The U.N. Human Rights Office says in a new report that more than 1,000 civilians were killed in a three-day attack by the Sudanese paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces on Sudan's largest displacement camp.

Amnesty International has accused Sudan's Rapid Support Forces of committing war crimes in Darfur.

A Russian court has extended the jailing of an 18-year-old street singer on charges seen as punishment for performing anti-war songs.

Tanzania’s presidential election is teetering toward chaos after protests erupted and the military has been deployed.

Amnesty International says a U.S. airstrike in April that killed 60 detained African migrants should be investigated as a possible war crime.

Cambodian authorities have made 1,000 arrests after Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered a crackdown on cybercrime operators.

Russian authorities have outlawed Amnesty International as an “undesirable organization,” a label that under a 2015 law makes involvement with such organizations a criminal offense.

A leading international rights group has accused Mozambique's security forces of a brutal, three-month crackdown on protests after the country's election last year.

Amnesty International is urging French lawmakers to reject a bill this week that would ban headscarves in all sporting competitions.

Amnesty International has released a report that details the impact gang violence has had on children across Haiti and called for immediate action.

Zimbabwe’s senate has approved a bill to abolish the death penalty and it is now set to be signed into law by the president.

Amnesty International has called for an investigation into a former governor and two top army officials in Congo for “possible crimes against humanity” during a deadly protest crackdown last year.

Amnesty International accuses Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip during its war with Hamas, saying it has sought to deliberately destroy Palestinians by mounting deadly attacks, demolishing vital infrastructure and preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid.

A Palestinian health official said Wednesday that at least 21 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a camp housing displaced people in Gaza.

Amnesty International said Thursday it has identified several UAE-made armoured personnel carriers on the ground in Sudan after verifying pictures shared on social media showing the vehicles captured or destroyed by the Sudanese army.

Human and civil rights groups are expressing concern after Poland's leader said he would suspend the right to asylum because of its alleged abuse by eastern neighbors Belarus and Russia.

Authorities in Congo say 600 prisoners in the country's main prison have been freed as part of a process aimed at decongesting overcrowded prisons.

Amnesty International says the world is seeing a near breakdown of international law amid flagrant rule-breaking in Gaza and Ukraine, multiplying armed conflicts, the rise of authoritarianism and huge rights violations in Sudan, Ethiopia and Myanmar.

Amnesty International says it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria.

Two international human rights groups say two Israeli strikes that killed a Reuters videographer and wounded six other journalists in south Lebanon nearly two months ago were apparently deliberate and a direct attack on civilians.

One year after Qatar hosted the men’s World Cup, the gas-rich emirate and soccer body FIFA have been urged by human rights group Amnesty International to do more for migrant workers.

Rights groups say in new reports that security forces and armed groups are committing alleged war crimes against civilians in Africa’s Sahel region where extremists and rebels are increasingly fighting to exert dominance and control resources in communities.

Amnesty International is urging Pakistan to maintain its support for Afghan refugees by enabling them to live with dignity and be free from the fear of deportation to Afghanistan where they face persecution by the Taliban.

The mining of minerals critical to electric vehicle batteries and other green technologies in Congo has led to human rights abuses, including forced evictions and physical assault.

Rights groups have denounced a lack of justice and transparency over the deaths of at least 37 migrants in June 2022 as they attempted to cross the border from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Melilla.

Amnesty International has acknowledged that a Uyghur student who it had said was missing in Hong Kong after being interrogated did not travel to the city, easing concerns over his safety but raising questions over how the allegations first emerged.

Hong Kong has criticized Amnesty International’s accusation that a Uyghur student disappeared after being interrogated at the airport.

The Premier League has been urged to review a legally binding promise made by the owners of English soccer club Newcastle in 2021 that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was separate from the country's government.

Hong Kong supporters of a tough national security law imposed by China’s ruling Communist Party have set their sights on a United Nations session, drawing concern from rights advocates.

Amnesty International is urging suppliers of aviation fuel to Myanmar to suspend such shipments to prevent the military from using them to conduct air attacks on civilian targets.

