As the Iranian and Iraqi football teams met tonight in the Asian Cup quarter-final in Canberra, viewers in Iran didn't get the full picture.

Iran has been censoring images of Iranian-Australian women in the crowd because their dress is deemed inappropriate.

In Iran women are not allowed to attend football matches, preventing the mixing of men and women in stadium crowds.

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Australian-Iranian journalist Talieh never had much interest in going to a football game in her home country, until she found out it was illegal.

"When you're prevented to reach something, you get more interested in having that," she told the ABC.

Her first experience at a mixed gender football stadium was when Iran met Qatar last week at the Asian Cup.

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"Watching the people's happiness was so nice and amazing, and also here in Australia, the Iranian community here is a divided community, but in this event, you could see the unity of the community. So that was so nice," she said.

Iran has long enforced a ban on women attending sporting events, particularly football.

The International Campaign for Human Rights In Iran deputy director, Gissou Nia, said the sports and youth affairs ministry has decided that "mixed attendance at sport events is un-Islamic and that it threatens public order."

"Another justification that's given is that it exposes women to crude behaviour by male fans," Ms Nia said.

The regime has gone to great lengths to prevent images of Iranian-Australian women at the Asian Cup reaching televisions in Iran.

Australian-Iranian Vahid said that during broadcasts of the World Cup in Brazil, as soon as the camera panned to women in the crowd, Iranian TV replaced the shot with one of a crowd at a Barcelona-Real Madrid game.

"They do it so good that people don't notice most of the time," Vahid said.

"And after 20 years, people in Iran, they know what is happening. Everybody knows and they laugh. They get used to it."

But now the unfiltered images are reaching women in Iran via social media.

Ms Nia said Iranian women lamented the fact they did not have the same freedoms as women in other countries.

"[Social media] has complicated it for the Iranian authorities...you can go on Instagram, put in '#TeamMelli', the name of Iran's national football team as it's known, and you'll see lots of selfies of Iranian expats, females, at the game," she said.

"[The women] have the Iranian flag painted on their cheeks, they're wearing Iranian flag leggings, they're draped in the flag. And they're at the games, in the stadium, and it just brings that sense of something being forbidden, and not being allowed to attend and participate as a gender equal, it just really brings that into sharp focus."

Fighting for change met with severe consequences

Many women in Iran have fought to attend public sports events, but the consequences can be severe.

Last year, British-Iranian woman Ghoncheh Ghavami was detained after she peacefully protested against a ban on women attending volleyball matches.

While not all authorities in Iran object to women attending sports matches, Mr Nia said protesters had been unable to change authorities' minds.

"There is a sense among some lawmakers that this is something that women should also be a part of. But then there is the push back on that," Ms Nia said.

"There has been a discussion back and forth. Unfortunately, we're just not at the point where women are allowed entry into football stadiums."

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