Thousands Of Women Will At Last Be Allowed To Attend A Soccer Match In Iran
Iranian sports journalist Raha Purbakhsh shows off her ticket to attend a World Cup qualifier in front of Azadi Stadium in Tehran on Tuesday. Iran has essentially banned women from entering the stadium for decades.
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For some 40 years, women have been largely banned from attending soccer matches at Iran’s stadiums. But under pressure from FIFA, soccer’s governing body, Iranian authorities are allowing a few thousand women to watch a game Thursday at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium – in a section separate from men.
Women were permitted to buy about 3,500 tickets to watch a World Cup qualifier between the men’s teams of Iran and Cambodia.
The change comes after an Iranian woman set herself on fire and died last month, as she faced charges arising from her trying to enter the stadium to watch a match. The woman, 29-year-old soccer fan Sahar Khodayari, had dressed up as a man to try to get into the game. When security guards discerned that she was a woman, she was expelled and charged with “appearing in public without a hijab.”
The ban has been in place since 1979’s Islamic revolution, with only small groups of women allowed to attend a handful of matches in recent years.
Iranian sports journalist Raha Purbakhsh is among those who got a ticket to Thursday’s match. She told news service AFP that she last stepped into Azadi stadium about 25 years ago with her father.
“I still can’t believe it’s happening because after all these years watching every match on TV, I’m going to be able to experience everything in person,” she said. “I’ll be able to feel the stands, and closely watch the game itself.”
But some say it’s not enough. Amnesty International criticized Iran’s authorities for allotting so few tickets to women in a stadium that can seat 78,000. It’s not clear how many tickets have been made available to men.
“Iran’s decision to allow a token number of women into the stadium for tomorrow’s football match is a cynical publicity stunt by the authorities intended to whitewash their image following the global outcry over Sahar Khodayari’s tragic death,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, said in a statement.
“Instead of taking half-hearted steps to address their discriminatory treatment of women who want to watch football, the Iranian authorities should lift all restrictions on women attending football matches, including domestic league games, across the country,” he said. “The international community, including world football’s governing body, FIFA, must also ensure that woman are permitted to attend all matches.”
FIFA statutes prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender. The governing body says the arrangement for Thursday’s match is a pragmatic solution as it works toward lasting change in Iran.
“It’s not just about one match,” FIFA’s head of social responsibility and education Joyce Cook told the BBC. “We’re not going to turn our eyes away from this. We’re totally focused on making sure women can attend this match on 10 October and working just as pragmatically to ensure women also can attend local matches in league football – but it’s about what follows as well. FIFA has a very firm stand – fans are equally entitled to attend matches.”
Iranian Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs Hossein-Ali Amiri said last month that some of the country’s stadiums were being prepared for the entry of women, by adding separate gates and seating.
The group Open Stadiums has long campaigned for women’s right to watch games in Iran’s arenas. The organization’s leader, who goes by the pseudonym Sara, told Reuters that many of the women who bought tickets to Thursday’s match aren’t actually soccer fans.
“[T]hey just want to break this discrimination,” she said. “For years [equal stadium access] has been a demand from the women’s rights movement in Iran and as a part of exclusion from the public spaces. It’s not just about football.”
“People are doing this just to show that if you give capacity to us, we will use it.”
Matt Lauer Accused Of Rape In New Book; Former NBC Star Denies ‘False Stories’
Matt Lauer, seen reporting for the NBC Today show at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where the sexual assault described in Ronan Farrow’s new book is alleged to have taken place.
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Updated at 4:48 p.m. ET
Editor’s note: This story contains explicit accusations that some readers may find upsetting.
A former junior colleague of Matt Lauer’s has accused him of raping her in his hotel room during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. In her first public comments about the incident — told to journalist Ronan Farrow for his forthcoming book, Catch and Kill — Brooke Nevils said the former Today show host forced anal sex on her without her consent in his hotel room.
According to NBC News, it was Nevils’ complaint that ultimately led to Lauer’s firing in 2017 — one of the most prominent dismissals during the #MeToo movement. Until now, the accuser’s identity and her specific allegation of rape had not been publicly known.