Chadian security forces have opened fire on anti-government demonstrators in the country’s two largest cities killing at least 60 people, the government spokesman and a morgue official said.

A group of Ugandan activists has launched a legal challenge to controversial new legislation criminalizing some internet activity in the East African country.

Latvia has rejected as “absurd" claims by Amnesty International that it is violently mistreating migrants attempting to enter the European Union member country through Belarus.

Iran has intensified its crackdown on Kurdish areas in the country’s west amid protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police.

For years, Facebook, now called Meta, has pushed the narrative that it was a neutral platform in Myanmar that was misused by malicious people and failed to moderate violent and hateful material adequately.

Amnesty International has accused Egypt of attempting to cover up “unrelenting violations of human rights" ahead of the Arab country's hosting of the world climate summit.

Iranians are experiencing a near-total internet blackout amid days of mass protests against the government.

An Amnesty International report says Ukrainian forces have exposed civilians to Russian attacks by basing themselves in schools, residences and other places in populated areas.

Amnesty International says the Taliban's “suffocating” crackdown on the rights of Afghan women and girls is destroying their lives.

Amnesty International says Myanmar’s military has laid landmines that have killed and injured people in and around villages in Kayah, a conflict-affected region near the border with Thailand.

A cybersecurity rights group says the phones of dozens of pro-independence supporters in Spain’s northeastern Catalonia, including the regional chief and other elected officials, were hacked with controversial spyware available only to governments.

Thai royalists have stepped up their campaign to drive out the country’s branch of rights group Amnesty International, handing over copies of a petition to government ministries that they say is backed by more than a million signatures.

A Polish opposition senator whose phone was hacked with advanced spyware has filed a civil suit against Poland’s ruling party leader.

Amnesty International says it has independently confirmed that an Israeli company's powerful spyware was used to hack a Polish senator when he was running the opposition’s 2019 parliamentary election campaign.

COVID-19 vaccination passes have become obligatory for Tunisians, who will now be asked for proof they have received both vaccine doses to enter public spaces or keep working at state institutions, universities and certain private businesses.

Amnesty International is calling for an independent parliamentary inquiry into COVID-19 deaths in Italian nursing homes and reports of retaliation against nursing home staff who spoke out about unsafe conditions there.

Amnesty International says Syrian security forces have subjected Syrians who return home to detention, disappearance and torture.

A new Amnesty International report says dozens of women have described shocking sexual assaults by Ethiopian soldiers and allied forces in the country’s Tigray conflict, and its researcher calls it striking how the perpetrators appeared to act without fear of punishment from their commanders.

An investigation by a global media consortium alleges that military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political dissidents.

Zambia is on “the brink of a human rights crisis,” Amnesty International said Monday, alleging that President Edgar Lungu faces is using repressive tactics to win another term in elections set for Aug. 12.

A Kenyan security guard now facing charges in Qatar after writing compelling accounts of being a low-paid worker there found himself targeted by a phishing attack just before his arrest.

A leading human rights expert who is taking over leadership at Amnesty International is tackling vaccine equity as one of the major issues confronting the world today.

Callamard, who led a United Nations investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has been appointed the new leader of Amnesty International. The international human rights group said Callamards four-year term as secretary general begins Monday, March 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)LONDON – Agnes Callamard, who led a United Nations’ investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has been appointed the new leader of Amnesty International. The international human rights group said Callamard’s four-year term as secretary general begins Monday. Callamard, a French human rights expert, has previously led free-speech organization Article 19 and directs the Global Freedom of Expression Project at Columbia University.

Police officers are shown arresting Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri after a Black Lives Matter protest she was covering on May 31, 2020, in Des Moines, Iowa, was dispersed by tear gas. Sahouri is set to stand trial on Monday, March 8, 2021, on misdemeanor charges, a case that prosecutors have pursued despite international condemnation from advocates for press freedom. But Des Moines police and County Attorney John Sarcone's office have not backed down. While 126 journalists were arrested or detained during 2020’s unrest, most either weren’t charged or had charges dropped, the Press Freedom Tracker says. “It’s like somebody with their hand in the cookie jar: They can’t admit that they made a mistake,” said Des Moines civil rights attorney Glen Downey, who is not involved in Sahouri's case.

