. Kin in Los Angeles
Kin said the ban should stand after hearing from both sides on Monday morning. He told the court, “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. I deny the application.”
Kin also pointed to the operational burden at a mass event, saying, “There may be harm to some 2,500 staff members who have to deal with safety protocols,” and that, “It is a tremendous burden to change a long-standing stadium protocol for a massive event in a period of hours.” He added, “It is hard to see how FIFA could make a change at one stadium and not the rest.”
The flag and the lawsuit
The disputed flag is similar to Iran’s official flag but includes a lion and sun motif in the center. It is historically tied to Iran’s previous Shah-led regime, which was deposed in 1979. The lawsuit was filed on Thursday by the Institute for Voice of Liberty and Kermanian, who challenged FIFA’s restrictions on what fans could carry into the stadium.
Shahrokh Mokhtarzadeh, representing Kermanian, argued that a business entity should not be allowed to force a customer to waive freedom of speech rights as a condition of attending. Mokhtarzadeh said the World Cup was a joint venture between FIFA and governments and that the stadium was taking on a public forum. He told the court he was speaking for 5,000 members of the Institute for Voice of Liberty.
FIFA’s stadium rules
Chris Boehning, speaking for FIFA, argued that the plaintiffs had known about the match for “many, many months” and that emergency relief was not appropriate. FIFA has consistently referred to stadium regulations when defining what is and is not allowed in its venues, and had previously answered a question about the pre-revolutionary flag by pointing to a list of banned items in its stadium code of conduct.
Kin also framed the stadium itself as private property where a ticket is required for entry, not a public park or street. The hearing took place just hours before Iran’s first World Cup game, leaving fans who planned to bring the banned flag with the same practical answer in hand: it would not be allowed under the court’s ruling at SoFi Stadium.