Variety reported Nevils’ accusation Tuesday night, based on advance copies of Farrow’s book. By Wednesday morning, NBC News had released a statement calling Lauer’s conduct “appalling, horrific and reprehensible.”
Lauer responded to the rape allegation Wednesday by sending an open letter to NPR and other news outlets in which he denied wrongdoing and said his previous silence “has been a mistake.”
“Today, nearly two years after I was fired by NBC, old stories are being recycled, titillating details are being added, and a dangerous and defamatory new allegation is being made. All are being spread as part of a promotional effort to sell a book,” the former NBC star wrote in a note that spans more than two pages. “It’s outrageous.”
Statement from NBC News about the Matt Lauer allegations. pic.twitter.com/OcphdoziNW
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 9, 2019
In its response to the newly public details, NBC News said it feels the same horror it did “at the time” the agency first learned of the allegations, adding, “That’s why he was fired within 24 hours of us first learning of the complaint.”
The current anchors of the Today show also addressed their predecessor’s alleged conduct in a somber segment on-air.
“This is shocking and appalling, and I honestly don’t know what to say about it,” Savannah Guthrie said, her voice quavering.
Of Lauer’s accuser, Guthrie said, “I know it wasn’t easy for our colleague Brooke to come forward then; it’s not easy now. And we support her and any women who have come forward with claims.”
“It’s very, very, very difficult,” she added.
.@savannahguthrie and @hodakotb respond to new allegations about Matt Lauer pic.twitter.com/HsngSZd1NA
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 9, 2019
In Farrow’s book, Nevils details the evening on which the alleged sexual assault took place. She says Lauer joined her and Meredith Vieira, Lauer’s former Today co-host, in a hotel bar in Sochi during the Olympics, for which NBC is the U.S. broadcaster and partner. Nevils says that later that night, after she had consumed many drinks, Lauer summoned her to his hotel room to retrieve her media credential.
She recounts him pushing her onto his hotel bed, asking if she liked anal sex, and despite her repeated refusals, raping her anally.
“It was non-consensual in that I was too drunk to consent,” she told Farrow in his book. “It was non-consensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”
In his response, Lauer, 61, said he had “an extramarital, but consensual, sexual encounter” with Nevils in 2014, in which “we engaged in a variety of sexual acts” — but he insists, “each act was mutual and completely consensual.”
That night in Sochi, Lauer asserted, was the start of an affair that continued after they returned to New York City, including a “sexual encounter” in his dressing room. “That showed terrible judgment on my part,” Lauer added, “but it was completely mutual and consensual.”
He said that he broke off the affair and that he did not learn of any complaint from her until called in to speak to an NBC News attorney in November 2017, shortly before his firing.
Nevils’ newly surfaced allegations, he added, “cross a serious line.”
“Because of my infidelity, I have brought more pain and embarrassment to my family than most people can ever begin to understand. They’ve been through hell. I have asked for their forgiveness, taken responsibility for what I did do wrong, and accepted the consequences,” Lauer said. “But by not speaking out I also emboldened those who continue to do me harm with false stories.”
You can read the full letter here.
In the book, Nevils acknowledges that she told Lauer that she was OK with what happened between them. But she adds that she did so to preserve her job and that of her boyfriend’s brother, who worked for the NBC star. And she says she had several further sexual encounters with Lauer.
Nevils says that although she tried to convey to Lauer that she was fine, she told partial accounts about him to colleagues and, according to Farrow, she reported Lauer’s behavior to a new boss at Peacock Productions — a different TV unit within the greater NBC network.
Catch and Kill delves deeply into the incidents and background of the investigative reporting that won Farrow a Pulitzer Prize last year. Farrow’s October 2017 report in the New Yorker on disgraced Hollywood megaproducer Harvey Weinstein — along with a separate investigation by The New York Times‘ Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey — has been credited with propelling the #MeToo movement that brought the downfall of dozens of prominent men accused of sexual misconduct.