(AP Photo/File)NAIROBI – Soldiers from Eritrea systematically killed “many hundreds” of people, the large majority men, in a massacre late November in the Ethiopian city of Axum in the Tigray region, Amnesty International said Friday. But even senior members of the Ethiopia-appointed interim government in Tigray have acknowledged the Eritrean soldiers’ presence and allegations of widespread looting and killing. “Hostilities must cease immediately,” the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement in response to the Amnesty International report, adding that “the level of suffering endured by civilians, including children, is appalling." AdThe presence of Eritrean soldiers in Tigray has brought some alarm. The Eritrean soldiers said you cannot bury the dead before our dead soldiers are buried,” one woman told Amnesty International.

The human rights group said Wednesday that Amnesty Tech's Security Lab found evidence of the hacking attempts in phishing emails sent to two dissidents, one in the Philippines and one in Germany. Cybersecurity firms earlier identified hacking attempts by Ocean Lotus targeting dissidents, governments and companies across Southeast Asia. The Amnesty report also said the hacking efforts involved emails pretending to share an important document with a link to download a file. An analysis of the phishing emails indicated they were generated by Ocean Lotus, based on the tools and techniques they used, it said. According to the cybersecurity company Volexity, OceanLotus was identified as a Vietnam-based hacking group in 2015.

Others say it was Tigrayan forces and their allies who were responsible. In Sudan, where nearly 50,000 people have fled, one ethnic Amhara refugee gave The Associated Press a similar account. “Anyone they found, they would kill,” Tesfaalem Germay, an ethnic Tigrayan who fled to Sudan with his family, said of Ethiopian and Amhara forces. But another refugee, Abebete Refe, told the AP that many ethnic Amhara like him who stayed behind were massacred by Tigrayan forces. In Mai-Kadra, witnesses told the visiting Ethiopian rights commission they saw police, militia and members of a Tigray youth group attack Amhara.

Italian prosecutors on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020 formally put three high-ranking members of Egypts national security force and one police officer under investigation in the 2016 kidnapping, torture and killing of an Italian youth doing doctoral research in Cairo. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, file)ROME – Italian prosecutors on Thursday formally put three high-ranking members of Egypt’s national security force and one police officer under investigation in the 2016 kidnapping, torture and killing of an Italian youth doing doctoral research in Cairo. The investigation against another member of Egypt’s national security force was shelved for insufficient proof, he told lawmakers. The torture marks resembled those resulting from widespread torture practices in Egyptian facilities, activists and rights groups have said. In late November, Egyptian prosecutors slammed the Italian investigators in their push to bring five police and intelligence officers to trial.

Gen. Ahmed Taiwo, Commander of the 81 Military Intelligence Brigade, pauses as he speaks to a judicial committee, in Lagos Nigeria. At least 10 people protesting police brutality were killed in the Lekki Plaza shooting, according to Amnesty International, which charged that army troops opened fire on protesters without provocation. Gen. Ahmed Taiwo, Commander of the 81 Military Intelligence Brigade, told a judicial committee Saturday that the soldiers indeed carried live bullets. “The soldiers, they were given both live and blank bullets. Last weekend he testified that blank ammunition was fired upward to scare “hoodlums from the crowd,” but insisted that soldiers did not fire at protesters.

During the first wave of the pandemic last spring, the European nation of 11.5 million people recorded a majority of its COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes. Between March and October, Amnesty International said “a staggering" 61.3% of all COVID-19 deaths in Belgium took place in nursing homes. As infections surged across the country, nursing homes were quickly overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of contamination as local authorities even requested the help of Belgian armed forces to cope. Nursing homes have been relegated to second line and residents and staff have been the victims.”Amnesty International based its investigation on testimonies from nursing home residents and staff, employees of non-governmental organizations defending residents’ rights and directors of nursing homes. Some relatives told Amnesty International that when they were allowed back, they realized their loved ones had been neglected because staffers were overwhelmed.

NAIROBI – The sound of heavy weapons erupted across the Ethiopian border town, and immediately Filimon, a police officer, started to run. Tigray regional leaders have accused Eritrea of joining the week-long conflict in the region at the request of Ethiopia’s federal government, which regards the Tigray government as illegal. After a day-long journey on foot with some 30 others fleeing, he has spent two days in Sudan, exposed to the sun and wind in a border town that is quickly becoming overwhelmed. The conflict risks drawing in Ethiopia’s neighbors, notably Sudan as well as Eritrea, which is at bitter odds with the TPLF. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 citizens of various countries are stuck in the Tigray region, the U.N. has said.

“For you to do otherwise will amount to undermining national security and law and order," he said. “President Buhari during his speech refused to acknowledge those dead as a result of military attacked on Lekki protesters #EndSARS,” tweeted Usman Okai Austin. As looting gangs stormed through parts of Nigeria's largest city, spreading violence for a second day in Lagos. But on Tuesday night security forces fired without warning into crowds of thousands of protesters singing Nigeria's national anthem, killing 12, Amnesty said. "We welcome an immediate investigation into any use of excessive force by members of the security forces.

( AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)LAGOS – Amnesty International said in a report Wednesday that Nigeria's security forces fired upon two large gatherings of peaceful protesters Tuesday night, killing 12 people calling for an end to police brutality. The security forces opened fire without warning on the protesters Tuesday night at the Lekki toll plaza, Amnesty said in its report, citing eyewitnesses, video footage and hospital reports. “Opening fire on peaceful protesters is a blatant violation of people’s rights to life, dignity, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Some of those killed and injured at the toll plaza and in Alausa, another Lagos neighborhood, were taken away by the military, Amnesty alleged in the report. Amnesty's report backs up posts and images on social media that have shown widespread violence against protesters.

GENEVA – The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday urged India’s government to do more to protect human rights defenders, who have come under mounting pressure in recent months in the world’s largest democracy. The office of High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet pointed to three “problematic” laws in India that have variously tightened restrictions on non-governmental organizations and led to a crackdown on dissent. Her office lamented “vaguely worded laws that restrict foreign funding” that are increasingly being used to quell voices in civil society. Critics say India under Modi has grown increasingly intolerant, with a crackdown on dissent unprecedented in scale. Leaders of Modi’s party have routinely labeled critics as “anti-nationals,” and the authorities have dealt with many rights advocates and activists with an iron fist.

People demonstrate on the street to protest against police brutality, in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday Oct. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)LAGOS – Nigeria's protests against police brutality turned violent Monday when a crowd stormed a prison and freed some 200 inmates in Benin in southern Nigeria. The protesters have become more belligerent, throwing rocks and other objects at police and other targets, as seen in the attacks Monday. Reacting to Monday's prison break, the Edo State government imposed a 24-hour curfew to try to stop the protests. The #EndSARS protests continued in other Nigerian cities Monday, with Lagos, Nigeria largest city, and Abuja, the capital, particularly hard hit as protesters closed several roads in the cities.

Nigerian protests against police brutality continued Friday for the ninth day, with demonstrators fending off attacks from gangs suspected to be backed by the police, warnings from the Nigerian military, and a government order to stop because of COVID-19. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)LAGOS – Nigerian protests against police brutality continued Friday for the ninth day, with demonstrators fending off attacks from gangs suspected to be backed by the police, warnings from the Nigerian military, and a government order to stop because of COVID-19. In Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, protesters blocked the road to the international airport and the main highway into the city. The Lagos-Ibadan highway, one of Nigeria's busiest, is the main road linking the port city to the rest of Nigeria. The protests erupted last week after a video circulated online showing a man being beaten, apparently by police from the SARS unit.