Farrow left NBC in 2017 over the network’s refusal to broadcast his reporting on allegations of Weinstein’s serial sexual assaults and abuse. In his book, Farrow reports that seven women told him of incidents of sexual misconduct by Lauer and that he also uncovered seven nondisclosure agreements with former NBC News employees to silence accusations against Lauer.
Some of the agreements involved monetary payments, which in Nevils’ case was seven figures.
Farrow also reported that NBC News executives were spooked by the possibility that the National Enquirer, allied with Weinstein, might report seedy allegations about Lauer — and even allegations about the behavior of former NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack years earlier, during his tenure at CBS.
In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Lack asserted that Lauer was fired within 24 hours of the company’s learning of his conduct and that “any suggestion that we knew prior to that evening or tried to cover up any aspect of Lauer’s conduct is absolutely false and offensive.”
And Lack disputed Farrow’s explanation of why NBC did not proceed with his piece.
“After seven months, without one victim or witness on the record, he simply didn’t have a story that met our standard for broadcast nor that of any major news organization. Not willing to accept that standard and not wanting to get beaten by the New York Times, he asked to take his story to an outlet he claimed was ready to publish right away. Reluctantly, we allowed him to go ahead,” Lack said.
“Fifty-three days later, and five days after the New York Times did indeed break the story, he published an article at the New Yorker that bore little resemblance to the reporting he had while at NBC News.”
Just over a month after the initial stories about Weinstein appeared, NBC News fired Lauer after receiving what the network described as a “detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.”
On Wednesday, Hoda Kotb, who replaced Lauer as Today co-anchor early last year, said during the show that she, and all of Lauer’s former colleagues, are struggling to digest the latest news.
“We don’t know all the facts and all of this, but they are not allegations of an affair; they are allegations of a crime. And I think that’s shocking to all of us here who have sat with Matt for many, many years,” Kotb said. “So I think we’re just going to continue to process this part of this horrific story.”
India Banned E-Cigarettes — But Beedis And Chewing Tobacco Remain Widespread
A woman rolls tobacco inside a tendu leaf to make a beedi cigarette at her home in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Wednesday, June 3, 2015. India’s smokers favor cheaper options such as chewing and leaf-wrapped tobacco over cigarettes.
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Udit Kulshrestha/Bloomberg/Getty Images
At a tiny kiosk on a Mumbai lane choked with rickshaws, Chandrabhaan Chaurasia is selling paan – betel leaves sprinkled with spices. They’re a cheap street snack across South Asia.
Chaurasia, 51, spreads a leaf with spicy herbal paste and then sprinkles it with dried tobacco. He folds the leaf into an edible little parcel, and sells it for 8 rupees — about $0.11. He also sells single-serving packs of chewing tobacco. Another kiosk nearby sells hand-rolled leaf cigarettes, called beedis.
India banned electronic cigarettes last month. With about 100 million smokers, India has the second-largest smoking population in the world, after China. Amid global reports of deaths and illnesses linked to vaping, India decided to ban e-cigarettes preventatively. They had yet to become popular.
But other forms of tobacco already are. In fact, twice as many Indians (about 200 million) use smokeless tobacco — like paan or chewing tobacco — than cigarettes. That’s the most in the world. Those products are harder to regulate because they’re mostly sold at street kiosks, for a fraction of the price of cigarettes.
Chaurasia’s tobacco kiosk is right outside Tata Memorial Hospital, one of the best cancer research facilities in India. Inside the hospital, Dr. Gauravi Mishra, a preventative oncologist, sees the harmful effects of those tobacco products on a daily basis.
“India has the highest number of oral cavity cancers. In fact, one-third of the global burden comes from only one country — and that’s India,” Mishra notes.
When NPR visited her office, Mishra had just biopsied a boil inside the mouth of a patient who’s been chewing tobacco for 10 years.
“I had some idea that it was bad, but I didn’t know it could be so serious,” says Madhukar Patil, 42, his mouth filled with sterile gauze.
Patil is waiting for results to determine whether he has oral cancer. A father of two, he vows to quit tobacco now, for good.
“I realize now that if you want to be there for your family and enjoy precious moments with them, then you must leave this bad habit,” Patil says.