People hold banners as they demonstrate on the street to protest against police brutality in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday Oct. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)LAGOS – Widespread protests against Nigeria's police have turned violent as demonstrators have been attacked by armed gangs in the streets of several cities, according to witnesses. Other protesters in Lagos were attacked on Wednesday by a group of young men “who came with stones, clubs, and broken bottles,” said Nifemi Olatunde. ’Only an irresponsible government will hire thugs to engage peaceful protesters,” spokesman of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, Kola Ologbondiyan, said in a statement. "People cannot earn their daily bread.”In one area of Lagos, demonstrators held up placards saying “We Have No Leaders,” a criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari's government.

In recent months the media has been the hardest hit with the government indefinitely banning the Tanzania Daima newspaper, the country's second-largest newspaper, Amnesty International said in its report. International and local rights groups have previously said Tanzania's democratic space has shrunk since Magufuli come to power five years ago. “Cumulatively, these changes have significantly eroded the rule of law and undermined respect for human rights,” the report said. Magufuli has declared that Tanzania no longer has a problem with the coronavirus, as COVID-19 has been defeated by prayer. The Amnesty report was compiled through 29 phone interviews, as researchers could not travel to Tanzania due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

ADDIS ABABA – From a filthy cell in Saudi Arabia, the Ethiopian migrant spoke on a smuggled phone, fearing to give his name. A new report released Friday by Amnesty International describes widespread abuses in Saudi detention facilities, including beatings and electrocutions. Amnesty International said thousands of Ethiopian migrants had been working in northern Yemen, earning money to pay for their passage to Saudi Arabia. “I wouldn’t have left my country had I known this hellish condition would await me,” another detained migrant told the AP. The ministry also said migrants suffer sexual abuse, torture, dehydration and hunger on their monthslong journey to Saudi Arabia, and “this makes the repatriation process even more complicated as the psychosocial support is intense.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, file photo, Amnesty International India employees work at their headquarters in Bangalore, India. The Human rights watchdog said on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, that it was halting its operation in India, citing reprisals from the government and the freezing of its bank accounts. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi, File)NEW DELHI – Human rights watchdog Amnesty International said Tuesday that it is halting its operation in India, citing reprisals by the government and the freezing of its bank accounts by Indian authorities. It is not the first time that Amnesty India has said Indian authorities targeted its operations. “It is a dismal day when a country of India’s stature, a rising global power and a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council, with a constitution which commits to human rights and whose national human rights movements have influenced the world, so brazenly seeks to silence those who pursue accountability and justice,” Verhaar said in a statement.

Amnesty said about 8,500 migrants, including women and children, were intercepted and brought back to Libya between Jan. 1 and Sep. 14. Since 2016, an estimated 60,000 men, women and children have been captured at sea and taken to Libya where they disembarked, it said. There, the migrants and refuges face a “constant risk” of being abducted by militias, armed groups and traffickers. They are “trapped in a vicious cycle of cruelty with little to no hope of finding safe and legal pathways out," the report said. Amnesty cited an incident, without saying when it happened, in which eastern Libyan forces blocked a bus from entering the southeastern city of Kufra unless three Chadian nationals got off.

Some of MEHL's domestic and foreign partners, including Kirin, have said they are investigating the concerns raised by the report. The Amnesty report, compiled in collaboration with the human rights group Justice for Myanmar, outlines links between key military units and leaders involved in what Myanmar's military has called a clearance campaign in the northwestern Rakhine. It was home to more than 700,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh and other countries since August 2017. Another of the documents presented in the report shows top military leaders holding key executive posts in MEHL. Both it and Myanma Economic Cooperation, another big military-linked company, act as unofficial gatekeepers," for business dealings in Myanmar, the report says.

In their battle against the extremists the Mozambican military and police are committing human rights abuses, charges the Amnesty report. Mozambique's extremists have allied themselves with the Islamic State group, taking the name Islamic State Central African Province. In the videos studied by Amnesty, the soldiers speak Portuguese and Shangaan, a language from southern Mozambique. Government troops lost control of Mocmboa da Praia around August 11, after intense fighting in and around the town and port. The government has since been reportedly gathering troops in the nearest towns of Mueda and Palma, viewed as preparation for an offensive to retake Mocmboa da Praia.