More than one in five Indians over the age of 15 uses some form of smokeless tobacco. (The figure is nearly one-third for men.) Poor laborers often chew tobacco as a stimulant, like chewing gum, to kill their appetite. Some even use tobacco ash as toothpaste. Patil used to chew gutka, a mixture of granular tobacco, betel nuts and spices.
Part of the problem is awareness.
“If someone is smoking, they might be looked down upon. But smokeless tobacco is culturally accepted. If you visit any rural area, people will greet you with paan,” Mishra says.
Another part of the problem is packaging.
Indian law requires cigarette companies to print health warnings on cigarette packs. Often, they carry graphic photos of tobacco-related tumors. So people know that smoking cigarettes is bad.
But other tobacco products are sold loose. Hand-rolled leaf cigarettes, or beedis, are green. They look organic. And they’re seven to eight times more common in India than conventional cigarettes, according to the World Health Organization.
Beedis also provide a livelihood to millions of mostly female, first-time workers.
Balamani Sherla, 60, rolls beedis (leaf cigarettes) in her one-room home in Mumbai’s red light district. It’s the only job she’s ever had, and she’s been doing it for 50 years. She breathes tobacco dust all day, and earns about 14 cents an hour.
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Sushmita Pathak/NPR
In Mumbai’s oldest red light district, Balamani Sherla rolls beedis on the floor of her one-room home. At 60, Sherla has been doing this for half a century. It’s the only job she’s ever held.
She buys the ingredients wholesale: tendu leaves, dried loose tobacco, and string to tie off the rolled beedis. Sherla soaks the leaves in water to soften them, then cuts them round with giant shears, lines them with tobacco, and rolls them into short green cigarettes. She sells them to a middle man who then distributes them to street kiosks.
“It’s tedious work,” she says. “My arms ache, trying to roll the beedis very thin.”
Sherla doesn’t smoke. But studies show that beedi rollers often suffer from respiratory problems, burning eyes and asthma – just from breathing tobacco dust.
Nevertheless, it’s considered such a lucrative skill that women who can roll beedis are coveted as brides. Sherla makes about $0.14 an hour, which is a big help for her family, she says.
But wages used to be higher. The Indian government has repeatedly hiked tax on all tobacco products, including beedis — and that has cut into Sherla’s profits.
Most of the revenue India collects from taxing tobacco comes from packaged cigarettes, even though they’re less popular than beedis and smokeless tobacco. Tax rates on all tobacco products in India fall below the WHO’s recommendation of 75-percent of retail price.
Levying taxes on tobacco has long been considered an effective strategy to discourage its use and improve public health. But in India, where beedi workers often come from very low socio-economic backgrounds, that tax itself could be deadly, says Umesh Vishwad, general secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Beedi Mazdoor Mahasangh (All India Beedi Workers Union).
If taxes on beedis keep rising, workers could “become homeless and starve to death,” Vishwad says.
They live that close to the bone, he says. His group wants the Indian government to retrain beedi workers for other jobs, before it chips away at their livelihood.
While Sherla and some of her neighbors roll beedis at home in urban Mumbai, the industry employs more people in rural areas, especially in the southern Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. In central India, some of the beedi workers come from tribal areas where communist guerrillas are active. Vishwad worries that if their livelihoods are threatened, they could be vulnerable to insurgent recruiters.
“If these people lose their jobs as beedi rollers or beedi leaf collectors, they could be forced to join the militancy and pick up arms to survive,” he warns.
For Sherla, rolling beedis is a calculated decision. She knows that handling tobacco may not be good for her health. But she’s trading a long-term health risk for the ability to feed her family tomorrow.
“What other job can I do? I’m an old lady,” Sherla says. “This is the only option for me.”
As she works, Sherla’s 10-year-old granddaughter Siri bounces around the dank little room. The girl goes to school, and has learned English well. She interrupts often to tease her grandmother and translate for her. She’s the same age Sherla was when she started doing this work.
Will Siri follow in her grandmother’s footsteps?
“No way!” Sherla exclaims. “This little girl wants to be a doctor.”