FILE -- In this Jan. 16, 2017 file photo, Richard Ratcliffe husband of imprisoned British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, poses during an Amnesty International led vigil outside the Iranian Embassy in London. On Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020, Iran's state TV, citing unnamed official, said Zaghari-Ratcliffe faces a new charge but did not elaborate. Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been released from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic after serving nearly all of her five-year sentence. She was arrested during a holiday with her toddler daughter in April 2016. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)MEXICO CITY Mexico leads the world in coronavirus deaths among its health care workers, Amnesty International said in a new report Wednesday. While Mexican officials have bragged that all health care workers have gotten one test, that appears insufficient for people who face daily exposure over months. Cockburn urged an international cooperative effort to ensure that every health care worker has adequate protective equipment. The PanAmerican Health Organization, for example, lists 2,506 COVID-19 deaths among health workers in the Americas, including the same 1,320 deaths for Mexico but only 240 for Brazil and 660 for the United States. The Amnesty report also notes that there have been reports that hospital cleaners in Mexico are especially vulnerable to infection.

ISTANBUL Turkeys parliament approved a law early Wednesday that gives authorities greater power to regulate social media despite concerns of growing censorship. Bandwidth reductions mean social media networks would be too slow to use. Erdogan has demanded the law, vowing to control social media platforms and eradicate immorality. 54 million people in the country of 83 million are active social media users. Social media companies did not immediately comment.

JERUSALEM An Israeli court has rejected a request to strip the controversial Israeli spyware firm NSO Group of its export license over the suspected use of the company's technology in targeting journalists and dissidents worldwide. The case, brought by Amnesty International in January, called on the court to prevent NSO from selling its technology abroad, especially to repressive regimes. NSO, an Israeli hacker-for-hire company, uses its Pegasus spyware to take control of a phone, its cameras and microphones, and mine the users personal data. The company has been accused of selling its surveillance software to repressive governments that use it against dissidents. The company says it sells its technology to Israeli-approved governments to help them combat criminals and terrorism.

RABAT Moroccan authorities said they categorically reject an Amnesty International report claiming the government used surveillance software to spy on the phone of a prominent journalist and human rights activist. In a report published this week, Amnesty said forensic analysis it carried out on the cellphone of Omar Radi indicated that his communications were monitored from January 2019 using technology developed by Israeli hacker-for-hire company NSO Group. In a statement released late on Friday, Moroccan authorities rejected Amnesty's baseless allegations, saying that the report serves agendas motivated by hostility against Morocco and competitors in the intelligence market. Amnesty's local director, Mohamed Sektaoui, was summoned by authorities Friday and asked to provide evidence as soon as possible, the statement said. Radi was questioned by police on Thursday on suspicions of receiving funds linked to foreign intelligence services.

RABAT Amnesty International says sophisticated telephone surveillance software appears to have been used to spy on a journalist-activist in Morocco, in a continuing crackdown on dissent in the North African kingdom. Amnesty said the surveillance methods it believes were used to spy on Radis phone require either physical proximity to the targets or leverage over mobile operators in the country which only a government could authorize." Because of this, and the continued targeting of Moroccan human rights defenders, we believe Moroccan authorities to be responsible," Amnesty said. A government spokesman and the governments center that monitors IT attacks did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Most notably, its spyware was implicated in the gruesome 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

(CNN) - An Iranian woman who was denied entry to a football stadium in Tehran has died after setting herself on fire, human rights organization Amnesty International said Tuesday. "She was stopped from entering when the stadium's security guards discovered she was a woman," Amnesty said in a statement. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW) both called on football's world governing body FIFA to end the ban. She has since been dubbed the "Blue Girl" on social media, after the colors of her favorite Iranian soccer team, Esteghlal. In June, FIFA sent a letter to the Iranian Football Federation requesting a timeline that would allow women to be able to buy tickets for World Cup qualifiers, Reuters reported.